(5) In the providential machine transcendence is never given by itself and
separated from the world, as in Gnosis, but is always in relation to immanence.
On the other hand, the latter is never really such, since it is always thought
as an image or a reflection of the transcendent order. Accordingly, the second
level presents itself as an execution ( executio) of what has been arranged and
ordered on the first ( ordinatio). The division of powers is consubstantial with
the machine.
(6) The ontology of the acts of government is a vicarious ontology, in the
sense that, within the economical paradigm, every power has a vicarious charac-
ter, deputizes for another [ fa le veci di un altro]. This means that there is not a
“substance” of power but only an “economy” of it.
(7) The very distinction and correlation between the two levels, between
the first and second causes, between the general and the particular economy,
guarantees that the government is not a despotic power that does violence to the
freedom of creatures. On the contrary, it presupposes the freedom of those who
are governed, which manifests itself through the works of the second causes.
500
HOMO SACER II, 4
It should be clear by now in what sense we can say that the providential ap-
paratus (which is itself nothing but a reformulation and development of the
theological oikonomia) contains a kind of epistemological paradigm of modern
government. It is known that, in the history of law, a doctrine of government
and of public administration emerges late (not to mention administration law,
which, as such, is purely a modern creation). But well before jurists began to
formulate its first elements, philosophers and theologians had already elaborated
its canon in the doctrine of the providential gubernatio of the world. Providence and fate, with the procession of notions and concepts in which they articulate
themselves ( ordinatio/executio; Kingdom and Government; immediate and me-
diated government; primi agentes/agentes inferiores; primary act/collateral effect, etc.), are not only, in this sense, theological-philosophical concepts, but categories of law and politics.
As a matter of fact, the modern State inherits both aspects of the theo-
logical machine of the government of the world, and it presents itself as both
providence-State and destiny-State. Through the distinction between legislative or
sovereign power and executive or governmental power, the modern State acquires
the double structure of the governmental machine. At each turn, it wears the regal
clothes of providence, which legislates in a transcendent and universal way, but
lets the creatures it looks after be free, and the sinister and ministerial clothes of
fate, which carries out in detail the providential dictates and confines the reluctant
individuals within the implacable connection between the immanent causes and
between the effects that their very nature has contributed to determining. The
providential-economical paradigm is, in this sense, the paradigm of democratic
power, just as the theological-political is the paradigm of absolutism.
In this sense, it is not surprising that the collateral effect presents itself more
often as consubstantial with every act of government. What the government
aims at can be obtained, due to its very nature, only as a collateral effect, in an
area in which general and particular, positive and negative, calculation and un-
expected events tend to overlap. Governing means allowing the particular con-
comitant effects of a general “economy” to arise, an economy that would remain
in itself wholly ineffective, but without which no government is possible. It is
not so much that the effects (the Government) depend on being (the Kingdom),
but rather that being consists of its effects: such is the vicarious and effectual
ontology that defines the acts of government. And when the providential para-
digm begins to wane—at least in its transcendent aspect—the providence-State
and the destiny-State increasingly tend to identify themselves with the figure of
the modern rule of law, in which the law regulates the administration and the
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
501
administrative apparatus applies and implements the law. But even in this case,
the decisive element remains the one to which, from the beginning, the machine
as a whole was destined: the oikonomia, that is, the government of men and
things. The economic-governmental vocation of contemporary democracies is
not something that has happened accidentally, but is a constitutive part of the
theological legacy of which they are the depositaries.
6
Angelology and Bureaucracy
6.1. In 1935, the same year when he resolutely denies the possibility of
a Christian political theology in his monograph, Monotheism as a
Political Problem, Peterson also affirms the “political” and “public” character of the celestial city and—through its liturgical participation in it—of the Church.
He does so, unexpectedly, in the form of a short treatise on angels ( Das Buch von
den Engeln. Stellung und Bedeutung der heiligen Engel im Kultus, 1935), which, al-
though it went unnoticed in the theologian’s bibliography, should be read along-
side the better-known work that, in a way, it brings to completion.
“The development of the Church,” writes Peterson, “leads from the earthly to
the celestial Jerusalem, from the city of the Jews to that of the angels and saints”
(Peterson 1994, p. 197). In this perspective, the Church is constantly described in
the treatise using “political” images: in the same way as profane political assem-
blies, even the Christian ekklēsia can be defined as “the assembly of citizens of the celestial city with full rights [ Vollbürger], that gather together to carry out acts of worship” (ibid., p. 198). Even the Pauline text is read, by way of a somewhat
violent interpretation, politically: the term politeuma in Philippians 3:20, that the Vulgate renders as conversatio (way of life, conduct), is translated as “citizenship,”
and a note suggests, albeit hesitantly, that the verb apographesthai in Hebrews
12:23 (which in all probability has the eschatological meaning of “being written
in the book of life”), actually means “inscription in the register of the citizens
of the celestial city” (ibid., p. 231). In any case, Peterson’s thesis is that, precisely
insofar as it keeps to its path toward its celestial goal, the Church “necessarily
comes, through worship, into relation with the inhabitants of the celestial city,”
that is, with angels, “citizens of heaven,” and with the blessed (ibid.). In other
words, it is a case of demonstrating that all of the cultual expressions of the
Church should be understood “either as a participation of the angels in earthly
worship or, vice versa, [ . . . ] as participation in the worship that the angels offer
to God in heaven” (ibid., p. 199).
The strategic meaning of the cultual link that is thus established between the
502
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
503
Church and the celestial city is clarified a few pages later. Analyzing the so-called
liturgical “intervals” of the Book of Revelation, which acco
rding to Peterson
reveal acclamations stemming from the ceremonies of imperial worship, he an-
nounces the, at first glance, surprising thesis that “the cult of the celestial Church
and, therefore, also the liturgy of the earthly Church that is bound to the ce-
lestial, have an originary relation [ ursprüngliche Beziehung] with the world of
politics” (ibid., p. 202).
The old Augustinian theme according to which the celestial city will be consti-
tuted by the angels and the blessed, who will take the place of the fallen angels so
as to restore the perfect number of the Kingdom, assumes in Peterson a strongly
political flavor. The images that Augustine borrows from the political vocabulary
of his time so as to describe the celestial Jerusalem (“[ . . . ] adiunctis etiam legion-
ibus et exercitibus angelorum, ut fiat illa una civitas sub uno rege, et una quaedam
provincia sub uno imperatore, felix in perpetua pace et salute [ . . . ]”: Augustine,
Expositions on the Book of Psalms, 36, 3–4) are interpreted literally by Peterson as the foundation of the “politico-religious [ religiöspolitische]” character of the celestial city and, therefore, of the Church that, through worship, communicates with
it: “It is a case of the politico-religious concept or, in other words, of the concept
of order [ Ordnungsbegriff ] of a celestial hierarchy that the worship of the Church issues in. This is a further confirmation of our thesis that Christian worship has an
originary relation to the political sphere” (Peterson 1994, p. 214).
While in the book on Monotheism as a Political Problem Peterson resolutely
denies, in contrast to Schmitt, the legitimacy of a political-theological inter-
pretation of Christian faith, he nonetheless affirms at the same time with equal
determination the politico-religious character of the Church. For this reason it
is all the more striking that he continues to make comparisons with the profane
political sphere: “In the same way that the emperor, in being accompanied by
his bodyguards, expresses the publicity [ Öffentlichkeit] of his political dominion, so Christ appearing at mass with angels as his bodyguards, expresses the publicity of his politico-religious lordship” (ibid., p. 223). But this “public” character
has not “been conferred on the Church by the State; it belongs to it from its
origin, inasmuch as it has a Lord that, in the same way as he has a celestial king-
dom, also possesses a celestial publicity” (ibid.). The political nature of which
Peterson speaks consists, in other words, entirely in the relation that worship
establishes, by way of the participation of angels, with this “celestial publicity”:
“The relation between the Ekklēsia and the celestial polis is [ . . . ] a political relation, and for this reason the angels must always enter into the acts of worship
of the Church” (ibid.).
504
HOMO SACER II, 4
The reason for the exclusion of political-theology begins to be revealed here:
if politics, from the Christian standpoint, is solely an angelological-cultual re-
lation between the Church and the celestial kingdom, all extrapolation of this
“politico-religious” character from the worldly sphere is illegitimate.
In Christian eschatology, every possible theological meaning of worldly poli-
tics has been exhausted once and for all: “That celestial worship has an originary
relation with the political world in the Book of Revelation is explained by the
fact that the apostles have abandoned the earthly Jerusalem, as the center of
politics and worship, to turn to the celestial Jerusalem, as a city and regal court,
but also as a temple and place of worship. Another fact is linked to this, that is,
that the anthem of the Church transcends all national anthems, in the same way
that the language of the Church transcends all others. To conclude, it should be
noted that such an eschatological transcendence has as a final consequence that
the entire universe is borne along by the song of praise” (ibid., p. 206).
6.2. The thesis that summarizes the theological strategy of the treatise is that
the angels are the guarantors of the originary relation between the Church and
the political sphere, of the “public” and “politico-religious” character of worship
that is celebrated both in the ekklēsia and in the celestial city. But if we now ask what this “politicality” consists in, we will be surprised to see that the “publicity,”
which finds both its heraldic emblem and its originary reality in the angels, is
defined solely through the song of praise. Christian worship has a genuine rela-
tion to the political sphere only to the extent that it tends “to transform Church
worship into a service similar to the cult of angels; but this is possible only by
bringing into worship a song of praise [ Lobgesang] that is similar in its essence
to the song of praise of the angels” (ibid., p. 214). For this reason, according to
Peterson, liturgy culminates in the Sanctus [ trisagio], in the hymn that glorifies God through the triple acclamation Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus; and as it is said of the angels that “they sing with untiring lips and ceaseless praise the Sanctus, we can for this very reason participate continuously in the angelical liturgy in the
form of a daily and nightly service” (ibid., p. 215).
That the song of praise and glory is not merely one characteristic of the
angels among others, but defines their essence and therefore their “politicality,”
is affirmed without reservation by Peterson in the conclusion of his treatise.
In this exuding and flowing [ Verströmen und Ausströmen] in words and song,
in this phenomenon consists the essence of these angels [ . . . ] It is not a case
of angels being, to begin with and abstractly, “angels in general,” that sing in
addition, but rather of angels that are such inasmuch as they spread, in the way
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
505
we have described, in the glorification of the Holy, holy, holy. It is this cry [ Ruf ]
that properly constitutes their essence; in this exuding they are what they are,
that is, Cherubims and Seraphims. (Ibid., p. 226)
If the politicality and truth of the ekklēsia is defined by its participation in the angels, then men can also reach their full celestial citizenship only by imitating
the angels and participating with them in the song of praise and glorification.
The political vocation of man is an angelic vocation, and the angelic vocation is
a vocation to the song of glory. The circle is closed:
The celestial songs correspond to the songs of the Church, and the intimate life
of the Church is articulated according to the participation in the celestial song.
The angels are the expression of the public character of worship that the Church
offers to God: and since the angels are in relation with the politico-religious
world in heaven, it follows that, through them, even the worship of the Church
is necessarily related to the political sphere. Finally, if through their song the
angels distinguish in the Church the “angel-intimating” [ EngelÄhnliche] and the
“people” [ Volk], they are also those that awaken the mystical life of the Church,
which achieves completion when man, incorporated into the angelic choruses,
begins to praise God from the depths of his creaturely being. For this reason we
Te deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur,
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur,
Tibi omnes Angeli, tibi caeli et universae Potestates
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus deus Sabaoth,
Pleni sunt caeli et terra majestatis gloriae tuae. (Ibid., p. 230)
The brief note to the text of the Te Deum, which closes the treatise as if to seal it, underlines for the last time the politicality that is in question in worship:
It should be noted that the Te Deum defines God as Pater immensae majestatis
and the Son as Rex gloriae. Even the Te Deum confirms the politico-religious character of the language of Christian worship. (Ibid., p. 243)
6.3. Of course, Peterson could not be unaware that the attribute of the song of
praise through which he defines the angels constitutes, in the Christian tradition
of angelology, only one aspect of their being. Gregory the Great—whose Homelia
in Evangelium, one of the incunabula of Christian angelology Peterson refers us
to on more than one occasion—clearly expresses the dual function of the angels.
Commenting on the verse from Daniel (7:10) “Millia millium ministrabant ei et
decies millies centena millia assistebant ei,” he writes “ administering [ ministrare]
506
HOMO SACER II, 4
differs from assisting [ assistere meaning ‘standing before, in the presence of someone’], because the angels that serve as God’s ministers emerge to bring to us the
announcements, whereas those angels that assist bask in his intimate contempla-
tion and are thus not sent to work outside” ( Homelia in Evangelium, II, 34, 11–12, in PL, 76, 1254c). And since those who administer are more numerous than those
who mainly assist, the number of assistants is defined, whereas that of those who
minister remains undefined ( millia millium was perceived to express a generic
number). Alexander of Hales and Philip the Chancellor define this dual charac-
ter of the angelic condition as a duality of “virtues” (“The spirits, which we call
angels, have two virtues: the virtue of administering [ virtus administrandi] and
that of assisting God [ virtus assitendi Deo], that is, of contemplating”: Alexander of Hales, Glossa in quatuor libros sententiarum Petri Lombardi, II, d. 10, p. 98) or
The Omnibus Homo Sacer Page 77