Empire and Katechon

We might ask: does not every constituted power that effectively rules perhaps belong to the dimension of the katechon? Must it not have at its disposal a certain catechontic energy? Katechein, more than the act of deferring or restraining, also means to contain or include within itself. Catechontic force has taken possession of the space that it now occupies and tenaciously holds it in its grasp preventing any of its elements from transgressing the limits (lyra), the borders of the city it has laid out (de-liri). The Hobbesian mortal god seems a precise image of this force, its true and proper icon, the creator of an exclusively worldly peace whose body contains all the cives. But can power subsist in a state of‘having been ? Can it be without its inherent energies continuously de-forming its figure? If it is a god, it would be life - but if its life is constituted by the multitude of living beings who are its citizens, it will depend on them. How to contain these two dimensions in one? The katechon must hold the multitude in its body, fistlike, while it must also wish to preserve their life. And life, such as it is, can never be thoroughly predicted, nor can its future be reduced to a mere past. It is even less possible that this god, who as mortal necessarily comes to be, must transform its own figure, alter its own constitution and, in effect, call for its own cives not merely to respect the pre- established limits but also to follow him in going beyond them. In what sense then does the katechon restrain-withhold? Surely its political essence cannot be reduced to just this. 

In whatever manner we choose to interpret the passage in 2 Ts 2:5-7, which ever since Schmitt1 has given rise to flights of biblical, juridical and politological erudition,[1] [2] the political character of the katechon, the subject of this passage, remains quite problematic. The restraining function is undeniably prominent; Paul warned the community that the parousia of the Lord will follow the ‘triumph5 of apostasy and anomie and for such to be realized and arrive at its own apocalypse it must be preceded, in turn, by the liquidation of that which now holds it back (to katechon). The mystery of anomie in all its energy is already at work but it has yet to take out of the way whoever has the force of katechein (ho katechon). Both catechontic force and the force of anomie incarnate themselves; they assume the living reality of persons in a perfect inversion of Logos whose event already marks the Age, but whose parousia must still be awaited. It stands to reason that the time allotted to them, the spasm of time they occupy according to Pauline eschatology, comes from God - but how are we to understand the mandate of the katechon7. Does it work from the inside of the Adversary's energy, signifying nothing more than what delays its full unfolding, nothing more than the simple fact that it is still becoming? Or does the katechon oppose it attempting in some way to prevent its apocalypse? Is it possible to glean this latter meaning from the verb katechein7 With great difficulty, and in any case even simple restraining involves opposition, building a dam against that which would otherwise flood in. The main point is, does political energy primarily stand on the side of the power attempting to defer- arrest or does it stand on the side of the one who wants to rise, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God' (2 Ts 2:4)1 Or again, are these two to be considered moments of the same process even though not necessarily allied'? 

It is evident that the katechon belongs to a providential plan in which the entire time represented by Paul also belongs. Is not the energy of deception (2 Ts 2:11)[3] also sent by God? The problem is whether the catechontic power can express anything salvific or at least beneficial, as B. Rigaux seems to think,[4] or whether it is merely the ‘natural' index of a deferring of utter perdition (iapoleia), or whether it is indeed an authentic who, a subject capable of resisting the presumptuous advance of the Adversary, or, finally, whether the nature of this resistance has a real political or spiritual, even spiritual-political character capable of truly countering the latter's power. 

In so far as the first aspect is concerned, nothing in Paul allows us to view the katechon as a power working for our repentance (;metanoia) in the brief time allowed to us. And in any case the community knows (‘kai nyn... oidate') that it must be removed in order that anomie can triumph. Thus the katechon cannot be conceived otherwise than in the spirit of law (nomos). And what could in fact restrain, guard and conserve if not the law? Indeed, it is not just a matter of simple deferral. What is at stake is a nomothetic will, the conscious obligation to pit nomos against anomie. Could this be the same as the Nomos of Israel? Would the energy of the katechon then be that of the people (laos) of Israel who opposed the imperial will that wanted to raise its own effigy in the Temple?[5] This explanation is plausible only from an exclusively historical perspective, possibly with reference to the time of Caligula, but it would entail having Paul consent to hastening the times, precisely what he seems to resist here, and would result in an outright or quasi assimilation of empire to the spirit of anomie. For these reasons, and for others yet to be considered, it seems impossible to abstract the katechon from explicit political meaning. Whoever defends or imposes the law cannot avoid political sovereignty, even if it is clearly distinct from any salvific implication. Pure anomie is indeed the ‘reign of the Adversary, Satans incarnation, when his reign is finally established in its fullness. 

Although matters may seem clear, further doubts arise. If the katechon is really opposed to the Iniquitous, why does Paul use an expression of impatience (‘who now letteth will let’[6]) when referring to it rather than emphasize its anti-idolatrous value? Is it because such value is completely absent from the katechon7. In that case, what form of political power is being referred to here, and does the nomos that it grounds exist in a separate or separable dimension from anomie[7]. (Here it would be necessary to insert the catechontic figure into the general framework of the Pauline conception of law) And finally, does the realm of the Son of Perdition coincide with political anarchy or, even more, with the destruction of political form itself?7 Let us begin with the question concerning the form of political power, since all or almost all the interpretations of the katechon have ended up identifying it with the form of empire. 

In order to define itself as imperial, a form of power must be able to advance effectively the claim to constitute the destiny of an epoch. Epoch is a term that reverberates within the katechon. Epoche signifies arrest, an insistence on the same. Epoch is a lengthy period of time whose moments can be traced back to an essential unity, whose fundamental traits remain unaltered and whose events do not possess anything contingent but always refer back to the significance of the whole. The term epoch thus points to a time in which history seems nearly complete, in which becoming seems to bear the seal of being. This sense of the term epoch is here completely opposed to sceptical epoche. The latter implies a suspension, suspension in doubt until arriving, by methodical procedures, at rational evidence - it is a suspension of judgement during which a response can eventually emerge. Epoch, however, from the point of view of empire amounts to quite the opposite: every doubt and every crisis appears resolved in it. The security of the established order reigns. The term epoch, historico-politically speaking, designates the completion and the liquidation of every sceptical epoche. Within the epoch enquiry, skepsis must finally keep its peace. As soon as empire speaks, as soon as its judgement is pronounced, the epoche must fall silent; every ‘suspension is removed and discourse (ratio and oratio[8]) finally finds a solid ground on which to build its dwelling. 

Empire always requires that thinking and acting turn into the deepening and further development of the given meaning of an epoch. A new epoch will not even be representable as such if elements of crisis and discontinuity persist within it. Consequently, there is an essential ‘solidarity between the idea of empire and a thinking that affirms as untranscendable the constituent factors of an epoch - admittedly factors that are put together in diverse ways but are nevertheless all pieces in a game which must in the end cancel each other out. Any form of critical thinking will cast doubt on whether the epoch is really epoche, on whether the conflict among its elements is merely functional for the life of the whole and can be resolved within it. To the idea of epoch as the supremacy of the whole over the parts and its corresponding idea of empire as the political form capable of leading all parts to the whole, ‘ad totum ducere partes', there is opposed an idea of time marked by the ever open possibility of crisis, of decision and a leap. If the great political form of empire as a novus ordo, new order, was born out of a formidable de-cision (tyrannicide is often at the origin of empire formation), it can only last by means of epoch-making and a struggle to avoid further de-cision.[9] [10] [11]‘Messianic5 time is incompatible with the idea of imperium sine fine, empire without end - and yet in a specific way it is an essential element of its origin. The contradiction is necessary, the same contradiction that time and again has been pointed out with respect to Schmitt: is his idea of political power catechontic7 How are we then to understand the importance he places on the term nehmen10 at the heart of nomos, on the gesture that first decides, then appropriates, and only after shares? While this tension in abstracto seems contradictory, it in fact expresses the very reality of empire: it cannot not‘withhold5 inside its own epoch, it cannot not arrest-restrain the one who would want to ‘judge5 it, but at the same time it is always called to pro-duce, to lead beyond, to transform constantly its order and move beyond its boundaries.11  

Catechontic energy is in itself essentially executiveadministrative, producing security - but in the end it is a security impotent before advancing anomie. Empire, however, can be conceived only as energy that contains itself in order to grow, that arrests within itself any de-cision for the sake of the unrestrained expanding of its own dominion (p. 30). Empire cannot but demand auctoritas, from augeo,[12] [13] its civitas is either augescens, expansive, or it is nothing. It contains the katechon but as a ‘ministry' in the service of its own true mission: the universalizing of its dominion, of making the world its own ‘system'. Here too the figure of the centaur asserts itself![14] For empire, epoch- making cannot be just the exercise of a restraining power since its own sense of power is pro-ductive. It is indeed within the ‘body' of empire that the new must produce itself. It is the very same own body' of its sovereignty conserved through its own transformation. All novitas must already be a priori contained in it. In so far as the empire contains its own transformations, it also seems to be catechontic energy: a Proteus who is always equal to himself. Here then lies its essential difference from messianic time: the latter is properly catastrophic; it imposes a radical change of scene by virtue of the eruption of the transcendent on the horizon of history. Empire, though, renews itself, reproduces itself by renewal and the forms of this renewal have to be inscribed in the empires nomos that is valid erga omnes. 

According to this view, the political form of empire could never be confused with that of the katechon but, at the same time, one can also understand the reason many interpreters from the earliest times up to Cassiodorus, Jerome and beyond could see in the figure of the katechon the empire as such. The withholding energy that embraces and includes the drives of the multitude remains essential to the constitution of the empire that is at once conservative and productive. No law, no positive right could ever arrest its libido dominandi14 - but this libido would turn into self-destructive anarchy were it not able to contain itself. The catechontic energy is directed as much outwardly to the public' as it is to the interior of power, to its arcana. A ‘deranged' empire becomes immediately an instrument of the Antichrist if not one of his personae, as in the case of Nero and the role his figure played in a number of apocalyptic narratives (fabulae). Not only is he represented as an intimation (figura futuri) of the Antichrist in the historic persecution to which Peter and Paul fell victim, but he is also pictured as returning at the end of time (saeculum) possessing the exact same attributes as before. Still, the tradition has struggled to identify him with the Adversary tout court for after all even Nero was an Emperor! For that reason Commodian's Carmen apologeticum15 may be interesting. In that [15] [16] recollection of witness accounts of the great persecutions the Christians suffered in the second half of the third century, the Neronian empire will be swept away, removed by the invasion of another king, a second and more powerful figure than the Antichrist, or the Antichrist himself as the head of four nations, who are not able to see suffering and pain (‘qui nesciant ulli dolere), who are incapable of piety and who will burn the City to cinders leaving no vestige to remain. Then eternally shall lament the city that vaunteth itself eternal' (Tuget in aeternum quae se iactabat aeterna', 923). Nero leads Rome to ruin but the true ruin of Rome is the work of a second' Antichrist merely prefiguring the universal apoleia that he will accomplish in his own time, at the very end, when Rome burns, the time will be ripe' (stat tempus in finem fumante Roma maturum', 925). It has always been very difficult to assimilate the Roman emperor with the consummate figure of anomie and apoleia, even Nero redivivus, reborn, appears in some sense as the katechon in comparison with the ultimate Adversary who triumphs over Rome. 

Could there be a political form of the katechon itself? Perhaps in abstracto but it would not be imperial since it would lack auctoritaSy and being devoid of auctoritaSy how can it delude itself that it can contain, arrest and withhold anomie7. And what if the katechon expressed its own specific political quality and wanted to behave like a force of pure conservation? A force of this kind, in the first place, would oppose not anomie but the empire itself. The catechontic dimension we previously considered functional for imperial power would secede from the latter and attempt to constitute itself autonomously. Its thinking would turn into a political and bureaucratic-administrative form founded solely on criteria of efficiency, on the economy of means and the rationality of ends. Such form will prominently manifest the renunciation of all epoch-making will. But how could a katechon as the expression of such renunciation assert itself in the face of the Adversary? The presence of a conservative' soul within the imperial system ends by undermining at its very root the capacity for resistance and by appearing complicit' with anomie. The more weakly catechontic and, consequently, more conservative' empire appears, the less it knows how to resist the assault of the Adversary. 

Must we speak of empire containing the katechon as a moment and instrument when contemplating the subject who would mysteriously delay the coming of the Iniquitous? Only if we could radically contrast its nomos with the destructive anomie already at work (energeitai'[17]). But now arrives the doubt, and not only for reasons emerging from scriptural context and Patristic teaching: can empire ever be peaceful? After all, does it not wage war against the saints? Is not its ‘universal' worldly power represented by the fourth beast of Daniel's vision that devours, tramples and grinds everything down? Can the beast who comes up out of the earth, at the service of that other beast who first rose up out of the sea, to whom the ancient Dragon gave all his power and his own seat (Book of Revelation, 13), who is capable of seducing through great signs and wonders (csemeia megala) all that dwell on earth, ever be dissociated from the figure of empire? Or can we pretend it is distinct from empire, like many Patristic analyses have done for tactical reasons, in order to avoid the open wrath of Rome? 

Prior to being viewed in the light of these questions, the problem of the katechon must first be considered as an aspect of the more general problem of the meaning of law. No waiting for the parousia nor the imminence of the End could justify its elimination. Neither the divine Law-Word in its genuinely redemptive dimension - the one set down in the First Covenant for all time - nor the historical and political dimension from which it is impossible to be ‘disembodied5 could justify its elimination, indeed it would be a sin to wish it. But, as we saw, the empires law cannot be interpreted as essentially catechontic. Nevertheless, can it still be justified? Can its claim to oppose the impetus of anomie be truly justified once we begin to investigate its internal aporias? 

The empire that contains the katechon must by internal necessity be epoch-making and, at the same time, precisely because of this presence it can never really be successful in its task. The contingency5 of catechontic action prevents it. On the other hand, should the katechon secede from the unity of empire, nothing in the latters power would be able to oppose the advance of the Iniquitous; and least of all could such advance be resisted in the form of an autonomously catechontic government, given that its energy would be spent, stifled between anomie and imperial domination. Such reverse is apparently the destiny of all purely conservative politics. But the law of empire is not ‘holy law5 where not a single iota is allowed to fall; it is only a law that guards' sin, provides it with safety' - and thus perpetuates it. In its autarchic immanence it cannot overtake the spirit of anarchy that erupts from ‘below', out of the earth and the sea. Since the empire could not exist without wars and conflicts it finds itself related to the violence immanent to the spirit of anarchy. Catechontic energy seems to get out of the way by itself. Yet does not this statement directly imply an anarchic or nihilistic attitude in the face of political law? And is such an attitude compatible with the Pauline vision? 

Furthermore, the figure of the katechon, once its political character is admitted, should be read in the light of the teaching of the Letter to Romans 13, where in full agreement with the biblical tradition, power, the exercise of sovereignty, its Violence' seem legitimate because necessary. History is judged, the end- time has come but the vulnus, wound, of human nature is still open. However radical the relativization of every worldly power[18]may sound, however true it may be for the duration of this life, it is commanded by the image of the human condition tragically delineated in Romans 7:14-25. Even though I am no longer slave to sin it does not mean I am free of it; I now know that the good does not dwell in me and at the height of my distress (‘Oh wretched man that I am!’[19]) I know that to will the good is within my reach although ‘I am unable to realize if.[20] There is an abyss between willing and performing that only the Spirit that cries out, ‘Abba, Father!' (Romans 8.T5[21]), can overcome. The heir of God and heir through Christ is the one who is truly capable of this great cry - but in waiting for the apocalypse of the sons, the powers that guard, punish and restrain are a necessary expression of ira Dei, the wrath of God. Not a gift o/God but sent from God for our sinfulness. These powers are required by the bare fact of our natura vulnerata, wounded nature - whose meaning they comprehend' in all its senses, although they can neither prevent nor heal. In comprehending this wounded nature, they contain it within itself They exist because sin exists and vice versa. They are suspended reciprocally in the spasm of time awaiting the Last Judgement. For this reason the discourse on the divine institution of civil authority in the Letter to Romans is confined within a majestic hymn to the mandatum novum, a new commandment summarizing all previous commandments: ‘thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself'. Every law resolves and overcomes itself in this commandment; it is open to all and negates nothing. Any peace is only a temporary pact, an armistice before the overcoming of evil with good' (Romans 12:21). This however frees - frees from the duty to hate the enemy, to vindicate the offence, to oppose evil to evil, to bring to judgement. Nevertheless, even in the end-time, which is still time, authorities, ministers and officials are required by God (per me reges regnant',[22] Proverbs 8:15), but they are like the Kings of the First Covenant, a result of our sins (even the greater and wiser among them were branded by sin).[23] Joined in sin, empire and political sovereignty are separated from redemption by an abyss. What epoch could they wish to institute, being nothing but simple and fallen catechontic figures? All those who promise eternity to empires lie; Virgil lies too (he at least lies knowingly, for he puts the promise of eternity to Rome in the mouth of Zeus[24]); what an immense lie it would be to affirm the reliability of such figures! At the same time, we have already seen that the person of the katechon per se could not effectively limit itself to the act of containing'. Only as will to imperial power, only as consummate libido dominandi, could it give ‘form' to the rampant spirit of anomie. Put in these terms the action of the katechon would necessarily end by exceeding the limits Paul assigned to it, and if revealed as one that opposes in principle the meaning which the Christian needs to give to the function of exousiai - the political-civil worldly powers (potestates) - then an irredeemable conflict would inevitably arise.