The Omnibus Homo Sacer

by Giorgio Agamben

  the hierarchy of angelic ministries has become completely inoperative. While in

  hell something like penal administration is still in operation, paradise not only

  knows no government, but also no writing, reading, no theology, and even no

  liturgical celebration—besides doxology, the hymn of glory. Glory occupies the

  place of postjudicial inoperativity; it is the eternal amen in which all works and all divine and human words are resolved.

  In Judaism, inoperativity as the dimension most proper to God and man

  is given a grandiose image in the Sabbath. Indeed, the festivity of the Jews par

  excellence has its theological foundation in the fact that it is not the work of

  creation that is considered sacred but the day on which all work ceases (Genesis

  2:2–3; Exodus 20:11). Thus, inoperativity is the name of what is most proper to

  God (“{Only God truly posses inoperative [ anapauesthai] being}”: Philo, On the Cherubim, §90, p. 89; “{The Sabbath, which means inoperativity [ anapausis], belongs to God}”: ibid., §87, p. 89) and, at the same time, that which is awaited

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  in eschatology (“They should not enter into my inoperativity [ eis tēn katapausin

  mou]”: Psalms 95:11).

  In Paul’s Letters, in particular the Epistle to the Hebrews, the eschatological

  theme of inoperativity is introduced through a Midrash on Psalm 95:11. Paul (or

  whoever is the author of the epistle) calls “sabbatism” ( sabbatismos: Hebrews 4:9) the inoperativity and beatitude that await the people of God.

  Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his inoperativity

  [ katapausis], some of you will be excluded from it. For unto us was the gospel

  preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not

  being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we who have believed do enter

  into inoperativity, as He said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into

  my inoperativity: although the works were finished from the foundation of the

  world. For He spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God

  did rest the seventh day from all His works. And in this place again, they shall not enter into my inoperativity. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter

  therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of their

  lack of obedience: Again, He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after

  so long a time; as it is said, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

  For if Joshua had given them inoperativity, then would He not afterward have

  spoken of another day? There remaineth therefore a sabbatism to the people of

  God. For he that is entered into His inoperativity, he also hath ceased from his

  own works, as God did from His. (Hebrews 4:1–10)

  The link that Paul, developing a biblical and rabbinical motif, establishes between

  the eschatological condition, Sabbath, and inoperativity profoundly marks the

  Christian conception of the Kingdom. In his commentary on the Epistle to the

  Hebrews, John Chrysostom identifies without reservation inoperativity, sabba-

  tism, and the Kingdom of heaven: “For [Paul] said not inoperativity but ‘Sab-

  bath-keeping’; calling the kingdom ‘Sabbath-keeping,’ by the appropriate name”

  (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews 6, §2, p. 654); “What

  other inoperativity [ katapausis] then is there, except the kingdom of Heaven

  [ basileia tōn ouranōn], of which the Sabbath was an image and type [ eikōn kai

  typos]?” (ibid., 6, §7, p. 651). Sabbatism is the name of eschatological glory that is, in essence, inoperativity. The Clementine Homilies, a text strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian traditions, defines God himself as Saturday and inoperativity. In an extremely dense theological passage, after attributing to God the name

  “nothing” ( to ouden) and linking him to the void, the author writes: “This is the

  mystery of the Sabbath [ hebdomados mystērion]. He Himself is the inoperativ-

  ity of all things [ tōn holōn anapausis]” (Clement of Alexandria, The Clementine

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  HOMO SACER II, 4

  Homilies, Chapter 17, §10, pp. 320–321). And in the Pseudo-Dionysius, in the

  passage that we have already cited on hymnology, glory, the hymnical, and inop-

  erativity are tightly conjoined and the hymns of the angels are defined as “divine

  places of thearchical inoperativity [ theioi topoi tēs thearchikēs ( . . . ) katapauseōs]”

  ( Celestial Hierarchy, 7, 57).

  It is in Augustine that this theme becomes a problem or, more precisely,

  the supreme theological problem, that of the eternal Saturday (“sabbatum non

  habens vesperam,” “the Saturday that does not set”), which concludes—in a

  sublime and, at the same time, tortured glimpse— The City of God, that is,

  the work that contains his most extreme meditation on theology and politics.

  Immediately, the problem is clearly announced in all its simplicity: “How the

  saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies

  [ Quid acturi sint in corporibus inmortalibus atque spiritalibus sancti]?” ( The City of God, Book XXII, Chapter 29, p. 691). Augustine realizes that one cannot

  properly speak either of “action” or otium and that the problem of the final

  inoperativity of creatures surpasses the intelligence of both men and angels.

  What is in question is “‘the peace of God which,’ as the apostle says, ‘passeth all

  understanding’” (ibid.).

  The vision of this “peace” is, for Augustine, so difficult to conceive that, on

  the one hand, he is keen to qualify it by stating that it will not only be intellec-

  tual, because we will see God through the senses of our glorious body. On the

  other hand, he forgets that what is in question is precisely a “peace” and appears

  to maintain that on the eternal Saturday we will see God govern a new heaven

  and a new earth (ibid.). But he quickly returns to the decisive question, that of

  the unthinkable nature of the inoperativity of the blessed. It is a case of a new

  state that knows no acedia ( desidia) or need ( indigentia), and whose movements, which it is impossible even merely to imagine, will nevertheless be full of glory

  and decorum (ibid. , XXII, 30). He finds no other adequate expression for the

  blessed inoperativity, which is neither a doing nor a not-doing, than a “becom-

  ing Sabbath” of the resurrected in which they are identified with God:

  “Be inoperative and know that I am God [ vacate et videte quoniam ego sum Deus].”

  There shall be the great Sabbath which has no evening [ . . . ] For we shall be

  the Sabbath, when we shall be filled and replenished with God’s blessing and

  sanctification. There shall we be inoperative [ vacantes], and know that He is God

  [ . . . ] But when we are restored by Him and perfected with greater grace, we

  shall be eternally inoperative [ vacabimus in aeterno] to see that He is God, for

  we shall be full of Him when He shall be all in all. (Ibid., p. 695)

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  Here, in a stuttering attempt to think the unthinkable, Augustine defines the

  final condition as a sabbatism to the nth degree, a making the Sabbath take rest

  in the Sabbath, a resolving of inoperativity into inoperativity:

  After this period
God shall be inoperative on the Sabbath, when He shall make

  inoperative in itself that very Sabbath that we shall be [ cum eundem diem septimum, quod nos erimus, in se ipso Deo faciet requiescere] [ . . . ] Suffice it to say that this shall be our Sabbath, which shall be brought to a close, not by an evening,

  but by the Lord’s day, as an eighth and eternal day [ . . . ] There we shall be in-

  operative [ vacabimus] and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. For what other end do we propose to ourselves than to

  attain to the kingdom of which there is no end? (Ibid., p. 696)

  And only at this point, in the full glory of the Sabbath, where nothing is in

  excess and nothing is lacking, Augustine can conclude his work and pronounce

  his amen:

  I think I have now, by God’s help, discharged my obligation in writing his large

  work. Let those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said

  too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough join me

  in giving thanks to God. Amen. (Ibid.)

  8.23. If the postjudicial condition coincides with the supreme glory (“vera

  ibi gloria erit”: The City of God, p. 696) and if glory in the century of centuries has the form of an eternal Sabbath, what remains to be investigated is precisely

  the meaning of this intimacy between glory and sabbatism. At the beginning

  and the end of the highest power there stands, according to Christian theology,

  a figure not of action and government but of inoperativity. The indescribable

  mystery that glory, with its blinding light, must hide from the gaze of the scrutatores maiestatis is that of divine inoperativity, of what God does before creating the world and after the providential government of the world is complete. It is

  not the kabhod, which cannot be thought or looked upon, but the inoperative

  majesty that it veils with its clouds and the splendor of its insignia. Glory, both

  in theology and in politics, is precisely what takes the place of that unthinkable

  emptiness that amounts to the inoperativity of power. And yet, precisely this un-

  sayable vacuity is what nourishes and feeds power (or, rather, what the machine

  of power transforms into nourishment). That means that the center of the gov-

  ernmental apparatus, the threshold at which Kingdom and Government cease-

  lessly communicate and ceaselessly distinguish themselves from one another is,

  in reality, empty; it is only the Sabbath and katapausis—and, nevertheless, this

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  HOMO SACER II, 4

  inoperativity is so essential for the machine that it must at all costs be adopted

  and maintained at its center in the form of glory.

  In the iconography of power, profane and religious, this central vacuity of

  glory, this intimacy of majesty and inoperativity, found its exemplary symbol in

  the hetoimasia tou thronou, that is, in the image of the empty throne.

  The adoration of an empty throne has ancient roots and can be found in

  the Upanishads. In Mycenaean Greece, the throne discovered in the so-called

  Throne Room in Knossos is, according to the archaeologists, an object of wor-

  ship and not a seat designed to be used. The bas-relief in the Medici Villa in

  Rome, which represents the empty throne from the front and surmounted by a

  crown surrounded by towers, appears to testify to a cult of the throne in the rites

  of the Magna Mater (Picard, p. 11). A cult of the throne for political ends, dating

  back to the fourth century bc about which we are well informed is that of the

  empty throne of Alexander, established in Cynda by Eumenes, the commander

  in chief of the Macedonian troops in Asia, in 319–312 bc. Claiming inspiration

  from Alexander himself who appeared to him in a dream, Eumenes fitted out

  the royal tent with an empty golden throne at its center on which rested the

  crown, scepter, and sword of the deceased monarch. Before the empty throne

  stood an altar on which officers and soldiers spread incense and myrrh before

  performing a ritual proskynēsis, as though Alexander had been present.

  The first record of this oriental custom in Rome is to be found in the sella

  curulis—the seat usually allocated to the republican magistrates in office—which

  the senate awarded to Caesar to be exhibited at the games, empty and adorned

  with a golden crown encrusted with precious stones. In Augustus’s epoch, both

  the written testimonies and his image as it is reproduced on coins show that

  the golden throne of the divus Iulius was constantly exhibited at the games. We

  know that Caligula had an empty throne placed on the Capitoline Hill, in front

  of which the senators were made to perform the proskynēsis. Alföldi provides

  reproductions of coins that clearly demonstrate that under Titus and Domi-

  tian, the empty sellae of the emperors, surmounted by a crown, had by then

  been transformed into thrones as objects of devotion similar in every way to the

  pulvinaria and the lectisternia upon which the gods were represented. Cassius Dio (72, 17, 4) tells us that, for Commodus, whether he was present or absent,

  theaters were fitted out with the symbols of Hercules: a golden throne, a lion

  skin, and a club.

  However, the cultual meaning of the empty throne culminates in Christian-

  ity, in the grandiose eschatological image of the hetoimasia tou thronou, which

  adorns the triumphal arches and apses of the paleo-Christian and Byzantine

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  basilicas. So the fifth-century mosaic on the arch of Saint Sixtus III in Santa

  Maria Maggiore in Rome shows an empty throne encrusted with multicolored

  stones, on which rests a cushion and a cross; next to it one can make out a lion,

  an eagle, a winged human figure, some fragments of wings, and a crown. In the

  church of San Prisco in Capua, another mosaic represents the empty throne, be-

  tween a winged bull and an eagle, resting on which is a scroll fastened with seven

  seals. In the Byzantine basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello, the hetoimasia

  in the mosaic of the Last Judgment shows a throne with a cross, a crown, and a

  sealed book, accompanied above it by seraphims with six wings and, on either

  side, by two large figures of angels. In Mystras, in the church of Saint Demetrius,

  a fresco of the thirteenth century exhibits an empty throne suspended from the

  air, draped in purple, and surrounded by six acclaiming angels; just above it, in

  a crystalline transparent rhombus, there is a book, an amphora, a snow-white

  bird, and a black bull.

  Historians usually interpret the image of the empty throne as a symbol of

  regality, both divine and profane. “The value of the throne,” writes Picard, “never

  appears with as much force as it does when the throne is empty” (Picard, p. 1).

  This interpretation, which is certainly simplistic, could be developed in the

  terms of Kantorowicz’s theory of the “two bodies” of the king, which suggests

  that the throne, like the other insignia of regality, refers more to the office and

  the dignitas of the sovereign than to his person.

  A similar explanation cannot, however, provide an account of the empty

  throne in the Christian hetoimasia. This must first be referred back to its eschatological context in Revelation 4:1–11. Here the apostle has inseparably conjoined

  t
he originary paradigm of all Christian liturgical doxologies with an eschato-

  logical vision that takes up again the motifs of the hallucinatory prophecies of

  Isaiah 6:1–4 and Ezekiel 1:1–28. The image of the throne, upon which, in Isaiah,

  YHVH sits and in Ezekiel, a “likeness as the appearance of a man” (1:26), is

  derived from both of these passages. From Ezekiel the “four living creatures”

  (1:5) with the faces of a lion, a bull, a man, and an eagle (which from the time

  of Irenaeus would be identified with the evangelists); from Isaiah, the song of

  the Trisagion (“holy holy holy is the Lord omnipotent”), which makes here its

  first appearance in Christian doxology. It is decisive, however, that while in the

  apocalyptic text, the anonymous being who sits on the throne “was to look upon

  like a jasper and a sardine stone” (Revelation 4:3), in the representations of the

  hetoimasia tou thronou the throne is absolutely empty—aside from the book

  (which in the text lies “in the right hand of him that sat”), the crown, and, later,

  the symbols of the crucifixion.

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  HOMO SACER II, 4

  The term hetoimasia, like the verb hetoimazō, and the adjective hetoimos is, in the Greek of the Septuagint, a technical term that, in the Psalms, refers to

  YHVH’s throne: “{The LORD prepared His throne in Heaven}” (Psalms 102:19);

  “Justice and judgment are the hetoimasia of thy throne” (89:14); “Thy throne is

  established ( hetoimos) of old” (93:2). Hetoimasia does not mean the act of preparing and fitting out something, but the readiness of the throne. The throne

  has always been ready and has always awaited the glory of the Lord. According

  to rabbinical Judaism, the throne of glory is, as we have seen, one of the seven

  things that YHVH created before the creation of the world. In the same sense, in

  Christian theology the throne has been ready for all eternity because the glory of

  God is co-eternal with it. The empty throne is not, therefore, a symbol of regality but of glory. Glory precedes the creation of the world and survives its end. The throne is empty not only because glory, though coinciding with the divine essence is not

  identified with it, but also because it is in its innermost self-inoperativity and

  sabbatism. The void is the sovereign figure of glory.