WORLD RELIGIONS and the THEORY of the AXIAL AGE Jan Assmann the Theory of the Axial Age As Put Forward by Karl Jaspers in 1949 A

WORLD RELIGIONS AND THE THEORY OF THE AXIAL AGE

Jan Assmann

The theory of the axial age as put forward by Karl Jaspers in 1949 and elaborated since then especially by Shmuel Eisenstadt and his cir- cle1 is centred on the following principal assumptions: there is but One Truth and One Mankind.2 At a given point in its moral, spiritual and intellectual evolution, mankind ‘broke through’ to a much clearer apprehension of this Truth. This happened independently in several places at approximately the same time around 500 BCE. The main characteristics of this break-through may be summarized as universalisation and distanciation. Universalisation is concerned with the recognition of absolute Truths, valid for all times and all peoples; this implies features such as reflexivity, abstraction, second order thinking, theory, systematisation etc. Distanciation is concerned with introduc- ing ontological and epistemological distinctions, such as the eternal and the temporal world, being and appearance, spirit and matter, cri- tique of the ‘given’ in view of the true, etc., in short: the invention of transcendence and the construction of two-world theories. The Axial Age is generally understood as an evolutionary achievement of the highest order, a kind of mutation through which, in Jaspers’ words, “entstand der Mensch, mit dem wir bis heute leben”3 – man as we know him today came into being, homo sapiens axialis, so to

1 Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, Munich: Piper 1949. The debate on the “Axial Age” was continued in the 70s in the American journal Daedalus whose most important issue appeared in 1975 under the beautiful title “The Age of Transcendence”. Since then, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt has organized a series of conferences published in Shmuel N. Eisenstadt (ed.), The Origin and Diversity of Axial Civilizations, SUNY Press: Albany 1986; id., Kulturen der Achsenzeit. Ihre Ursprünge und ihre Vielfalt, 2 vols., Suhrkamp: Frankfurt 1987; id., Kulturen der Achsenzeit II. Ihre institutionelle und kulturelle Dynamik, 3 vols., Suhrkamp: Frankfurt 1992, and Johann P. Arnason/ Shmuel N. Eisenstadt/Björn Wittrock (eds.), Axial Civilizations and World History, Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 4, Brill: Leiden–Cologne 2005. Cf. also W. Schluchter, Religion und Lebensführung, 2 vols., Suhrkamp: Frankfurt 1988. 2 Aleida Assmann calls this the “Zentralperspektive in der Geschichte”, see “Jaspers‚ Achsenzeit, oder: Schwierigkeiten mit der Zentralperspektive in der Geschichte”, in: Dietrich Harth (ed.), Karl Jaspers – Denken zwischen Wissenschaft, Politik und Philoso- phie, Metzler: Stuttgart, 1988, 187–205. 3 Jaspers 1949, 19. 256 Jan Assmann speak. “Das Menschsein im Ganzen tut einen Sprung”4, humanity in its entirety performs a leap. Eric Voegelin speaks of a “leap in being” with regard to the axial event.5 The term “axis” refers to a point – the “axial moment” as Robert Bellah calls it – that divides the stream of time into “before” and “after” in the manner of the birth of Christ. Jas- pers’ opposition of the axial and the pre-axial worlds indeed appears to me in many respects like a secularized version of the Christian opposition of true religion and paganism or historia sacra and historia profana. The Biblical (both Jewish and Christian) concept of history implies radical changes, sharp discontinuities, a spiritual “mutation”, the emergence of a new man. The Axial Age narrative has the struc- ture of such a retrospective construction that dramatizes a tendency, a development, a process of emergence in the form of a revolutionary break and personifies it in the figure of a great individual. Almost all of the “axial” features apply to the rise of monotheism or, to use Theo Sundermeier’s more general term6, of “secondary religion”, which may therefore be recognized not only as the most typical and most distinc- tive but also even as the quint-essential axial event. With regard to the agents that brought about this “great transformation” (Karen Armstrong’s word for “Axial Age”7), there is still much controversy. Jaspers subscribed to Alfred Weber’s theory on the “Reitervölker”, equestrian tribes or peoples, who by means of their new technology of horse-riding and chariot-driving were able to over- run the ancient world and to spread new ideas.8 It is, however, more than unclear how these migrations, invasions and conquests could be related to intellectual and spiritual breakthroughs of the kind Weber and Jaspers are reclaiming for the Axial Age. The displacement of peo- ple or the expansion of empires does not lead to the conception of

4 Jaspers 1949, 23. 5 Eric Voegelin, Order and History I, Israel and Revelation, Louisiana: University Press/Baton Rouge 1956, passim. 6 For the concepts of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ religion see Andreas Wagner (ed.), Primäre und sekundäre Religion als Kategorie der Religionsgeschichte des Alten Testa- ments, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter 2006. 7 Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, New York: Knopf 2006. This book appeared in German under the title Die Achsenzeit. Vom Ursprung der Weltreligionen, Berlin: Siedler 2006. It seems doubtful, however, that Armstrong took notice of the debate on the Axial Age (n.1) in writing this book. 8 Jaspers 1949, 37–39, see Alfred Weber, Kultursoziologie, Amsterdam: A. W. Sijthoff 1935.