States of Exile

Only the Messiah himself consummates all history, in the sense that he alone redeems, completes, creates its relation to the Messianic. - Walter Benjamin, Theologico-Political Fragment All 'It was' is a fragment, a riddle, a dreadful chance - until the creative will says to it: 'But I willed it thus!' - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra All theological concepts must be tranvaluated in immanent terms.

The genius and hubris of Christianity is the same: the allegorization of scripture. I will use the concept of exile as an example. Pascal writes: "All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life; libido sentiendi , libido sciendi , libido dominandi ." Wretched is the cursed land which these three rivers of fire enflame rather than water! Happy they who, on these rivers, are not overwhelmed nor carried away, but are immovably fixed, not standing but seated on a low and secure base, whence they do not rise before the light, but, having rested in peace, stretch out their hands to Him, who must lift them up, and make them stand upright and firm in the porches of the holy Jerusalem! There pride can no longer assail them nor cast them down; and yet they weep, not to see all those perishable things swept away by the torrents, but at the remembrance of their loved country, the heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing dur...

Antonio Vieira, a Jesuit missionary, one of the greatest writers of Portugal . . . believed that the Jews should be recalled to his country (which between 1580 and 1640 lost its dynasty and freedom and became a Spanish kingdom) because they could re-create the wealth and greatness of his much-suffered and beloved land. He also believed that the Jews could be converted and that the Ten Tribes could be found in America. Vieira persuased King John IV in 1649 to found a Jewish company, exempt from the Inquisition and provided with a fleet which would ultimately recover Brazil. In a truly Messianic work he prophesied that the new pro-Jewish kingdom of Portugal would be the Biblical fifth universal monarchy and rival the power of the ancient Babylonian kings. - Paul Tabori, The Anatomy of Exile Is it too late to make this happen?