Religion After Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, And Henry Corbin At Eranos

RELIGION AFTER RELIGION This page intentionally left blank RELIGION AFTER RELIGION GERSHOM SCHOLEM, MIRCEA ELIADE, A N D H E N R Y C O R B I N AT E R A N O S Steven M. Wasserstrom PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright 䉷 1999 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wasserstrom, Steven M. Religion after religion : Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos / Steven M. Wasserstrom. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. eISBN 1-4008-0837-5 1. Religion—Philosophy—History—20th century. 2. Scholem, Gershom Gerhard, 1897– . 3. Eliade, Mircea, 1907– . 4. Corbin, Henry. I. Title. BL51.W225 1999 200⬘.7⬘2—dc21 99-24174 This book has been composed in Galliard http://pup.princeton.edu Hero-Gods, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of heroism that belong to the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of them have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show themselves in this world. The Hero as Man of Letters, again, of which class we are to speak today, is altogether a product of these new ages; and so long as the wondrous art of Writing, or of Ready-writing which we call Printing, subsists, he may be expected to continue, as one of the main forms of Heroism in all future ages. He is, in various respects, a very singular phenomenon. —Thomas Carlyle, 19 May 1840 To give an author—and, in particular, an author who is a genius—the benefit of the doubt is a mark of our respect for his achievement; so respectful are we that we rightly tend to include his person in his achievement. . . . A genius lives in his work . . . [which] may help us see a reason why Socrates published nothing; he merely taught. Oral tradition is one thing; tradition and its individual talents, published, quite another. “Tradition” now exists to be broken through by the individual talent. This subversive activity gives its meaning to “creativity” and “originality.” —Philip Rieff, 26 March 1971 This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface and Acknowledgments ix Author’s Note xi Introduction 3 PART I: Religion after Religion 21 Chapter 1. Eranos and the “History of Religions” 23 Chapter 2. Toward the Origins of History of Religions: Christian Kabbalah as Inspiration and as Initiation 37 Chapter 3. Tautegorical Sublime: Gershom Scholem and Henry Corbin in Conversation 52 Chapter 4. Coincidentia Oppositorum: An Essay 67 PART II: Poetics 83 Chapter 5. On Symbols and Symbolizing 85 Chapter 6. Aesthetic Solutions 100 Chapter 7. A Rustling in the Woods: The Turn to Myth in Weimar Jewish Thought 112 PART III: Politics 125 Chapter 8. Collective Renovatio 127 Chapter 9. The Idea of Incognito: Authority and Its Occultation According to Henry Corbin 145 PART IV: History 157 Chapter 10. Mystic Historicities 159 Chapter 11. The Chiliastic Practice of Islamic Studies According to Henry Corbin 172 Chapter 12. Psychoanalysis in Reverse 183 PART V: Ethics 201 Chapter 13. Uses of the Androgyne in the History of Religions 203 viii CONTENTS Chapter 14. Defeating Evil from Within: Comparative Perspectives on “Redemption through Sin” 215 Chapter 15. On the Suspension of the Ethical 225 Conclusion