The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. Vol. 23, title : Religion and the Rise of Modernity Works author : Voegelin, Eric.; Wizer, James L. publisher : University of Missouri Press isbn10 | asin : 0826211941 print isbn13 : 9780826211941 ebook isbn13 : 9780826261939 language : English Philosophy, History‐‐Philosophy, Political subject science‐‐Philosophy. publication date : 1998 lcc : B3354.V88 1989 v. 23eb ddc : 320/.09 Philosophy, History‐‐Philosophy, Political subject : science‐‐Philosophy. cover Page i The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin: Volume 23 History of Political Ideas: Volume V Religion and the Rise of Modernity page_i Page ii PROJECTED VOLUMES IN THE COLLECTED WORKS 1. On the Form of the American Mind 2. Race and State 3. The History of the Race Idea 4. The Authoritarian State 5. Political Religions; The ew Science of Politics; and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism 6. Anamnesis 7. Published Essays, 1922 8. Published Essays 9. Published Essays 10. Published Essays 11. Published Essays 12. Published Essays, 19661985 13. Selected Book Reviews 14. Order and History, Volume I, Israel and Revelation 15. Order and History, Volume II, The World of the Polis 16. Order and History, Volume III, Plato and Aristotle 17. Order and History, Volume IV, The Ecumenic Age 18. Order and History, Volume V, In Search of Order 19. History of Political Ideas, Volume I 20. History of Political Ideas, Volume II 21. History of Political Ideas, Volume III 22. History of Political Ideas, Volume IV 23. History of Political Ideas, Volume V 24. History of Political Ideas, Volume VI 25. History of Political Ideas, Volume VII 26. History of Political Ideas, Volume VIII 27. The ature of the Law, and Related Legal Writings 28. What Is History? And Other Late Unpublished Writings 29. Selected Correspondence 30. Selected Correspondence 31. Miscellaneous Papers 32. Miscellaneous Papers 33. Autobiographical Reflections 34. Index page_ii Page iii HISTORY OF POLITICAL IDEAS Series Editor, Ellis Sandoz I Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity Edited by Athanasios Moulakis II The Middle Ages to Aquinas Edited by Peter von Sivers III. The Later Middle Ages Edited by David Walsh IV. Renaissance and Reformation Edited by David L. Morse and William M. Thompson V. Religion and the Rise of Modernity Edited by James L. Wiser VI. Revolution and the ew Science Edited by Barry Cooper VII. The ew Order and Last Orientation Edited by Jürgen Gebhardt and Thomas A. Hollweck VIII. Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man Edited by David Walsh page_iii Page iv EDITORIAL BOARD Paul Caringella Jürgen Gebhardt Thomas A. Hollweck Ellis Sandoz The Editorial Board offers grateful acknowledgment to the Earhart Foundation, Liberty Fund, Inc., Robert J. Cihak, M.D., and John C. Jacobs, Jr., for support provided at various stages in the preparation of this book for publication. A special thanks for support goes to the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust. The University of Missouri Press offers its grateful acknowledgment to the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust for generous contributions to this volume as well as the preceding two volumes in the series. The Press also offers its continuing grateful acknowledgment for generous contributions from the R. C. Kemper Charitable Trust and Foundation and from the Earhart Foundation in support of the publication of these volumes. page_iv Page v The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin: Volume 23 History of Political Ideas: Volume V Religion and the Rise of Modernity Edited with an Introduction by James L. Wiser page_v Page vi Copyright © 1998 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 02 01 00 99 98 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (Revised for volume V) Voegelin, Eric, 1901- [Selections, 1997] History of political ideas / edited with an introduction by James L. Wiser p. cm. (The collected works of Eric Voegelin; v. 23) Includes index. Contents: v. V. Religion and the Rise of Modernity. ISBN 0-8262-1126-7 (vol. I: alk. paper) ISBN 0-8262-1142-9 (vol. II: alk. paper) ISBN 0-8262-1154-2 (vol. III: alk. paper) ISBN 0-8262-1155-0 (vol. IV: alk. paper) ISBN 0-8262-1194-1 (vol. V: alk. paper) ISBN 0-8262-1174-7 (set) 1. Philosophy. 2. HistoryPhilosophy. 3. Political science Philosophy. I. Wiser, James L. II. Title. III. Series: Voegelin, Eric, 1901- Works. 1989; v. 23. B3354.V88 1989 v. 23 320'.09dc21 97-13266 CIP This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Designer: Albert Crochet Typesetter: BookComp, Inc. Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typeface: Trump Mediaeval page_vi Page vii Contents Editors' Introduction 1 Part Five. The Great Confusion (continued from Vol. IV) 2. The Great Confusion II: Decisions and Positions 17 3. The English CommonwealthHooker 70 4. Interpolity RelationsVitoria 108 5. Man in History and Nature 134 6. Bodin 180 Index 253 page_vii Page 1 Editor's Introduction I In one of several differing descriptions of the "History of Political Ideas" project that Voegelin prepared for his editors, he divided his proposed study into three chronological periods.1 The first period, entitled "Polis and Philosophy," went to 300 B.C. The second, entitled "Empire and Christianity," covered the period from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1500; and the last, entitled "The Gnostic Age,'' was from A.D. 1500 to the present. Those who are familiar with Voegelin's work, especially his ew Science of Politics and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism,2 will recognize the term Gnosticism as one of the concepts Voegelin found most helpful in his own efforts to better understand the nature of political modernity. Concerned that contemporary political science had not yet succeeded in truly comprehending the nature of the then dominant political ideologies and their accompanying collectivist movementsthat is, Nazism, fascism, and CommunismVoegelin sought a better understanding of what he considered to be the disorder of the age. His first attempt, published as Die politischen Religionen,3 argued for the essentially religious character of what at first may have appeared to be a purely secular phenomenon. 1.The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 19, History of Political Ideas, vol. I, Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity, ed. Athanasios Moulakis (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), 13. 2. Eric Voegelin, The ew Science of Politics: An Introduction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952) and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism: Two Essays, trans. William Fitzpatrick, introduction by Ellis Sandoz (1968; rpt. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1997). 3. Eric Voegelin, Die politischen Religionen (Vienna: Bermann-Fischer, 1938). page_1 Page 2 In this analysis, Voegelin interpreted National Socialism, in particular, as an example of an essentially immanentist political religion. By immanentizing the object of mankind's quest for the ground of Being, such forms of religion were in fact based upon a divinization of selected features of the profane order. On the one hand, National Socialism was a peculiarly modern phenomenon inasmuch as it claimed that its principles were supported by the teachings of modern science. At the same time, however, according to Voegelin's early analysis, National Socialism, albeit modern, represented simply another example of a specific and apparently recurring form of religious consciousness. In time, Voegelin himself came to question the adequacy of this understanding. By grouping together such immanentist religious movements as modern National Socialism, on one hand, and the ancient cult of the Egyptian sun-god, on the other, this argument failed to acknowledge important differences in kind. The cult of the Egyptian sun-god existed prior to the emergence of the Israelitic, Greek, and Christian articulations of transcendence. It is as if the human soul as a sensorium of transcendence had not yet been "discovered."4 Prior to such a discovery, reality was experienced as compact and undifferentiated. However, given the events of Greek philosophy and Israelitic and Christian revelation, the earlier understanding of a compact and undifferentiated reality was "corrected" by the discovery of the transcendent source of order itself. This discovery was a historical event in consciousness. Once it had occurred, one could not simply go back to earlier formulations without intentionally ignoring this newly articulated truth. Movements like National Socialism were fundamentally different from the cult of the Egyptian sun-god inasmuch as they required a turning away from a dimension of reality that had not yet become apparent to those who lived prior to its discovery. The cult of the Egyptian sungod expressed the truth of reality as it was experienced at the time. National Socialism, on the other hand, sought to deny the order of reality as it had come to be understood after the discovery of the soul as the sensorium of transcendence. Voegelin's earlier treatment of the two cults as essentially similar phenomena failed to appreciate this important difference. 4. Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought, trans. T. G. Rosenmeyer (New York: Harper and Row, 1960). page_2 Page 3 Voegelin's dissatisfaction with the imprecision of the concept of political religion as an analytical category for understanding political modernity led him to a reexamination of his prior worka reexamination that occurred during the time he was working on his History of Political Ideas. The result of that effort appeared in his ew Science of Politics. There, Voegelin concluded that "the essence of modernity [is] the growth of Gnosticism."5 From his perspective, the superiority of this analysis, vis-à-vis his earlier efforts, was due to the fact that it more precisely explained that which differentiated the mass movements of modernity from their ancient analogues.