Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Jesaia - metastasis; Transformation: Pro futero, praesente, praeterito; Apokalypse: Transformation der Realität; Gnosis

Kurzinhalt: metastatic experiences, of metastatic faith, metastatic symbols; this metastatic faith in the conception of the theopolity as the Kingdom of God

Textausschnitt: 51/13 No technical terms exist for describing the state of the psyche in which the experience of cosmic rhythms, in the medium of historical form, gives birth to the vision of a world that will change its nature without ceasing to be the world in which we live concretely. I shall introduce, therefore, the term metastasis to signify the change in the constitution of being envisaged by the prophets. And I shall speak of metastatic experiences, of metastatic faith, hope, will, vision, and action, and of metastatic symbols which express these experiences. (452; Fs)

52/13 The constitution of being is what it is, and cannot be affected by human fancies. Hence, the metastatic denial of the order of mundane existence is neither a true proposition in philosophy, nor a program of action that could be executed. The will to transform reality into something which by essence it is not is the rebellion against the nature of things as ordained by God. And while the rebellion has become sublime in Isaiah's trust that God himself will change the order of the world and let Judah win its victories without battle, the danger of derailment in various directions is obvious. This metastatic faith, now, though it became articulate in the prophets, did not originate with them but was inherent, from the very beginnings of the Mosaic foundation, in the conception of the theopolity as the Kingdom of God incarnate in a concrete people and its institutions. It could rest dormant or remain comparatively innocuous, deeply embedded as it was in the compactness of early experiences and symbols, for centuries, but it had to become virulent when under the pressure of historical events it became obvious that the reality of Israel was not exactly a Kingdom of God and showed no inclination to become one. The growing realization of the conflict aroused a whole series of attempts to bring the obstreperous reality of the world, through metastatic imagination and action, to conformity with the demands of the Kingdom. These operations can best be classified by the time dimension, as symbolic actions concerning the future, the present, and the past of true order: (453; Fs) (notabene)
(1) Pro futero: ...
a. Israel will suffer punishment at the hands of Yahweh, because ...
b. Israel will emerge from its present and future miseries into a true Kingdom of God,
()
(2) Pro praesente:
a. The Kingdom of God will be forced into the present reality through myth and constitutional enactment, as in the Deuteronomic Torah.
b. The Kingdom of God will be forced into the present reality through metastatic trust, as in the Isaiah case.

(3) Pro praeterito: Reality will be metastically transformed in retrospect through the rewriting of history, as in the case of the Chronicler. (454; Fs)

53/13 In the variety of symbolic forms is recognizable the common substance of the metastatic will to transform reality by means of eschatological, mythical, or historiographic phantasy, or by perverting faith into an instrument of pragmatic action. This metastatic component became so predominant in the complex phenomenon of prophetism that in late Judaism it created its specific symbolic form in the apocalyptic literature. As the decline of Israel and Judah was accompanied by the forms of prophetism, so the Judaism of the new imperial age was accompanied by the symbolism of the apocalypse. Moreover, the recognition of the metastatic experience is of importance for the understanding not only of Israelite and Jewish order but of the history of Western Civilization to this day. While in the main development of Christianity, to be sure, the metastatic symbols were transformed into the eschatological events beyond history, so that the order of the world regained its autonomy, the continuum of metastatic movements has never been broken. It massively surrounds, rivals, and penetrates Christianity in Gnosis and Marcionism, () Throughout the Middle Ages, the Church was occupied with the struggle against heresies of a metastatic complexion; and with the Reformation this underground stream has come to the surface again in a massive floodfirst, in the left wing of the sectarian movements and then in the secular political creed movements which purport to exact the metastasis by revolutionary action. (454; Fs) (notabene)