Typology and the Holocaust: Erich Auerbach and Judeo-Christian Europe
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2012, Vol 3, Issue 3
Abstract
In response to Nazi exclusion of the Jews from German society on racial grounds, Erich Auerbach (1892–1957), a secular Jewish intellectual inspired by cultural Protestantism and Catholicism, formed a vision of a cosmopolitan Judeo-Christian civilization that reintegrated the Jews as biblical founders and cultural mediators. But the integration expunged any mark of traditional Jewishness. Focusing on Christian figurative thinking (typology), Auerbach viewed the binding of Isaac through the crucifixion, and contemporary Jews as civilization‘s (unwilling and undeserving) martyrs. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, his cosmopolitanism reached a crisis, reflected in his postwar vision of Western decline. The progressive mandarin who had begun his intellectual life elevating Dante‘s care for everyday life and sympathizing with French realist social critique ended endorsing Hugh of St. Victor‘s alienation from reality and Pascal‘s acquiescence in totalitarian rule.
Authors and Affiliations
Malachi Haim Hacohen
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25258
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030600
- Views 368
- Downloads 18
Pervasive Anxiety about Islam: A Critical Reading of Contemporary ‘Clash’ Literature
This article analyzes and critiques North American and European “clash literature”—a genre of post-9/11 writings that popularize elements of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, with particular referenc...
“A Religious Recognition of Equality”: Liberal Spirituality and the Marriage Question in America, 1835–1850
Studying texts by Lydia Maria Child, Sarah Grimke, and Margaret Fuller, this article seeks to recover the early phases of a dialogue that moved marriage away from an institution grounded in ideas of unification and tow...
Margaret Cavendish, Feminist Ethics, and the Problem of Evil
This paper argues that, although Margaret Cavendish’s main philosophical contributions are not in philosophy of religion, she makes a case for a defense of God, in spite of the worst sorts of harms being present in the...
Challenging Truths: Reflections on the Theological Dimension of Comparative Theology
Given that comparative theology is aimed at learning from the insights of other religious traditions, the comparative theologian‘s confessional perspective must be engaged and subject to possible transformation through...
Reading Religiously across Religious Borders: A Method for Comparative Study
Oliver Freiberger has done us the great service of drawing our attention to how comparativists do their comparative work. Issues of method—the “methodical aspects”—of course matter greatly in the actual doing of compar...