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THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD Adam Kotsko Stanford University Press • Stanford, California Stanford University Press Stanford, California 2017 © by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kotsko, Adam, author. Title: The prince of this world / Adam Kotsko. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016024047 (print) | LCCN 2016025606 (ebook) | ISBN 9780804799683 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503600201 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503600218 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Devil--Christianity--History of doctrines. | Good and evil--Religious aspects--Christianity. Classification: LCC BT982 .K68 2016 (print) | LCC BT982 (ebook) | DDC 235/.4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024047 Cover photograph: Guilliame Geefs, Lucifer. Photo by Luc Viatour. Wikimedia Commons. 1025 15 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in . / Adobe Caslon Pro League with you I seek And mutual amity so strait, so close, That I with you must dwell or you with me Henceforth. Milton, Paradise Lost The shift in level worked out by secularization often coincides not with a weakening, but with an absolutization of the secularized paradigm. Agamben, The Use of Bodies TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction: Why the Devil? 5 The Problem of Evil 8 Methodology PART I GENEALOGY OF THE DEVIL 1 19 Chapter The Hebrew Biblical Tradition 19 The Paradox of Minority Monotheism 23 The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Theocracy 28 “The King of Babylon, my servant” 33 Assimilation and Apocalyptic 39 The Insider-Outsider 44 The Three Paradigms 2 47 Chapter The New Testament and Early Christianity 47 Apocalyptic and Its Christian Vicissitudes 51 The Hall of Mirrors 57 “All these kingdoms will I give you” 63 Demonic Doctrines 71 The Devil Converts to Christianity viii CONTENTS 3 77 Chapter Monasticism and Medieval Christianity 77 The Ransom Paid the Devil 81 The Satanic Social Contract 88 A New Temptation in the Wilderness 96 The Ransom Paid to God 103 God Becomes the Devil PART II LIFE OF THE DEVIL 4 109 Chapter The Fall of the Devil 112 Untamed Wills 118 The Trap of Grace 123 Founding the Earthly City 127 Demonology, Slavery, and Racialization 130 The Empty Space of Freedom 5 138 Chapter The Earthly City 140 Original Sin and the Restrainer 147 “The unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews” 157 Worse Than the Devil 164 The Necessary Evil 6 169 Chapter Life in Hell 173 The Sociopathy of the Redeemed 178 “The great fundament of the world” 183 Carceral Christianity 188 The Glory of the Lord 195 Conclusion: The Legacy of the Devil 198 The Trap of Freedom 202 Notes toward a New Paradigm 207 Notes 215 Bibliography 221 Index ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ted Jennings, Laurel Schneider, and Anthony Smith all read the full man- uscript (and earlier drafts) in detail, providing sympathetic but rigorous critique. Bruce Rosenstock has been an invaluable dialogue partner from the earliest stages of this project, most notably for pointing me toward 2 Maccabees, and Brennan Breed steered me from the path of error in my reading of the Hebrew Bible. Both read early drafts and provided valuable comments. I owe all these readers a debt of thanks. I also had the privilege of teaching the materials treated in this book in multiple settings, and I thank Carol Anderson of Kalamazoo College, Barbara Stone of Shimer College, and Ken Stone of Chicago Theological Seminary for that oppor- tunity—along with my students in all three classes. I am grateful as well to those who provided me the opportunity to work out my ideas through invited lectures: Frances Restuccia (Psychoanalytic Practices Seminar, Ma- hindra Humanities Center, Harvard University), Slavoj Žižek (The Ac- tuality of the Theologico-Political Conference, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities), Steve Shaviro and Ken Jackson (Wayne State University), and Marco Abel and Roland Vegso (Humanities on the Edge series, University of Nebraska–Lincoln). Finally, I express my profound thanks to Emily-Jane Cohen for her advocacy and help in bringing this project to fruition.
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