JHMTh/ZNThG; 2016 23(1): 27–55

Aaron Pidel, S.J. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism:” A Response to Paul Silas Peterson

DOI 10.1515/znth-2016-0019

Zusammenfassung: Paul Silas Petersons Versuch, in zwei jüngeren Artikeln den Jesuiten und zwischenkriegszeitlichen Kulturphilosoph Erich Przywara als „katholischen Faschisten“ und Antisemiten zu charakterisieren, versagt aus meh- reren Gründen. Peterson errichtet eine Kategorie antiliberalen Denkens, die er als „katholischer Faschismus“ bezeichnet, versäumt es jedoch, wichtige, dringend erforderliche interne Differenzierungen innerhalb dieser Kategorie vorzunehmen. Auf diese Weise verweigert er Przywara jegliche geistige Unabhängigkeit von dessen kulturellem Milieu. Dieser Artikel stellt die Unzulänglichkeit dieser Her- meneutik auf zwei Weisen heraus. Er argumentiert auf negative Weise, um die Ambivalenz der vorgeblich faschistischen Tropen aufzuzeigen, die Peterson als Beispiele anführt. Auf positive Weise argumentiert er, dass Przywaras 1933 ge- schriebenen Aufsätze, „Reich und Kreuz“ und „Nation, Staat, Kirche“, die vor dem Hintergrund von Przywaras Religionsphilosophie ausgelegt werden, sich als Aufrufe verstehen, die NS-Ideologie von „Blut und Boden“ aufzugeben. Darauf folgt ein ähnliches Argument, welches Przywara vom Vorwurf des Antisemitis- mus freizusprechen sucht. Es demonstriert die Doppeldeutigkeit der vermeintlich antisemitischen Motive in Przywaras Aufsatz „Judentum und Christentum“ und weist darauf hin, dass seine Behandlung des Judentums in dessen geschicht- lichem Zusammenhang vielmehr als Aufforderung zu lesen ist, den rassisch motivierten und rechtlich diskriminierenden Antisemitismus abzuschaffen.

Keywords: Erich Przywara, National Socialism, Zionism, Antisemitism, Analogia Entis, Political Theology

In seemingly endless production of literature addressing the question of German Catholic complicity in National Socialism, the name of Erich Przywara (1889– 1972), Jesuit priest and Kulturphilosoph prominent in the interwar period, has

Aaron Pidel S.J.: University of Notre Dame, 130 Malloy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556 (USA), E-Mail: [email protected] 28 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

1 2 emerged on the side of both the angels and the devils. Paul Silas Peterson, taking the part of the diaboli advocatus, has argued recently and rather forcefully 3 for Przywara’s complicity in the destructive ideologies of his day. Assembling many of the objectionable attitudes under the portmanteau term “Catholic fas- cism,” Peterson offers an impressionist portrait of Przywara’s worldview in the interwar years:

“Catholic fascism was captivated with the theme of the Reich and the religious Abendland, it was skeptical of neopaganism, anti-Semitic, anti-liberal, anti-American, anti-Enlightenment, anti-French Revolution, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-Zionist, anti-rationalistic, völkisch, authori- tarian, integralistic, Nietzschean and nationalistic. Something similar is also found in Ger- manophone Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s. This is the broader intellectual context of [Przywara’s] essay ‘Judaism and Christianity’ and it is also the broader intellectual context 4 of his rejection of ‘Jewish messianism’ in his Analogia Entis (1932).”

To be clear, Peterson does not simply argue that Przywara unwittingly advanced political fascism, promoting antiliberal ecclesiology to a public that could not grasp the necessary distinctions between Church and State, or criticizing Jewish theology for a readership that could not distinguish scholarly argument from pogrom. For Peterson, Przywara actively sought the Church’s admission to “the 5 councils of power” through an integralist alliance with the totalitarian state. His

1 Joachim Schmiedl offers the following summary of Przywara’s 1933 essays on National Social- ist worldview – “Deutscher Auruch,” “Deutsche Front,” “Deutsches Schicksal”: “‘Deutsches Schicksal’ entscheide sich daran, ob die Gegenströmungen gegen den ‘neuen deutschen Nation- alismus’ zum Zuge kämen.” Joachim Schmiedl, “Die katholische Auruch der Zwischenkriegszeit und die Stimmen der Zeit.” In Le Milieu Intellectuel Catholique en Allemagne, sa Presse et ses Réseaux (1871–1963) / Das Katholische Intellektuellenmilieu in Deutschland, seine Presse und seine Netzwerke (1871–1963), ed. Michel Grunwald, Uwe Puschner. Bern: Peter Lang, 2006, 231–253, here 249. For Hubert Gaisbauer, Przywara belongs at least to “dem inneren Widerstand” against NS. Hubert Gaisbauer, “‘Kraft in Ohnmacht – Macht in Gnade’ – Reinhold Schneider und sein Freund Erich Przywara in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus.” In Spiritualität im Gespräch der Religionen II, ed. Petrus Bsteh, Brigitte Proksch, Peter Ramers, Hans Waldenfels. Münster: LIT, 2009, 212–231, here 213. I would like to thank John Betz and Beata Vale for improving earlier versions of this draft. 2 For an antisemitic portrayal of Przywara, see Hermann Greive, Theologie und Ideologie. Katholizismus und Judentum in Deutschland und Österreich. Heidelberg: L. Schneider, 1969, 109–116. 3 Paul Silas Peterson, Erich Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus, bolshevism, the Jews, Volk, Reich and the analogia entis in the 1920s and 1930s.” JHMTh/ZNThG 19 (2012): 104–140; id., “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews. A response to John Betz with a brief look into the Nazi correspondences on Przywara and StZ.” JHMTh/ZNThG 21 (2014): 148–163. 4 Peterson, “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 162. 5 Peterson, “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 151: “Like many authors at this time Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 29

writings exhibit a kind of “racist essentialism, blended together with religious 6 ideas,” which in turn betrays an “unusual kind of human hostility directed 7 against Jews.” These charges are indeed significant, if true. They are, however, more false than true. Przywara’s political theology nei- ther reveals an enthusiasm for NS-ideology nor constitutes a sycophantic bid to ingratiate the Catholic Church to Hitler’s government. Admittedly, Przywara does sometimes employ anti-Judaic tropes. However, if it belongs to antisemitism to consider Jews racially inferior, suspect them of nefarious plots, or deny them full cultural access, then Peterson is wrong in ascribing that prejudice to Przywara. The reasons for Peterson’s wrongheaded conclusions, I believe, are principally two: first, he depends on rather selective associative evidence; second, he reads Przywara’s against an internally undifferentiated construct called “Catholic fas- cism” rather than against the backdrop of either Przywara’s own metaphysical writings or those of Przywara’s Jewish contemporaries. I would like to reply by supplying for these deficiencies in three ways: first, by addressing the “affinity thesis” of Catholic complicity in NS and the associative evidence with which Peterson insinuates Przywara’s NS-affinities; second, by supplying the religious and philosophical background necessary to understand Przywara’s Reichstheolo- gie as an attempt to chasten the Third Reich; thirdly, by showing how Przywara’s identification of the so-called Judenfrage as a religious problem tends, in its historical context, to quell rather than enflame antisemitic passion. Przywara’s thought, in short, deserves to be understood on its own terms rather than as typical representative of “Catholic fascism.”

1 Catholic Fascism: The Affinity Thesis

A great deal of Peterson’s case against Przywara could be thought of as a re- hearsal of the “affinity thesis” of Catholic complicity in National Socialism 8 influential since the early 1960s. The Catholic legal scholar Ernst-Wolfgang

Przywara wanted the new nationalism to embrace Catholicism. Once the Nazis took power, he would later hope for a Catholic friendly and Catholic affirmative National Socialism, a Catholic integralism in Nazi Germany, a rebirth of the Sacrum Imperium which granted Catholicism and Christianity its rightful place at the councils of power”. 6 Peterson, “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 156. 7 Peterson, “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 156. This is the working definition of antisemitism that Peterson supplies. 8 For this framing of the issue, see Michael Hollerich, "Catholic Anti-Liberalism in Weimar. Political Theology and its Catholic Critics. In The Weimar Moment: Political Theology, Liberalism, and Law, ed. Rudy Koshar, Leonard Kaplan. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012, 17–46, here 18–21. 30 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

Böckenförde introduced this theory when he, speculating on the reasons for the perceived collapse of Catholic resistance in 1933, suggested that certain anti-liberal features of the Catholic social imaginary may have led Catholics – once the institutional freedoms of the Church had been secured – to embrace 9 NS. Klaus Breuning attempted something like an historical substantiation of Böckenförde’s conjecture, arguing in his still influential study, Die Vision des Reiches (1969), that the nostalgiac, programmatic, theopolitical “Reichsideolo- gie” of the Weimar Republic helped legitimate the Third Reich in the eyes of 10 Catholics. Peterson’s contribution is to have sharpened Breuning’s “Reichside- ologie” into “Catholic fascism,” and to have attempted to cast Przywara – who 11 plays a marginal and ambivalent role in Breuning’s book – in the role of its classic exponent. Given the absence of any explicit pro-Nazi declarations from Przywara, Peterson must proceed to establish Przywara’s fascist sympathies by insinuation. That is, he must show how Przywara’s admirers, intellectual enthu- siasms, and diction betray his loyalty to an ideologically tainted movement. A closer look, however, suggests that this sort of evidence is at best inconclusive.

1.1 Admirers

One element of Peterson’s case for Przywara’s receptivity to NS is the praise Przywara received from from NS circles. Not only did NS functionaries permit Przywara to represent Germany at the Eighth International Philosophy Congress in Prague, but the Nazi Otto Dietrich lauded Przywara for drawing there the “same line of division” as his own, i.e., that “religion only aims to God, phi- 12 losophy, however, to the world.” But evidence of this sort is ambivalent on multiple counts. To begin with, Peterson makes no attempt to assess whether such NS approval rests on an accurate understanding of Przywara’s views. He

9 First published as Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, “Der deutsche Katholizismus im Jahre 1933. Eine kritische Betrachtung.” Hochland 53 (1961): 215–239. 10 Klaus Breuning, Die Vision des Reiches. Deutscher Katholizismus zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur (1929–1934). Munich: Max Hueber Verlag, 1969, 15–18. 11 Breuning mentions Przywara almost exclusively in footnotes, which often refer globally to Przywara’s more or less positive review of a featured Reichsideologe. He also mentions, however, Przywara’s influence on the “Reichsideologie” of Alfred Delp, the Jesuit eventually executed for his role in the German resistance to NS; see Breuning, Die Vision des Reiches, 289, n 53. Breuning’s one treatment of Przywara above the footnotes argues, in the course of one page, that Przywara’s “Analogiedenken und hierarchisches Seinsverständnis” commit him to an undemocratic political Reich; see ibid., 298–299. 12 Peterson, “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 153. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 31

should have reasons for skepticism, since Dietrich’s praise runs entirely counter to Peterson’s own broader case against Przywara. How can Przywara be both a “verticalist” denying religion any bearing on the world and a Catholic “in- tegralist” trying to position the Church to manipulate the emergent NS state? Perhaps even more problematically, Peterson collects his evidence selectively. One can also find Alfred Rosenberg, likewise identified by Peterson as a “chief 13 Nazi ideologue,” rejecting Przywara’s religious philosophy as a “Jewish-Roman distortion” on the grounds that its emphasis on transcendence requires from the 14 world a slavish obedience incompatible with the Nordic spirit. Both for their internal contradictions and their slight acquaintance with Przywara’s thought, Nazi philosophers hardly count as a credible source. Documentary evidence attests, moreover, not only to the claims of NS- enthusiasts to find an ally in Przywara, but also to the strong rejection of these claims by Przywara’s (presumably) Catholic contemporaries. We find such a rejection in the report of so-called “Reich und Kreuz” debate printed in Ger- mania, the Berlin-based newspaper associated closely with the Zentrumspartei. The debate, which took place on January 10, 1933, just a few weeks before the Machtergreifung, pitted both the Protestant minister Günther Dehn (1882–1970) and Przywara against the NS-Reichsideologe Friedrich Hielscher. According to the column’s anonymous author, Hielscher showed his intellectual inferiority to Przywara, “a Catholic scholar of the first rank,” by entirely missing the latter’s point:

“What is one supposed to say to a man who uses his closing remarks to declare that Fr. Przywara’s paper had in essence admitted the truth of his thesis, according to which Reich and Cross have nothing to do with one another? This willful construction borders on tact- lessness and manifests sufficiently the character of this charlatan thinker (Ruchtheoretiker), whose activity consists only in twisting (umzudeuten) everything toward himself and his own 15 purposes.”

A contemporary of Przywara familiar enough with his thought to deem him a

13 Peterson, “Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 115. 14 Regarding Przywara’s analogia entis, Rosenberg says, “Rom-Jahwe bedeutet: zauberischer Despotismus, magisches Schöpfertum aus dem Nichts (ein für uns wahnwitziger Gedanke). Nordis- ches Abendland besagt: Ich und Gott sind seelische Polarität; Schöpfungsakt ist jede vollzogene Vereinigung, das Auseinandergehen ruft erneute dynamische Kräfte hervor”. Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe unserer Zeit. München: Hoheneichen Verlag, 1935, 248. 15 “Reich und Kreuz. Das Streitgespräch Friedrich Hielscher – Günther Dehn – P. Przywara, S.J.” Germania, Nr. 13, January, 1933 (unpaginated). The author of the column is identified only as “L.E.” 32 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

“Catholic scholar of the first rank” felt that only a prejudiced mind could construe his Reichstheologie as NS-friendly. This should give us pause.

1.2 Tainted Themes and Thinkers

A second kind of circumstantial evidence to which Peterson points is the fact that Przywara shared thematic enthusiasms with NS-friendly thinkers. In his book Heroisch (1936), for example, Przywara shows a more than passing interest in Donoso Cortés, a critic of the Enlightenment whose ethos of heroism attracted the attention of several figures – e. g., Carl Schmitt and Alois Dempf – objectionable 16 to Peterson. Peterson’s presentation implies that Schmitt, Dempf and Przywara all form a sort of NS-friendly Cortés “school” characterized simultaneously by 17 NS sympathy and disaffection from ultramontane Catholicism. There are several problems, of course, with this kind of argument. One dif- ficulty is the simple fact that Przywara’s engagement with Cortés in Heroisch takes the form of a summary. Though Przywara does admittedly call Cortés a 18 “great statesman,” this does not mean that he gives blanket approval. Peterson himself presupposes the distinction between praising a thinker and endorsing his conclusions when he discounts Przywara’s praise of the Jew Leo Baeck, whom Przywara calls “brilliant” and “impressive,” as evidence of the latter’s philosemitism. Przywara, Peterson objects, still finds Baeck’s religious philoso- 19 phy wanting in important respects. The same may well be true of Przywara’s praise of Cortés. Przywara’s later writings on Cortés, in fact, suggest that he appreciates the latter’s construal of a series of domains – Church-State, Nature- Grace, God-World – as distinct yet united through a common dependence on 20 the Sovereignty of the Divine Will. This is not in itself damning. Why in 1936 would Przywara present Cortés largely in the form of a sum- mary? Historical circumstances may serve as a partial explanation. At the time

16 Peterson, “Erich Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 112 f. 17 Peterson, “Erich Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 113, 117. I am not sure how Peterson reconciles his characterization of Przywara, Schmitt and Dempf as thinkers at the “forefront” of anti-ultramontane Catholicism, while also implying that their “authoritarian” theologies prepared the way for NS. 18 Peterson, “Erich Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 114. Peterson refers to Przywara’s sum- mary statement: “So sehen die letzten Zeichnungen des großen Staatsmannes das folgerichtige Entweder-Oder zwischen Anarchie und Katholizismus”. Erich Przywara, Heroisch. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1936, 12. 19 Peterson, “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 158 f. 20 Erich Przywara, Humanitas. Der Mensch gestern und morgen. Nürnberg: Glock und Lutz, 1952, 243–253. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 33

that Heroisch appeared, Przywara belonged to the Redaktion of the Jesuit Journal Stimmen der Zeit. As Klaus Schatz points out, not only did NS censors suppress Stimmen for its anti-NS positions for three months (December 1935 – March 1936), but less than a year later they threatened to close the journal again – this time permanently – for having published an article perceived as critical 21 of the “heroic worldview of National Socialism.” So sensitive was this issue around this time that the Hitler Youth actually rioted while Przywara delivered 22 his lectures on “das Christlich-Heroische” in 1935. From the mid-thirties on the writers of Stimmen were forced to write so as to be intelligible to their intended 23 readers yet obscure to NS censors. Przywara may have thus considered it wiser to register his evaluations tacitly, deferring the treatment of Catholic saints to the book’s end so as to imply that they are the book’s true telos and the only 24 “heroism” endorsed carte blanche. These circumstances likewise advise against interpreting Przywara’s chapters on Dietrich Eckart and Nietzsche as signs of 25 unqualified approval. Przywara’s relationship to Schmitt turns out to be likewise ambiguous. One may readily admit that Schmitt eventually came to champion what Peterson 26 calls the “homogeneous total state;” his invocation of political “decisionism”

21 Klaus Schatz, S.J., Geschichte der Deutschen Jesuiten (1814–1983), 5 volumes. Münster: Aschendorff, 2013, vol. 3, 357. The offensive article: Peter Lippert, S.J., “Sicherungen?” StZ 131 (1936): 145–155. 22 A letter to the editor in Germania (Feb 3, 1935) describes the interruption of Przywara’s talk by jeering, the lobbing of rotten eggs, and a brawl; see Johann Neuhäusle, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz. Der Kampf des Nationalsozialismus gegen die Katholische Kirche und der kirchliche Widerstand, vol. 2, 2nd ed. München: Katholische Kirche Bayerns, 1946, 180. 23 “Dabei konnte freilich, je länger desto mehr, nur noch vorischtig und verschlüsselt gesprochen werden, um die Existenz der Zeitschrift nicht zu gefährden. Oft so wird berichtet, feilte man stun- denlag [sic] an Formulierungen, um sich einerseits dem Leser bemerkbar zu machen, andererseits für die Zensur unangreiar zu bleiben”. Schatz, Geschichte der Deutschen Jesuiten, vol. 3, 347. Moreover, it may not be Stimmen’s sycophancy but rather its limited circulation and intellectual orientation that explain its relatively late closure. By 1938 NS agencies had closed more “popu- lar” Jesuit media hewing to the same general editorial line, such as Katholischen Missionen the Düsseldorfer Rednerturme; see ibid., 347, 357–360. 24 Przywara, in fact, shows himself repeatedly opposed to self-aggrandizing heroisms. He discounts any “heroism of sacrifice” (Heroismus des Opfers) not grounded in the “little and everyday”. Erich Przywara, “Der Ruf von Heute” (1930), reprinted in Katholische Krise, ed. Bernhard Gertz. Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1967, 89–105, here 100. In his commentary on St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, Przywara almost always potrays “heroism” as concealed pride; see Erich Przywara, Deus Semper Maior: Theologie der Exerzitien, 3 Bände. Freiburg i. Br.: Herder 1938–1940, Band 1, 8, 33, 90, 131, 243, Band 2, 15. 25 For the fulfilment Nietzsche’s tragic contradictions in Thérèse of Lisieux, one of saints in which Heroisch culminates, see Przywara, Humanitas, 265–268. 26 Peterson, “Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 113. 34 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

27 in defense of the “night of the long knives” certainly suggests as much. But Przywara, while showing appreciation for Schmitt’s thought at different points in his career, never approves it uncritically. When he reviews Schmitt’s Poli- tische Romantik (1925), for instance, he contends that Romantic irrationalism cannot be remedied by Classical rationalism (pace Schmitt), but only by the 28 Augustinian-Thomist principle of secondary causes. This insistence on a rela- tively independent creaturely agency, as will become clear, signifies Przywara’s desire for a state neither “homogeneous” nor “total.” When Przywara reviews Schmitt’s political writings eight years later in “Deutsche Front” (1933), he shows a similar ambivalence. He introduces Schmitt’s theory of authoritative representation, along with Othmar Spann’s political Romanticism, as examples 29 of the “unconditioned primacy of the community over the I.” In his conclusion he observes that this monopolar “Will-to-Community” has generated its own “recoil” (Zurückschnellen), decomposing into the “relationship of an aristocratic, 30 dominant individual over a mechanical mass.” Przywara’s interest in Schmitt 31 may indicate the Weimar Republic was not his own political ideal, but it does not prove that that Schmitt’s was.

27 Manfred Dalheimer notes that Przywara and Schmitt shared a common belief in politics “from above,” or what Przywara calls “representative authority.” He locates the essential difference “im Antisemitismus und der Rechtfertigung der Morde des 30. Juni 1934”. Manfred Dalheimer, Carl Schmitt und Deutscher Katholizismus 1888–1936. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1998, 565, n 575. 28 Erich Przywara, “Augustinismus und Romantik” (1925), reprinted in id., Ringen der Gegenwart. Gesammelte Aufsätze 1922–1927. Augsburg: Filser, 1929, 214–221, here 221. 29 Erich Przywara, “Deutsche Front.” StZ 124 (1933): 153–167, here 153. 30 Przywara, “Deutsche Front”, 167. See also Pryzwara’s concern about the dissolution of nat- ural law into pure collective “movement” (Bewegung) in “Der Ruf von Heute,” 90. See also his warning – made with reference to the sociologies of Max Scheler, Othmar Spann, Johannes Plenge – that a one-sided emphasis on organic Gemeinschaft over legal Gesellschaft may lead to mass delusion: “Weil Gesellschaft sich auf Vertrag und damit auf Recht gründet, kann das Ideale der Gemeinschaft nicht scharf genug gegen Vertrag und Recht abgegrenzt werden. Gemeinschaft wurzelt darum allzusehr in einem ‘Gemeinschaftsgefühl,’ das der Realität nicht gewachsen ist und darum ästhetisierend aus dem Wege geht [...] [F]ührt auch hier das Nein gegen die ‘rationale’ Form der Gesellschaft zu einer Überantwortung in das irrational Chaotische der ‘Welt,’ nämlich in der Form des ‘Kollektiven’ der ‘Masse.’ Es ist kein Zufall, daß gerade aus den Bewegungen des Gemeinschafts-Ideals der heutige Massen-Stil (in Plakat, Rhythmus, Fahne, usw.) sich herausge- bildet hat”. Erich Pryzwara, “Die Fünf Wenden. Eine Grundlegung” (1933), reprinted in Katholische Krise, 106–122, here 119. 31 Even here, however, one should not be too hasty predicting how Przywara correlates theoreti- cal political forms and historical regimes. In a letter addressed to Schmitt on August 17, 1953, he finds Schmitt’s ideas best embodied in the USA, and laments that “der NS die herrliche Idee Ihrer ‘autoritären Demokratie’ übernommen und verballhornt hatte (es ist doch eine Ironie, dass Amerika seine präsidiale Demokratie so gut wie ganz auf die Form Ihrer ‘autoritären Demokratie’ Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 35

Przywara expresses less critical reserve toward Dempf than toward Schmitt. In 1933 he identifies Sacrum Imperium, for instance, as a book that “discloses 32 to Reich-thinking the old sources.” This warmth toward Dempf is, if anything, a credit to Przywara. For Dempf had become already in 1926 the translator of 33 an anti-fascist tract by Luigi Sturzo. He would later become an opponent of 34 the Reichskonkordat of Franz von Papen, author of a pseudonymous treatise 35 against National Socialism, and the target of a Lehrverbot (when Germany 36 annexed Austria). Dempf’s anti-NS intellectual engagement, in other words, serves only to illustrate that a penchant for imperial imagery and an interest in 37 Cortés are poor indices of concrete NS loyalty.

1.3 Tainted Words

Moving on to the question of ideologically coded words and images, we do well to note that their use can serve to signal not only ideological acquiescence but

gemodelt hat!)”; Archiv der Deutschen Provinz der Gesellschaft Jesu (ADPSJ) 47.182.1261. It is possible that Przywara misrepresents his pre-War understanding of Schmitt to ease his own post-War conscience, but a private letter to Schmitt himself seems like an unlikely occasion for such a dissimulation. 32 Erich Przywara, “Deutsches Schicksal.” StZ 124 (1933): 217–226, here 224, n 13. 33 Vincent Berning, “Alois Dempf. Philosoph, Gelehrter, Kulturtheoretiker, Prophet gegen den Nationalsozialismus.” In Alois Dempf 1891–1982. Philosoph, Gelehrter,Kulturtheoretiker,Prophet gegen den Nationalsozialismus, ed. Vincent Berning, Hans Maier. Weißenhorn: Anton H. Konrad Verlag, 1992, 25–135, here 114. 34 See Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich, vol. 2: Das Jahr der Ernüchterung 1934. Berlin: Siedler, 1985, 223–225. 35 Dempf’s Glaubensnot der Deutschen Katholiken (Zürich 1934), which is reprinted in full in volume edited by Berning and Maier, contains a clear denunciation of both the “totaler Staat” and Schmitt’s “decisionist power” (Entscheidungsgewalt); see Alois Dempf 1891–1982, 196–242, here 218–219. Peterson thus misleads when, citing the same book, he observes that the four pages dedicated to Dempf as “Prophet gegen den Nazionalsozialismus” contain not even “a single citation from Dempf”. Peterson, “Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 171, n 53. 36 Berning, “Alois Dempf”, 118. 37 Were it not tedious, one could show the similar difficulty in using the category of “Volk ecclesiology” as an index of NS-affinity. Peterson uses the term so vaguely that it comes to include both Karl Adam, a well-known NS-sympathizer and anti-Semite, as well as Henri de Lubac, a well-documented opponent of both Nazism and anti-Semitism; see Peterson, “Przywara on Sieg- Katholizismus”, 139. For De Lubac’s views, see his letters and articles collected in “Christian Resistance to Nazism and to Anti-Semitism,” section IV of Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1996, 367–504. For de Lubac’s anti-extrinsicism as opposition to “Vichy” Thomism, see Joseph Komanchak, “Theology and Culture at Mid-Century. The Example of Henri de Lubac.” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 579–602. 36 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

also ideological contestation. In the aftermath of Mussolini’s seizure of power in Rome (Oct. 1922), for example, Pius XI published Ubi Arcano (Dec. 1922), an encyclical calling for the more effective establishment of the “Kingdom of 38 Christ.” Pius XI describes this Kingdom as conformity of both individuals and 39 nations to the “eternal law of God,” which conformity alone keeps national 40 rivalries in check and conduces to international peace. In 1925 he enshrined the same vision in the Catholic liturgy, promulgating Solemnity of Christ the King with the express purpose of reminding Catholics that the confession of Christ’s 41 Kingship is the foundation of a non-despotic social order. Pius appealed to Christ’s universal kingship again during the Third Reich, presenting it in Mit 42 brennender Sorge (1937) as a principle incompatible with racial supremacy. Given the anti-fascist and anti-racist deployment of kingdom imagery at the highest ecclesial levels, it hardly surprises that not a few Catholics – including 43 44 Dietrich von Hildebrand and Friederich Muckermann, SJ, – likewise appealed to Reich imagery to stimulate resistance to NS. In 1933 Przywara expressly

38 “It is possible to sum up all we have said in one word, ‘the Kingdom of Christ;”’ Ubi Ar- cano, § 48, Vatican Website, last accessed July 22, 2016, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius- xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_23121922_ubi-arcano-dei-consilio.html 39 Ubi Arcano , § 44. 40 Ubi Arcano, § 45–47. 41 “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony;” see Quas Primas § 19, Vatican Website, last accessed January 30, 2016, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_ quas-primas.html 42 “None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are ‘as a drop of a bucket;”’ Mit brenneder Sorge, § 11, Vatican Website, last ac- cessed January 30, 2016, http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p- xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge.html. 43 Elke Seefried, “‘Reich’ und ‘Ständestaat’ als Antithesen zum Nationalsozialismus. Die katholis- che Zeitschrift Der Christliche Ständestaat.” In Le Milieu Intellectuel Catholique en Allemagne, sa Presse et ses Réseaux (1871–1963), 415–438. Breuning presents Hildebrand as a thinker who advocated for the proper value of person in the community in opposition to Reichsideologie. Breuning, Die Vision des Reiches, 161 f. For Przywara’s participation in the “afternoons” of intel- lectual discussion that von Hildebrand hosted in the 1920s, see Alice von Hildebrand, Soul of a Lion. Dietrich von Hildebrand. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000, 204 f. 44 For Muckermann as “Poet” (Dichter) of Reich, see Breuning, Vision des Reiches, 114–117. For Muckermann’s criticism of nationalist Reichsideologie, see his “Von der Tragik des Deutschen.” Der Gral 10 (Juli 1931): 896–900. For his criticism of NS as idolatrous racism, see id., “Die Häresie des 20. Jahrhunderts.” Akademische Bonifatius Korrespondenz 46 (1931): 1–6. For Przy- wara’s favorable citation of Muckermann subsequent to the latter’s criticism of NS, see Przywara, Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 37

endorses this broader Catholic strategy. Addressing the NS-friendly Reich visions of Friedrich Hielscher and Ernst Jünger, he comments, “What wins hearts is not just a so-called ‘objective sobriety,’ but never anything but ‘great love.’ German Catholicism must therefore realize that it must respond to this pagan ‘Reich’ 45 with a religious ideal of Reich.” Przywara, as we shall see below, undertakes this task himself. In fine, many of Peterson’s applications of the “affinity thesis” to Przywara re- main unpersuasive because they present too selectively NS attitudes toward Przy- wara, ignore the internal differentiation among antiliberal Catholic responses to NS, and fail to reckon with the religious Reichsidee as a strategy of contes- tation. Przywara deserves to be understood not as a featureless representative of “Catholic fascism” but as a thinker with a certain independence of judgment. We do well now to turn to these distinctive features of Przywara’s theological and political engagement with NS.

2 Catholic Fascism in Light of Przywara’s own Texts

Przywara’s political commentary can create the impression of NS Sympathy be- cause it is embedded within the rather elaborate metaphysical and apologetic framework of the analogia entis. Readers less familiar with this framework may easily imagine that Przywara warmly approves what he admits as only one pole within a “suspended tension,” or that he frames competitively what he actually frames cooperatively. Consequently, showing the anti-NS implications of Przy- wara’s political theology requires, first, briefly sketching Przywara’s apologetic presentation of the Church as a “middle” between theopanism and pantheism, and then showing how these categories illuminate the two works central to Peterson’s case: the address “Reich und Kreuz” (1933) and the essay “Nation, Staat, Kirche” (1933).

2.1 Between Pantheism and Theopanism

Przywara thinks that the Catholic Church embodies the fullness of salvation because it occupies an analogous “middle” between the extremes of panthe-

“Deutsches Schicksal”, 224. On Muckermann’s increasing involvement in the “Widerstand,” see Schatz, Geschichte der Deutschen Jesuiten, vol. 3, 427–437. 45 Review of Das Ewige Reich, by Moeller van den Bruck. StZ 125 (1933): 70. 38 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

46 ism and theopanism. Pantheism and theopanism, as Przywara uses the terms, are active and passive ways, respectively, of diminishing God’s transcendence. Przywara’s apologetic strategy thus involves showing that Catholicism best corre- sponds to God’s sovereign transcendence, every other religion being tendentially pantheist or theopanist. Przywara’s apologetic argument proceeds along the following lines. Building on what he takes to be the Thomist interpretation of Romans 1:21ff, he assumes a universal human orientation toward an absolute term, or the divine in its for- mal aspect. Original sin has not removed this orientation so much as distorted it by a derangement of the human faculties. The upshot is that postlapsarian humanity necessarily continues to organize its life around the Absolute but, un- less grace intervenes, assigns absoluteness materially to creation or some aspect 47 thereof. As the terms pantheism and theopanism indicate, the usual objects of such misdirected absolutizing are immanent totalities, whether microcosmic “All” (pan) of spiritual self-sufficiency or the macrocosmic “All” of the absolute 48 community. Now, as Pzywara sees it, every absolutism of the creature obscures not only the transcendent God but some other creaturely value as well. It is a charac- teristic of creaturely being, which is always incomplete in itself, to subsist in a rhythm of irresolvable polarity. Metaphysically, this is a function of the rhythm 49 between consciousness and being, essence and existence; anthropologically,

46 In Religionsphilosophie der Katholische Theologie (1926), Przywara refers to his analogia entis, the middle way between pantheism and theopanism, as “der positive Wesenssinn des außer der Kirche kein Heil;”’ see Erich Przywara, Schriften, vol. 2: Religionsphilosophische Schriften. Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1962, 511. He believes nevertheless that the corresponding attitude of surrender to God can be attained through the Church even without explicit knowledge of the Church, and that this attitude is a “miminum for salvation” (“Heilsminimum”); ibid., 448. 47 For the distinction between formal material doctrines of God drawn from the Thomist inter- pretation of Romans 1, see Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis – Metaphysics. Original Structure and Universal Rhythm, trans. by John R. Betz and David. B. Hart. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013, 212, n 95. Heribert Mühlen notes the originality of Przywara’s take on the postlapsarian super- natural: “[E. Przywara] ne comprend pas seulement le péché original comme la déchéance du surnatural, mais aussi comme la perversion de ce surnaturel en la ‘volonté d’être comme Dieu”’. Heribert Mühlen, “Grâce.” In Bilan de la Théologie du XXe Siècle, ed. Robert Vander Gucht, Herbert Vorgrimler, vol. 2. Tournai-Paris: Casterman, 1970, 371–411, here 405 f. 48 “Das ‘Ich alles allein’ anthropozentischer und das ‘All alles allein’ kosmozentrischer Philoso- phie nur Wandlungsform des ursprünglichen ‘Gott alles allein,’ wie es die Ursprungszeit der Neuzeit erfüllte”. Przywara, Schriften, vol. 2, 265. 49 See “§ 1 Meta-Noetics and Meta-Ontics” in Przywara, Analogia Entis, 106–111. For essentia- existentia as another ways of expressing the tension between being and becoming, see his lengthy footnote to Gott in Przywara, Schriften, vol. 2, 359–364. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 39

50 the rhythm between spirit and matter, person and community. But because created polarities occupy the same creaturely plane, the absolutization of one pole has as its invariable result the marginalization or even demonization of its 51 counterpart. A sort of Heraclitean strife or a Pauline “war between the mem- bers” thus characterizes the fallen world. From this cosmic strife there arises an either-or: either one absolutizes some immanent value, thus unjustly slighting another dimension of creation; or one recognizes as the only true absolute the God in-and-beyond them, thus relativizing and reconciling both intracreaturely 52 poles. This is the way that Przywara works out the standard Catholic formula that that grace does not destroy nature but heals and elevates it. The formula “God in-and-beyond creation” alludes to a final element of Przywara’s metaphysics necessary for understanding his stipulative sense of pantheism and theopanism, namely, secondary causality. It is proper to God, in other words, not only to relativize and reconcile creatures, but also to liberate them for the exercise of a subordinate (or secondary) yet independent agency. Inasmuch as the creature exercises true agency, it is similar to God; God is “in” it. Inasmuch as it exercises a proper agency, it is dissimilar to God; God is “beyond” it. Only when one acknowledges this in-beyond (in-über) structure of nested agencies as a fundamental law of the cosmos does one acknowledge a truly tran- scendent God, the God who is “omnicausal” (allwirksam), but not “monocausal” 53 (alleinwirksam). For Przywara the religious application of secondary causality culminates in Marian devotion. Catholic doctrine and practice regard Mary as both redeemed (secondary) and yet a coredemptrix (cause), accruing merit for 54 herself and for others.

50 These tensions are thematic wherever Przywara develops his natural theology “from the concrete ego” in his Religionsphilosophie der Katholischen Theologie (1926); see Przywara, Schriften, vol. 2, 388. 51 Przywara here makes a generalizes Newman’s theory or “opposite virtues,” which he de- scribes as ‘die praktische Erkenntis und Anerkenntnis, daß im inneren Leben alles auf Spannung zwischen Gegensätzen ankomme und aller Fehlgang im Verabsolutieren eines des Gegensätzes und Vernachlässigung des anderen liegt.” Erich Przywara, “Der Newmansche Seelentypus in der Kontinuität katholischer Aszese und Mystik” (1924), reprinted in id., Ringen der Gegenwart, 845–871, here 868. See also id., Schriften, vol. 2, 268. 52 “All that remains is an either-or: either the absolutizations of the immanent poles of the creaturely [...] or the absolute beyond-and-in them”, Przywara, Analogia Entis, 159. 53 Przywara offers one of the more succinct presentations of the connection between in-and- beyond structure of creation and the possibility of cooperation in “Grundlinien des Katholizismus” (1926), reprinted in id., Ringen der Gegenwart, 662–668, 663–665. 54 Erich Przywara, “Mutter aller Lebendigen” (1926), reprinted in id., Schriften, vol. 2, 112–120, here 115. 40 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

Not surprisingly, given Przywara’s religious convictions, only the Catholic Church fully corresponds to this nested agency and maintains a viable middle 55 between the monisms of pantheism and theopanism. Activist pantheism, typ- ified by the Spinoza’s equation of God with the world’s substance (e. g., Deus sive natura), obscures God’s sovereign transcendence “over” creation by reduc- ing the divine to the highest or most comprehensive dimension “in” it. Passive theopanism, by contrast, locates God so exclusively “over” creation that it re- duces the creature to a kind of divine emanation or epiphenomenon. Theopanism thus collapses the interval between Creator and creature no less surely than pantheism. For once one says that God alone does everything, it becomes just as true to say that everything that happens is God. A key point for Przywara is that theologies of unmitigated transcendence are inherently unstable, often 56 generating philosophies and politics of immanentism. Przywara applies his apologetic trilemma – theopanism, pantheism, or Catholicism – to nearly every non-Catholic religious doctrine, but especially to 57 Protestantism. He argues that the Reformation’s emphasis on God’s exclusive agency in salvation – sola fide, sola gratia, etc. – ultimately gives rise to the philo- 58 sophical pantheisms of Hegel and Kant. Likewise the Lutheran theopanism of inner Christian freedom gives rise to the national pantheism of the totalitar- 59 ian state. Accordingly, a “creaturely” (read: analogical or Catholic) political theology has the best chance of avoiding statist absolutism. When Przywara in the mid-1920s Przywara begins to develop a political theology under the image of Kingship and Reich, he does so to present the Church not as the State’s eager lackey (pace Peterson) but as its healer. Referring

55 “For Catholic theology (alone) carries within itself, as its formal ground, the formula ‘God beyond-and-in the creature,’ which alone overcomes the relation between theopanism and pan- theism, as we have shown in earlier works”. Przywara, Analogia Entis, 166. 56 Przywara, Schriften, vol. 2, 284 f. 57 “Der Lutherische Gott ist der Gott der gradlinigen göttlichen Alleinwirklichkeit und Allein- wirksamkeit und darum des beständigen Umschlags von völliger Negation des Geschöpflichen zu seiner völligen Vergöttlichung”. Erich Przywara ,“Custos, Quid de Nocte?” (1924). In id., Ringen der Gegenwart, 37–47, here 38. See also generally, “Gott in uns und Gott über uns” (1923). In id., Ringen der Gegenwart, 543–578. 58 Przywara, Analogia Entis, 164 f. 59 In Gottgeheimnis der Welt (1923), Przywara argues that Reformation theopanism “dissolved the intracreaturely forms and laws and let the individual move in the monocausal [...] God of Will; but this world-immanent God was only the divinization of the world powers, and so the end of Lutheran ‘Christian freedom’ appeared – as the omnipotence of the state” Przywara, Schriften, vol. 2, 235 f. For cognate criticisms, see id., “Die Religiöse Krisis in der Gegenwart und der Katholizismus” (1925). In Katholische Krise, 41–53, here 44. Again: id., “Polarität und Romantik” (1923). In id., Ringen der Gegenwart, 206–213, here 211. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 41

to Quas Primas, the encyclical promulgating the Solemnity of Christ the King, Przywara develops a theology of Church and culture according to which the Church’s spiritual authority liberates culture from self-destructive exaggerations and for autonomous activity. The “‘Kingship (Königtum) of Christ’ that is the Catholic Church,” he writes, makes humanity “capable of that rightful freedom, recognized by the Church, which develops the culture of human art and sci- 60 ence according to its proper discipline, proper principles, proper method.” Two years later, still in the time of the Weimar Republic, Przywara appeals to the same non-competitive relationship between ecclesial authority and secular autonomy, now to justify his conclusion that the Catholic Church can require no single political form for all time. Przywara identifies such a frozen traditionalism 61 with the “integralist” Thomism of Action française and, in the very article from 62 which Peterson draws the phrase “Sieg-Katholizismus,” rejects it. Again in 1929 Przywara observes approvingly how Pius XI’s programmatic “Königtum Christi” neither condemns democracies nor allies itself with the traditionalism of 63 Action française. All this is to say that, for Przywara, the ecclesial Kingdom ex- ercises an influence on culture and politics parallel to that which grace exercises 64 on nature: it heals, elevates, and frees for “autonomous” agency. The Reich theology that Przywara expresses in his two 1933 essays, “Reich und Kreuz”

60 Erich Przywara, “Zwischen Religion und Kultur” (1925). In id., Schriften, vol. 2, 91–107, here 100. 61 Przywara likens nostalgiac integralists to “that French renaissance, which fused the principle of a holy order, Thomist objectivity, etc. into that fixed political-philosophical-theological whole represented by ‘Action Française”’. Erich Przywara, “Integraler Katholizismus” (1927). In id., Ringen der Gegenwart, 133–145, here 139. 62 Przywara’s engagement with “Integraler Katholizismus” follows a “yes [...] but [...]” structure. Peterson draws the phrase “Sieg-Katholizismus” from the “yes” section, but omits to note that the next paragraph begins with the sentence “Doch nun kommt das ‘aber”’. Erich Przywara, “Integraler Katholizismus” (1927). In id. Ringen der Gegenwart, 133–145, here 141. In the “but” section Przywara warns nostalgiac integralists that “they stand thereby stand in constant danger of exchanging Catholicism for a time-conditioned ‘secession from time;”’ ibid., 143. 63 Erich Przywara, “Papst-König.” StZ 117 (Apr 1929): 1–11, here 10. 64 For the “Eigengesetzlichkeit der außerreligösen Gebiete,” see Erich Przywara, Religion- sphilosophie katholischer Theologie (1926). In id. Schriften, vol. 2, 430. Marc Breuer notes that Przywara’s defense of cultural “Eigengesetzlichkeit” against Thaddaeus Soiron, OFM played a key role in the Catholic reception of a term that had until then been used almost exclusively by Protestants to differentiate their religious sensibility from Catholic Ultramontanism: “Der mit der Kontroverse von Soiron und und Przywara einsetzende [...] Diskurs um die ‘Eigengesetzlich- keit’ steht am Beginn eines theologischen und darüber hinaus im wieteren Sinne kirchlichen Paradigmenwechels, der spätestens im Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil kumulierte”. Marc Breuer, Religiöser Wandel als Säkularisierungsfolge. Differenzierungs- und Individualisierungsdiskurse im Katholizismus. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2013, 315. Roísín Healy notes that one of the consistent 42 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

and “Nation, Staat, Kirche,” hews closely to this earlier “Kingdom” theology. It is to these that we now turn.

2.2 “Reich und Kreuz”

The import of the “Reich und Kreuz” address, already mentioned several times, remains a subject of dispute. John Betz interprets it as Przywara’s criticism of Friedrich Hielscher for “confusing Christianity with the Pantheism of ‘blood 65 and soil.”’ Peterson responds with a two-pronged rebuttal weak in internal consistency. On the one hand, Peterson casts doubt on historical value of the 66 version of the lecture published in Logos (1964), suggesting that Przywara may have omitted more incriminating, perhaps unscripted, remarks in order 67 to conceal his former NS enthusiasm. On the other hand, Peterson maintains that Przywara’s NS-enthusiasm remains patent throughout the essay – making Przywara a rather bungling bowdlerizer. We will address these points in order. In weighing the historical value of the published version of the “Reich und Kreuz” lecture, one should note that the published version differs only in nu- 68 gatory detail from the manuscript version contained in Przywara’s archives. Moreover, the contemporary summary of Przywara’s address printed in Germa- nia matches the contents of the published version. As for unscripted opening and closing remarks, the Germania column does report the following preamble: “[Przywara] clarified that he wanted to attempt to grasp the concept Reich in its inner contents (Gehalt). He limited himself in his lecture exclusively to the question of ultimate positions, prescinding from the sort of momentary political 69 speculations more typical for Hielscher.” The second sentence does not seem to imply that Przywara was neutral toward NS, but that Przywara was offering timeless criteria by which his listeners might form a judgment about any regime – including NS.

features of Protestant anti-Jesuitism in Imperial Germany was the reproach that Jesuits threatened autonomy, that is, “the strict separation of public and private spheres, family life and public activities.” Roísín Healy, The Jesuit Specter in Imperial Germany. Boston: Brill, 2003. 65 “Translator’s Introduction.” In Przywara, Analogia Entis, 1–116, here 25. 66 See Erich Przywara, Logos: Logos, Abendland, Reich, Commercium. Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1964, 105–111. 67 Peterson, “Once Again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 151. 68 The only differences are cosmetic alterations in the third full paragraph of Logos, 106, and the omission of the original conclusion, a stanza from Gertrud von le Fort’s Hymnen an Deutschland. For the original typescript, see ADPSJ 47.182.1473. 69 “Reich und Kreuz.” Germania, Jan 13, 1933. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 43

This is brings us to the second issue. Do Przywara’s “ultimate positions,” when contextualized within his broader thought, support Peterson’s reading of Przywara as Catholic fascist or Betz’s reading of Przywara as critic of national- ist pantheism? Read impartially, they favor Betz’s position. For they argue for every political Reich’s need to be healed, relativized, and freed for service by the Church. Przywara, not by chance, begins by describing “Reich” in rather pantheist terms: “[Reich] is the political form of what Aristotle’s ‘kyklophoria’ expresses ontologically: the All of the circle in circulation within itself: inner- worldly infinity.” Cross, by contrast, represents the interruption of his immanent infinity by descending infinity; it is the “intersection of antitheses, crossbeam by vertical beam,” and thus the “maximal self-opening: into the one freely flowing 70 and unobstructed infinity, incomprehensible in every respect.” The Reich in the Christian sense, however, first emerges as a union of these two principles:

“It was first the semitic, then the ancient Greco-Roman concept, that in the state (Staat) the people (Volk) should become so much a rounding (Rundung) of the Reich into itself, that the State becomes like God [...]. But because the one incarnate God entered into his world and made this world (as a whole) into his body, the pseudo-divinity of all the peoples (Völkern) is 71 thereby unmasked. It is a borrowed fire.”

Given both the words and their context, one struggles to read Przywara’s con- cerns about the pseudo-divinity of the “Völker” as anything other than a criticism of NS for its “pantheism of blood and soil.” Drawing the implications of this “unmasking” for nations of the Christian era, Przywara describes their mission as departure from self-enclosure:

“To Rome and Germany, as to the other ‘nations’ in the sacrum Imperium, there has thereby been given the same task that was once given to Abraham, the patriarch of Israel: ‘to go out from your land and your kind’ (Gen 12:1). The Imperium Sacrum depends on both the Roman 72 and German being baptized into (umgetauft) and abiding in the one ‘Christ all in all.”’

It is worth noting that for Przywara the Imperium Sacrum represents non- expansionist internationalism, according to which Rome and German must “go out” from national interests in order to enter into fruitful cooperation with the

70 Przywara, Logos, 105. See also his invocation of the either-or decision, characteristic of his pantheism-theopanism-Catholicism apologetic: “Either: one becomes aware of [...] Deus semper maior, God ever higher and wider and deeper [...]. Or: “the vertigo of altitude compels one to control God, to want to be ‘like God;”’ ibid., 107. 71 Przywara, Logos, 109. For Przywara’s later description of the “Reich Israel” as a “closure” (Geschlossenheit), see also id., Deus Semper Maior, vol. 3, 76. 72 Przywara, Logos, 110. 44 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

“other nations.” The Sacrum Imperium represents a sort of ideal political order wherein the nations consecrate their energies to the task of transnational service. Such statements do not prevent Peterson from claiming that, for Przywara, the “Reich-theme was one of the places to address how Catholicism was a coopera- 73 tive partner in the Reich as long as its rightful place was recognized.” A less partial reading reveals that the slope of influence does not move unilaterally, whether from State to Church or vice-versa. Each stands in-beyond the other, preventing a monism of either Church or State. Przywara renders this sort re- ciprocal delimitation in a poetic image that Peterson thinks betrays Przywara’s integralism: “Pope and Kaiser are the unity of the visible head, of the spiritual and temporal head. But they are historically-really one in a sword that pierces 74 them, with which they themselves pierce one another in the heart.” Given the close connection in “Reich and Kreuz” between “piercing” and liberating for the exercise of proper agency, the inadequacy of Peterson’s “integralist” reading should be clear.

2.3 “Nation, Staat, Kirche” (1933)

The Reichstheologie of the “Reich und Kreuz” lecture receives fuller exposition but little substantial alteration in the essay Przywara published later that year, “Nation, Staat, Kirche.” Once again, it belongs to the ecclesial Reich to unmask nationalist idolatry, reconcile the nations without leveling their distinctive quali- ties, and to set these same nations free for service. Regarding the Church’s commission to unmask idolatry, Przywara recalls that the human drive toward the Absolute, deranged by original sin, fixes pref- erentially on immanent totalities such as the community to which one be- 75 longs. “This,” Przywara notes, “is the background to redemption in Christ 76 in the Church.” For salvation history begins with a blow to nationalist idolatry, that is, with God electing Abraham, calling “a people (Volk) out of the peoples of the East,” and then requiring Abraham to sacrifice “soil and blood” in the form 77 of Isaac on Mt. Moriah. Salvation history continues through the New Covenant

73 Peterson, “Once Again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 151. 74 Przywara, Logos, 110; “Once again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 151. 75 “Die Gestalt der Erbsünde [...] ist gerade theologisch erst hierin vollendet, daß es um die ‘Stammeltern’ geht, d. h. um die ‘Nation’ und ‘Staat’ in ihnen”. Erich Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche.” StZ 125 (1933): 371–379. 76 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 376. 77 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 376. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 45

in the Church’s chastening of imperial Rome. For its relevance to the question of fascism, the essay’s imagery is worth citing in extenso:

“And therefore salvation unfolds likewise in the Church under the ‘Roman Peter,’ by the Roman Imperium being ‘felled’ (‘abgeholzt’) (as in the vision of Lebanon in Isaiah) and even still by the Christian ‘Roman Empire (Reich) of the German Nation’ shattering like the “clay base” of the vision of Daniel, so that every dream of a human God-Civitas may be sobered into the sole reality of the Civitas Dei, whose Caesar is Christ the King at right hand of the 78 Father.”’

This Reichstheologie of the “sobered” empire hardly seems to be the kind that Reichskanzler Franz von Papen had in mind when, speaking in Munich in Octo- ber 1933, he compared NS ascendancy to the rebirth of the “Sacrum Imperium” 79 of the German People. This brings us to the next feature of Przywara’s Reichstheologie – the trans- formation of national animosities into a reconciled pluralism. We do well to rehearse this point since Peterson often takes passages where Przywara valorizes political and ethnic diversity to be a sign of his völkisch ideology. As a typical 80 example, one can take the following passage, (partly) cited by Peterson:

“Therefore the various national ideals have preferentially the form of the human as such: not to be ‘Englishman’ but ‘gentleman,’ not ‘French,’ but ‘chevaleresque,’ not ‘German’ but ‘einfach und ehrlich und innig.’ The rivalry between the sexes as between the nations does not aim at the qualitative differences as such, but at the human person, as it is seen through 81 these qualitative differences.”

The broader context of these remarks is Przywara’s attempt to give an anthropo- logical account of both the value and the explosiveness of national difference. He points to the value, on the one hand, by affirming the “qualitative differ- ences” between nations. This implies that the world of a single nation, even if it contained the same quantitative population, would be impoverished relative to multinational world – much as a world without sexual difference would be

78 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 376. With respect to the vision of Lebanon, Przywara seems to have in mind the oracle against Assyria in Isaiah 10,33–34. The papacy is for Przywara essentially Petrine, but only accidentally Roman. Hence God punctures the delusion of divine Rome, “indem Er das Geheimnis Seiner Menschwerdung in einer Rechtfolge von Menschen menschhaft lebendig sein läßt bis ans Ende der Tage (vom Sitz Petri in Jerusalem zum Sitz in Antiochien zum Sitz in Rom und hinein in unüberschaubare Möglichkeiten);” ibid., 377 f. 79 See Breuning, Die Vision des Reiches, 190; id., Alois Dempf, 233. 80 Peterson cites the first sentence in “Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 133. 81 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 373. Peterson cites the first sentence of this passage in “Erich Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 133. 46 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

poorer, even if it contained the same numerical population. The explosiveness, on the other hand, owes to the fact that each country is marked both by ele- ments of natural kinship and particularity, which Przywara calls the principle of “Nation” (Nation), and by elements of universal aspiration, which he calls the principle of “State” (Staat). The result is that each nation inclines dangerously towards universalizing (read: absolutizing) perspectives and interests that are only relative, and thus towards demonizing its rivals. The Church checks the state’s self-inflationary tendency, softening national animosities into fruitful polarities and providing the basis for a supranational unity: “If the mutually exclusive absolutism of the nations descends in the death of the cross, there rises the mutually complementary fullness of the nations in the one Christ of the one Church. From beyond, from God, who is in Christ in the Church, comes the 82 unity as the unity of the ‘Head.”’ Such passages make clear that Przywara does 83 not “argue against ‘internationalism”’ simpliciter (pace Peterson ), but opposes 84 85 only a “colorless” (farblos) or “undifferentiated” (unterschiedslos) interna- tionalism that aspires to remake the globe in the image of a single ethnicity or political configuration. As Przywara sees it, the Church is the best hope for discouraging idolatrous nationalism while preserving the value of ethnic and national diversity. Following a pattern now familiar to us, Przywara goes on to portray the mission of relatively autonomous service for which the Church prepares the rela- tivized nation. Despite the many passages where Przywara presents the sobering or even shattering of Empire as the work of salvation history, Peterson asserts without qualification that Przywara “positively mentions the Römisches Reich 86 Deutscher Nation.” He does so, however, only after approving its “shattering.” Even the passage that Peterson counts as a “positive mention” of the Holy Roman Empire is drawn from Przywara’s affirmation of but one pole of a dialectical ten- sion between God’s omnicausality and the creature’s proper causality. Przywara concedes that the interlacing of Church and State in the Holy Roman Empire expresses the validity of divine omnicausality. The Church, like God, permeates all things. Peterson fails to mention, however, that Przywara, immediately af- ter this allegedly “positive mention,” proceeds to affirm the pole of creaturely

82 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 377. 83 Peterson, “Once Again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 157. 84 Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum”, 660. 85 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 378. Regarding the legitimate autonomy of the various peo- ples: “In den großen Formeln des Apostels vom Aufhören von ‘Jude, Heide, Skythe, usw.,’ ist keine Einebnung der Unterschiedlichkeitsfülle der Nationen in eine unterschiedslose ‘Internationalität’ vermeint;” Ibid., 377. 86 Peterson, “Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 137. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 47

87 autonomy. The Church is to respect the nation’s “freedom of development,” just as God preserves the creature’s freedom. Because Przywara introduces tem- poral autonomy as the Church’s more recent doctrinal emphasis, moreover, his assertion of the Church’s “freedom” toward all political configurations seems 88 calculated to chill rather than warm nostalgia for the medieval Reich. Through its relationship with the Church, the autonomous State finds energy not only for self-maintenance but for international service. Speaking of the “Catholic politician” as synecdoche for the Catholic nation, Przywara observes,

“On the one hand, the distance of death and resurrection will make the Catholic politician able to serve the relationships between the nations and states and to see their common ties (das gemeinsam Überbrückende). On the other hand, however, the unreserved sacrifice of the [...] grain of wheat can yield a Catholic politics that perseveringly serves the greatness of its 89 own nation and state.”

90 What follows from a “balanced permeation between nation, state, and Church,” in other words, is neither integralism nor expansionist nationalism but what 91 Przywara calls a “differentiated universalism.” This is his Reichstheologie in a nutshell.

3 Anti-Semitism

Having established how little affinity Przywara’s Reich theology shows for con- crete NS fascism, we are now in a position to address a few words to a question hitherto bracketed: Przywara’s alleged anti-Semitism. Since anything like an adequate treatment of the question would require another response of equal length, it is hoped that the foregoing comments on Peterson’s misreading of

87 “Die Kirche gibt ihren Segen dem Drang der Nation zur Freiheit der Entfaltung [...] und dieselbe Kirche, die in der Bulle Bonafaz’ VIII. Die Einzigkeit ihrer Totalität betonte, anerkennt nun ein wahres selbständiges ‘Rund zu sich selbst’ des Staates”. Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 378. 88 Describing the condition of a state relativized by the Church, Pzywara continues, “Hierin nimmt er Teil an der Freiheit Gottes gegenüber der Vielfalt and dem Wandel des Irdischen. Darum identi- fiziert sich katholische Politik mit keiner politischen Form, sondern steht in Freiheit gegenüber”. Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 378. 89 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 378 f. 90 Przywara, “Nation, Staat, Kirche”, 379. For Peterson’s “integralist” interpretation of the language of “permeation,” see Peterson, “Once Again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 157. 91 Przywara introduces the analogia entis as a theory of “differentiated universalism” that intends “a radical humbling of every (ontic) end-in-itself of self and community and of every rounded (noetic) calculation under the sovereignty of God: a theocentrism – relativizing all things human – of ‘God in Christ in the church”’. Przywara, Analogia Entis, xxi. 48 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

Przywara’s political intentions will serve at least to cast doubt on the fairness of his presentation of Przywara on the Judenfrage. In both cases, one detects a failure to make necessary distinctions: just as a certain kind of antiliberalism is elided into fascism, so are theologically anti-Judaic tropes elided into anti- Semitism. And while after the Holocaust we cannot help but wince at some of Przywara’s generalizations about Judaism, we must in justice note that even where Przywara criticizes Judaism theologically and philosophically, he does so in an effort to discredit more virulent antisemitic strains. Making this intention clearer will require us to examine briefly the charges of Przywara’s allegedly despective use of Jewish stereotypes and images in “Judentum und Christentum” (1925) and then proceed to a more positive portrayal of his position on the 92 Judenfrage.

3.1 Anti-Semitic Tropes

Przywara’s method in “Judentum und Christentum” is the same that he later out- lined in his Introduction to In und Gegen (1955). That is, he tries to understand Jewish aspirations on their own terms (“in”), and then, in a second moment, contrasts them with the Christian view (“gegen”), where he thinks they find 93 fulfillment. Przywara dedicates the lion’s share of “Judentum und Christentum” to the first moment, portraying the religious drama between an assimilationist West-Judaism and a non-assimilationist East-Judaism through extensive citation from leading thinkers such as Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Leo Baeck. It is this Jewish context that Peterson omits to mention or in- vestigate. If an image deployed by Przywara shows up in an encyclopedia of antisemitism as a term of abuse, Peterson seems to reason, then Przywara must 94 intend it abusively. But non-assimilationist Judaism of that era often appropri- ated and sometimes even celebrated images used to designate Jews as culturally “other” – presumably without contempt. In many cases the appearance of these terms in Przywara’s writings has the quality of reported speech, an attempt to portray this intra-Jewish controversy on its own terms. There are several examples of this. Though the image “Ahasver” (“wandering Jew”) doubtlessly appears in antisemitic rhetoric, for instance, it also appears

92 See Erich Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum” (1925), reprinted in id., Ringen der Gegen- wart, 624–661. 93 Erich Przywara, In und Gegen. Stellungnahmen zur Zeit. Nürnberg: Glock und Lutz, 1955, 8 f. 94 See Petereson, “Once Again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 159 n58. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 49

95 in the writings of Martin Buber as a symbol of unbowed Jewishness. Since Jews too admitted and even celebrated their refusal to “settle down” among the “host peoples” (“Wirtsvölker”) – another term that shows up without antisemitic 96 overtones in Buber’s writings – the mere use of such terms does not suffice to show despective intent. Something similar goes for Przywara’s description of the Jew as a “revolutionary” (Revolutionär) and “disturber” (Störer) of the peoples 97 since, again, Jewish authors often celebrated this role. For his generalizations 98 99 about Jewish “socialism” and “capitalism,” Przywara again cites equivalent generalizations from Jewish authors. While not all Przywara’s critical remarks on

95 Referring to the Jewish artist Moritz Gottlieb, Buber writes, “He was a chosen bearer of our people’s tragedy as if the spirit of our history bestowed on him the kiss of suffering and death. Once he painted himself as Ahasverus with a golden band across his forehead. And the kingdom of wandering and pain possessed his soul. He came too early. He felt the new Judaism [Zionism] before it existed”. Martin Buber, “Address on Jewish Art.” In The First Buber: Youthful Zionist Writings of Martin Buber, trans. Gilya Gerda Schmidt. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999, 46–63, here 56; cf. ibid., 58. 96 Przywara uses the term “Wirtsvölker” within quotations and references an extensive swath of Jewish literature; see Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum”, 634. Buber presumably does not mean to imply that Jews are “parasitic” on their host nations when he says: “Die äußere Knechtung der Wirtsvölker und die innere Zwingherrschaft des Gesetzes trugen im gleichen Maß dazu bei, das Lebensgefühl von seinem natürlichem Ausdruck, dem freien Schaffen in Wirklichkeit und Kunst, abzulenken”. Martin Buber, Die Jüdische Bewegung, vol. 1: Gesammelte Aufsätze und Ansprachen 1900–1915. Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag 1916, 14; see also ibid., 95. 97 When using these terms, Przywara cites Nathan Birnbaum’s description of Judaism as a perpetual “Revolution” and Baeck’s description of the Jew as “the great nonconformist of history, its great dissenter”’; see Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum”, 648 f. He might also have cited Buber’s description of Palestinian Zionism as “die siedelnde Revolution, mit der wir uns als konstruktives Element in die beginnende Menscheitsrevolution einstellen” Martin Buber, Der Heilige Weg. Ein Wort an die Juden und die Völker. Frankfurt a. M.: Ruetten und Loening, 1919, 79; see also ibid., 84. Italics mine. 98 Przywara here makes several references to organs of Jewish thought. Though his citation is inaccurate in Ringen der Gegenwart, he intends to refer to an article published in Die Neue Jüdische Monatshefte, the journal cofounded by Hermann Cohen. The article links Marx’s political thought to his Judaism, beginning by drawing attention to Karl Marx’s Jewish heritage and ending with an assertion that Marx was – albeit unwittingly – “in seinem tiefsten Ich ein Jude aus dem Saft der Propheten”. Gustav Mayer, “Der Jude in Karl Marx.” Neue Jüdische Monatshefte, 25. April 1918: 327–331, here 331. Przywara also references Buber, who links Jewish thought to a kind of “Sozialismus” reminiscent of egalitarian kibbutzim; Martin Buber, Die Jüdische Bewegung, vol. 2: Gesammelte Aufsätze und Ansprachen 1916–1920. Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1920, 213–215. 99 Buber himself describes capitalism as a symptom of secularized Judaism: “Der Tiefstand des heutigen Judentums ist da [...] wo die religiösen Formen so von ihrem Urgrund abgelöst sind, daß sie sich mit den niedersten Entartungsformen des Kapitalistischen Geistes vertragen können”. Buber, Der Heilige Weg, 54. 50 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

Jewish thought are indexed in this way, many of the more ostensibly damning are.

3.2 Theological Antijudaism

One of Przywara’s motifs that has relatively little equivalent in Jewish self- perception, however, is his description of Jewish thought as tendentially pan- 100 theist. Przywara holds that, just as Reformed theology’s insistence on God’s unmitigated transcendence tends to collapse into the theopanism of Hegel, so does post-Christian “Jewish messianism” tend to generate the immanentism of 101 the excommunicate Spinoza. In Przywara’s own day, he sees the theopanistic transcendence of East-Judaism collapsing into the ethical pantheism of West- Judaism, with its affinity for the immanent absolutes of capitalism and Bolshe- 102 vism. Przywara’s criticism, in other words, is a sort of religious apologetics. Judaism, in order to avoid this secular “doubling,” must find its fulfilment in the Catholic Church, which alone has the resources to maintain the middle between pantheism and theopanism. Although construing the Judenfrage as a matter of pantheism may now seem to us in poor taste, this way of proceeding had several advantages in historical context. Przywara, having already taken a similar line with German Protes- tantism, could more easily clarify the theological rather than racial nature of his criticism. That is, he could better avoid the impression that what motivated his criticisms was either a “racist essentialism” or an “unusual kind of human hos- tility directed against Jews.” And while it is perhaps hard for the post-Auschwitz era to imagine that such a religious apologetic could have any other effect than to incite pogroms, the logic of Przywara’s apologetic actually discourages coer- cive antisemitism. It allows Przywara to point to conversion rather than political marginalization as the ultimate resolution to Jewish-Christian tensions. By locat- ing this conversion within the eschatological frame of Romans 11, moreover, he

100 Even here, though, it is worth noting that Buber later refused to reprint many of the writings from which Przywara drew because they belonged to his “mystical phase,” which Buber describes in monistic terms: “One may call it the ‘mystical’ phase if one understands as mystic the belief in a unification of the self with the all-self, attainable by man in levels or intervals of his earthly life;” see Martin Buber, Pointing the Way: Collected Essays, trans. and ed. Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper, 1957, ix. See also Maurice Friedman, Martin Buber. A Life of Dialogue. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1955, 38 f. 101 Przywara, Analogia Entis, 166. At least in his earlier days, Buber presented Spinoza’s phi- losophy as programmatic for Judaism. Buber, Der Heilige Weg, 97. 102 See the clarifying footnote in Przywara, “Judentum and Christentum”, 654. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 51

leaves to Christians living in the meantime a largely indirect and cooperative role in this conversion. These intentions are fairly patent in Przywara’s texts. The intention to present the Judenfrage as a stimulus not to antisemitic vigi- lantism but to Christian conversion, surfaces even in one of the most ostensibly damning of Przywara’s assessments, (partly) cited by Peterson:

“[E]very usual ‘Antisemitism’ with all its grotesque futilities is really an admission of one’s own lapse from or loss of Christianity. Judaism can be overcome only by the Christianity of consistent, unconditional surrender in faith to the supracreaturely God. All other weapons will and must glance off. Everything else leads – as the old Ghetto policy did – only to the displacement of Judaism’s drive toward self-realization into peripheral fields: Jewish capitalism is, as Buber saw very truly, nothing other than the consequence of the restriction of Judaism to finance. Only the Christianity of the absolute ‘Credo’ from ‘Credo in Iesum Christum, filium Dei’ down to ‘Credo in sanctam ecclesiam catholicam et apostolicam’ has attained to its immense power (Gewalt), because it, in its innermost essence, is itself the God-worked fulfillment of the inner yearning of this power. Judaism is most deeply religion and most deeply religion even in its most desiccated (verdorrtesten) branches. Power of capitalism, power of communism are both ultimately religious power. Only from this perspective can one understand how much ‘Jerusalem’ is welcomed as fulfillment by bolshevist as well as 103 capitalist Jews, the West-Judaism of America and the East-Judaism of Russia.”

Though Przywara does not – as we might wish – challenge the link between Judaism and capitalism or socialism, he does interpret them as symptoms of religious idealism gone awry. It is this misdirected religious drive that unites capitalism, socialism, and Zionism. This is not (pace Peterson) a theory of “Zion- ist world conspiracy” in the usual sense of Jews clandestinely pulling the levers 104 of world finance or government. It is rather an assertion of the “affinity” of certain religious worldviews for certain politico-economic forms, not unlike Max 105 Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – or even Peterson’s own “Catholic fascism.” Perhaps most tellingly, this religious etiology leads Przywara to counsel against “the old Ghetto policy.” Przywara instead exhorts those who feel threatened by Jewish activism to renounce their own nationalist and eco- nomic idolatries, thus disposing themselves to the “unconditional surrender in

103 Erich Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum. Zwischen Orient und Okzident.” StZ 110 (1925): 81–99, here 98. I cite in this case from the original article lest it be thought that Przywara softened his language in the version reprinted in Ringen der Gegenwart. 104 Peterson, “Przywara on Sieg-Katholizismus”, 131. 105 Not restricting this argument to Jewish thought, Przywara links Calvinism with a similar kind of drive for cultural and economic progress: “In diesem [Kalvinismus] ist im Unterschied zu allen anderen Formen die Weltarbeit, Kulturarbeit, bis zur Wirtschaftsarbeit, positive Bewährung der Gnadengewißheit. Es wird also [...] Kulturfortschritt als Religionswachstum;” Przywara, “Die Religiöse Krisis in der Gegenwart und der Katholizismus”, 44. Italics mine. 52 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

faith” that gives the Church her “immense power” of attraction (even to Jews). By presenting the Jews as candidates for conversion, moreover, Przywara implies their racial fitness for the Christian life – something not to be taken for granted 106 in that context. Finally, lest one fail to recognize that he has located the solution to the Judenfrage within the sphere of divine providence, Przywara closes his essay with a text mosaic from Romans. The verses that he chooses (11:26, 29, 12) highlight the hopeful elements of Paul’s theology of Judaism: the ultimate redemption of Israel, the irrevocability of God’s gifts to the Jews, and the providential role of 107 post-Christian Judaism. All of this has the effect of removing Jewish conversion from human hands and refocusing Christians on the task of their own conversion. In light of the foregoing clarifications, one can readily agree with Raymond Lill’s assessment that Przywara’s approach, while leaving something to be desired, 108 nevertheless “leaves no room for antisemitic agitation.”

3.3 Antizionism

Even if one grants that the connection Przywara draws between capitalism, communism, and “Jerusalem” is not “Zionist world conspiracy” in its most debased form, one might still hold, as Peterson does, that Przywara opposed 109 the “Zionism of a Jewish State.” This complaint against Przywara lacks both nuance and – yet again – internal consistency.

106 As John Connelly notes, “Before the war, to say Jews could be ‘converted’ was to undo the racist idea that they were forever lost”. John Connelly, From Enemy to Brother. The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews 1933–1965. Cambridge: Harvard, 2012, 201. True racial anti- Semites, such as the anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt and the Jesuit Georg Bichlmair, doubted whether baptism could heal racial defects; see ibid., 112, 117. 107 Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum”, 661. Romans 9–11 turns up as a leitmotif also in several other writings, where Przywara insists that God uses the “jealousy” between Christians and Jews for the salvation of both: Erich, Przywara“Jude, Heide, Christ.” Europäische Revue 8 (1932): 470–476; id., “Jude und Christ.” StZ 126 (1933): 51–54; Review of Kirche aus Juden und Heiden, by Erik Peterson. StZ 126 (1934): 414–415. 108 “Admittedly, [Przywara] viewed Judaism from the perspective of its denial of Christ’s divinity; but when in connection with the Epistle to the Romans he speaks of his hopes for a fulfilment of Judaism in Christianity he leaves no room for antisemitic agitation;” Raymond Lill, “German Catholicism’s Attitude toward the Jews in the Weimar Republic.” In Judaism and Christianity under the Impact of National Socialism, ed. Otto Dov Kulka, Paul R. Mendes-Flohr. Jerusalem: Israel Historical Society, 1987, 150–168, here 163. 109 Peterson, “Once Again, Erich Przywara and the Jews”, 161. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 53

The charge lacks nuance because Przywara does not oppose the emergence in Palestine of a Jewish State as such. What he opposes is rather an Israeli State interpreted “messianically,” such that it assumes the role of “gate of the nations” 110 and forger of a new humanity. To the extent that Palestinian Israel remains an ethnic nation constructed by human industry, Przywara argues, it cannot bring about the reconciled plurality that the Catholic Church, being instituted “from 111 above,” can alone realize. The Jewish community of Przywara’s day, it should 112 be added, were hardly unanimous in supporting a Jewish State in Palestine. Peterson’s allegation of anti-Zionism lacks internal consistency, moreover, because its logic does not square with his broader characterization of Przywara as pro-NS. In his “Reich und Kreuz” address, it will be remembered, Przywara suggestively opposes every “rounding of the Reich into itself.” Elsewhere he argues, again using suggestive terms, that the Incarnation has closed the era of 113 “sacral nationalism” or “national messianism.” Przywara’s wariness toward Zionist hopes of ushering in a new global order through the Palestinian State 114 is consistent with his alarm regarding the völkisch absolutism of NS. The parallel criticism of NS and Zionism as “sacral nationalisms” poses an either-or

110 Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum”, 660. For the description of sacral nationalism as “Messianismus,” see also id., “Jude, Heide, Christ”, 475. Przywara doubtless has in mind Zionist aspirations such as the following expressed by Martin Buber: “Wir, die wir als Mittler zwischen Europa und Asien nach Palästina gehen wollen, wir können nicht als Sendlinge eines untergangsreifen Abendlands vor den aus dumpfem Traum erwachenden Orient treten; wir sind zu Herolden eines neu werdenden Abendlands erkoren [...]. Die Brücke, die der Ungeist von Versailles nie zustandebringen wird, wir können sie erbauen”. Buber, Die Jüdische Bewegung, vol. 2, 214 f. 111 “Die Einheit der Völker, die das Judentum vermittlen zu können beansprucht, kann [...] nicht Erhaltung und Erfüllung ihrer besonderen Eigenarten bedeuten, sonder Untergang dieser Eigenarten in einem farblosen ‘Internationalismus”’. Przywara, “Judentum und Christentum”, 659 f. 112 Przywara’s acquaintance Hans Joachim Schoeps, for example, opposed political-religious Zionism as ersatz-messianism; see Hans Joachim Schoeps, “Bereit für Deutschland!” Der Patrio- tismus deutcher Juden und der Nationalsozialismus. Berlin: Haude & Spenersche, 1970, 110 f. At least one “assimilationist” organ opposed Palestinian settlement because it preferred intra- European settlement: a quasi-autonomous Jewish state under the Hapsburg crown; see H. Kadisch, “Die Österreichische Nationalitätsfrage und die Juden.” Neue Jüdische Monatshefte 11 (March 10, 1917): 300–306. 113 Przywara, “Jude, Heide, Christ”, 475. 114 Having detected in Schoeps’ Jüdischer Glaube in dieser Zeit (1932) a recrudescence of ancient Israel’s tendency to see “the divine in blood and soil,” Przywara is quick to draw the parallel to German, völkisch antisemitism: “Umgekehrt aber ist das Gericht Gottes über all ungläubigen Antisemitismen, daß sie selber diesem Semitismus von Boden und Blut verfallen” Erich Przywara, “Theologie des Judentums.” StZ 124 (1933): 341–342, here 342. Schoeps himself, interestingly enough, connects NS and Zionism as “völkisch” movements: “Im übrigen sind mir alle Völkischen 54 Aaron Pidel, S.J.

to Peterson: he must give up calling Przywara either anti-Zionist or pro-Nazi. The fact that Peterson paints Przywara as both pro-NS and anti-Zionist, with so little attention to the internal coherence of his charges, betrays again the severe limitations of his “Catholic fascist” hermeneutic.

4 Conclusion

Though this essay could not address all the alleged tokens of Przywara’s NS- affinity or antisemitic prejudice, it has attempted to provide the basic outlines of a response. It has argued that Catholic theologians deployed the motifs of Reich and Volk to such diverse ends that the engagement or even relative valorization of these themes cannot alone serve as a predictor of concrete NS support. The very diverse trajectories of Carl Schmitt and Alois Dempf indicate the inadequacy of such associative evidence. And while some doubtlessly developed a Reichs- theologie as a strategy of ingratiation, Przywara developed his as a strategy of contestation. Przywara describes the healing and elevating effect of grace upon the polarities of fallen nature in close parallel to the relativizing and liberating effect of ecclesial Reich upon political Reich, thereby casting National Socialism in the role of an idol that must be “pierced” before it can serve. He prescribes a similar sobering for the “Zionism of the Jewish State.” And while Przywara does admittedly see the solution to Jewish-Christian tensions as Jewish conver- sion, he entrusts this work to divine providence and projects its completion into the eschaton. Though this is not the theory, more common since Nostra Aetate 115 (1965), of Jewish and Christian covenants running in eternal parallel, it is not racial antisemitism either. Przywara’s express disdain for the “grotesque futilities” of racially motivated, coercive antisemitism indicate as much. Though more could be said regarding both Przywara’s political theology and, above all, his theology of Judaism, these thoughts must suffice. Peterson’s argument, though ultimately inadequate, has at least served to stimulate interest in Przywara not just as a systematic thinker of the analogia entis but as a cultural critic. Peterson goes wrong, I believe, not in having historically contextualized Przywara, but in having reduced the antiliberal Catholic context of the Weimar Republic – and Przywara along with it – to a monolith called “Catholic fascism.” Such a tendentious portrayal does an injustice to a thinker like Przywara, who commented on every cultural movement of the interwar years, yet rarely did so

– Nazis wie Zionisten – von jeher widerwärtig gewesen, da ich vom Staat aus gedacht habe”. Schoeps, “Bereit für Deutschland!”, 18. 115 The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Non-Christian Religions. Erich Przywara, S.J., and “Catholic Fascism” 55

with unqualified affirmation or unqualified negation. Przywara deserves a less biased presentation.