The prince of this world

238 Pages·2017·7.464 MB·English

by  Familie Teufel;Kotsko, Adam

THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD

THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD
Adam Kotsko
Stanford University Press • Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
2017
© by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kotsko, Adam, author.
Title: The prince of this world / Adam Kotsko.
Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024047 (print) | LCCN 2016025606 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780804799683 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503600201 (pbk. : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781503600218 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Devil--Christianity--History of doctrines. | Good and
evil--Religious aspects--Christianity.
Classification: LCC BT982 .K68 2016 (print) | LCC BT982 (ebook) |
DDC 235/.4--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024047
Cover photograph: Guilliame Geefs, Lucifer. Photo by Luc Viatour. Wikimedia
Commons.
1025 15
Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in . / Adobe Caslon Pro
League with you I seek
And mutual amity so strait, so close,
That I with you must dwell or you with me
Henceforth.
Milton, Paradise Lost
The shift in level worked out by secularization often coincides not
with a weakening, but with an absolutization of the secularized
paradigm.
Agamben, The Use of Bodies

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
1
Introduction: Why the Devil?
5
The Problem of Evil
8
Methodology
PART I GENEALOGY OF THE DEVIL
1 19
Chapter The Hebrew Biblical Tradition
19
The Paradox of Minority Monotheism
23
The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Theocracy
28
“The King of Babylon, my servant”
33
Assimilation and Apocalyptic
39
The Insider-Outsider
44
The Three Paradigms
2 47
Chapter The New Testament and Early Christianity
47
Apocalyptic and Its Christian Vicissitudes
51
The Hall of Mirrors
57
“All these kingdoms will I give you”
63
Demonic Doctrines
71
The Devil Converts to Christianity
viii CONTENTS
3 77
Chapter Monasticism and Medieval Christianity
77
The Ransom Paid the Devil
81
The Satanic Social Contract
88
A New Temptation in the Wilderness
96
The Ransom Paid to God
103
God Becomes the Devil
PART II LIFE OF THE DEVIL
4 109
Chapter The Fall of the Devil
112
Untamed Wills
118
The Trap of Grace
123
Founding the Earthly City
127
Demonology, Slavery, and Racialization
130
The Empty Space of Freedom
5 138
Chapter The Earthly City
140
Original Sin and the Restrainer
147
“The unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews”
157
Worse Than the Devil
164
The Necessary Evil
6 169
Chapter Life in Hell
173
The Sociopathy of the Redeemed
178
“The great fundament of the world”
183
Carceral Christianity
188
The Glory of the Lord
195
Conclusion: The Legacy of the Devil
198
The Trap of Freedom
202
Notes toward a New Paradigm
207
Notes
215
Bibliography
221
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ted Jennings, Laurel Schneider, and Anthony Smith all read the full man-
uscript (and earlier drafts) in detail, providing sympathetic but rigorous
critique. Bruce Rosenstock has been an invaluable dialogue partner from
the earliest stages of this project, most notably for pointing me toward
2
  Maccabees, and Brennan Breed steered me from the path of error in my
reading of the Hebrew Bible. Both read early drafts and provided valuable
comments. I owe all these readers a debt of thanks. I also had the privilege
of teaching the materials treated in this book in multiple settings, and I
thank Carol Anderson of Kalamazoo College, Barbara Stone of Shimer
College, and Ken Stone of Chicago Theological Seminary for that oppor-
tunity—along with my students in all three classes. I am grateful as well
to those who provided me the opportunity to work out my ideas through
invited lectures: Frances Restuccia (Psychoanalytic Practices Seminar, Ma-
hindra Humanities Center, Harvard University), Slavoj Žižek (The Ac-
tuality of the Theologico-Political Conference, Birkbeck Institute for the
Humanities), Steve Shaviro and Ken Jackson (Wayne State University), and
Marco Abel and Roland Vegso (Humanities on the Edge series, University
of Nebraska–Lincoln). Finally, I express my profound thanks to Emily-Jane
Cohen for her advocacy and help in bringing this project to fruition.