Hamacher - Guilt History

Guilt History: Benjamin's Sketch "Capitalism as Religion"
Author(s): Werner Hamacher and Kirk Wetters

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 32, No. 3/4, Ethics (Autumn - Winter, 2002), pp. 81-106
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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GUILT HISTORY
BENJAMIN'S SKETCH
"CAPITALISMAS RELIGION"
WERNERHAMACHER
History as ExchangeEconomy
Since historycannotbe conceivedas a chainof eventsproducedby mechanicalcausation,

it must be thought of as a connection between occurrences that meets at least two
conditions: first that it admit indeterminacy and thus freedom, and second that it
nonetheless be demonstrablein determinateoccurrences and in the distinct form of
theircoherence.Relationscan thusbe calledhistoricalandcan be recognizedas historical
only if they aredeterminedby neithernecessity nor chance, and if theircausalityis of a
differentorderthan the mechanical.The temporalstructureof history can thereforebe
characterizedon the one hand by the distinct connection of its elements-and on the
other hand by the dissolution of all connections that do not assist these elements in
achieving their independence.
A temporalnexus that clearly does not satisfy these conflicting requirementshas
been characterizedin one of the oldest texts of occidental philosophy as the time of
guilt. Accordingto the sentenceof Anaximander(fromabout500 BC),handeddown by
Simplicius in his commentary(530 AD) on Aristotle'sPhysics, the origin and end of all
things is subordinatedto the law of necessity (katiht6 krebn)."Theymust pay penance
and be judged for their injustice, accordingto the orderof time (kati tMntou chrdnou
tdxin)"-so the fragmentreads in the translationoffered by Nietzsche in his treatise
"Philosophyin the TragicAge of the Greeks."Accordingto Anaximander,the sequence
of time ordersthe rise and fall of all things and ordersthem in accordancewith the law
of guilt andpunishmentso thatbecoming(genesis)is a guilt(adikia)thatmustbe expiated
in perishing. Time and more precisely its tdxis, the positing of time, is thought in
Anaximander'ssentence as an orderof guilt and retribution,debt and payback.It is a
time of economy in the sense thatit is the time of law-and precisely a law thatis valid
for all beings, a tdxis,a decree, an ordinanceandan ordering-in which the unavoidable
incurringof guilt is atoned in an equivalentpenance that is just as unavoidable.The
strictcoherenceof guilt andpenanceis ascertainedby the principleof theirequivalence.
Time is thereforeconceivedhere as a doubleprocessof coming into being andperishing,
Translator's note: This essay was originally published in a slightly longer version, as
"Schuldgeschichte:BenjaminsSkizze 'Capitalismusals Religion,'" in Kapitalismusals Religion,
ed. DirkBaecker(Berlin:KulturverlagKadmos,2003), 77-120. Themostimportantterminological
difficultyof this translationconcerns the Germanword Schuldand relatedterms.Schuldmeans,
to put it simply,both "guilt"and "debt,"as well as, in other senses andforms, "toblame," "tobe
atfault, "and "toowe. " Theoriginal textof the essay typicallyhas several of these senses in mind
at once, and at certainpoints in the argumentit may be useful to keep this in mind. Generally,I
have translatedaccording to the context,but, in the interestof terminologicalconsistency,I have
also tried to optfor the English word "guilt"wheneverpossible.
diacritics / fall-winter 2002 diacritics32.3-4: 81-106 81

a process that occurs in such a way that the genesis is erased in its passing away-so
that time is thus erasedby time itself.
InAnaximander'ssentence,however,time is not only the double-processof coming
into being and passing away, it is-as a tdxis-the common and constantlyenduring
medium of the exchange of the contrarybut equivalentmotions of coming into being
and perishing. It is the time of the quid pro quo of everythingthat is generatedand
passes away within time. Its measure is a justice that representsitself as a tdxis and
therebyas the positing andthe law of all becoming and vanishing,the law of physis and
its demise as an onto-economiclaw. This taxiological orderof time places every realm
of the naturalandhumanworld undera law of substitutionwithoutexception;this also
allows ethical,juridical,andeconomic conceptsto substitutefor one anotherwithinthis
order.Theethicaldimensionofjustice, thuscircumscribedby the orderof time,is reduced
to the juridicaldimension of the decree, and both now define themselves accordingto
the calculusof "anexchangeeconomy in an eternallyunchanginghouseholdof nature." '
It can only, however, be a matterof an ethics of time to the extent that this ethics,
alreadyjuridified and economized, is subordinatedto the schema of exchange, trade,
and the equivalence of guilt and retribution.The time of history,ethical time, is thus
interpretedin Anaximander'ssentenceas a normativetime of inculpationandexpiation.
Whateverenters this tdxis of time is thereby alreadyguilty and can only become ex-
cused by its perishing.
Accordingto the thesis of Anaximander,time is the schemaof guilt andretribution:
The injusticecommittedby the progressof time occurs, however,like its remediation,
unfreely.Thistime is thereforethatof a guilt-anddebt-continuum,continuallyadvancing
without a gap in its eternalrecurrences.But it is not the time of history.
History,Etiology
It is unknownwhetherWalterBenjaminwas familiarwith this sentenceof Anaximander.

HermannCohen,in manyregardsBenjamin'steacher,cites a fragmentof the pre-Socratic
saying,fleetingly andwithoutreference,in his 1918ReligionofReasonfromthe Sources
of Judaism, in the chapteron "The Idea of the Messiah and Humanity":"The world
must pay in punishment(diken did6nai) for its existence." From this and the earlier
works of Cohen, Benjaminmay have been familiar with the early Greek equationof
time and guilt. In one of his fragmentarynotes on the concept of history,perhapsto be
datedat the end of the 1910s, Benjamintakes up the connectionanddeclaresguilt to be
a categoryof "worldhistory."He seeks to strictlydifferentiatethis historyof the world
(it may be understoodas the history that offers itself in the aspect of its worldliness)
from divine history.The critical accent of his exposition is unmistakable:"Guiltis the
highest categoryof worldhistoryfor guaranteeingthe uni-directionality(Einsinnigkeit)
of what occurs"[GS 6: 92].2 Only by the categoryof guilt can the unambiguousnessof
1. Thisis howHeideggerdescribesit in his "SpruchdesAnaximander"[304]. Hisformulation

is used to characterizethe commonplacebut to his mindmateriallyunjustifiedunderstandingof
Anaximander'sfragment.Accordingto this misunderstanding,the situation is such that "moral
and juridical concepts [. . .] mix themselves up with the image of nature" [304]. It would be
possible to show that,despitehis intentionto be moretrueto thematterofAnaximander'ssentence
itself Heidegger's understandingshares decisive traits of this "misunderstanding."
2. Translator'snote: Citationsfrom Benjaminare given here in my own translations.Thisis
also the casefor all othercitations,since the close analysis of thepassages cited wouldotherwise
seem implausible.English editions of the central textsof the essay are noted in the bibliography.
Thepage referencesgiven in the body of the essay referexclusivelyto the Germaneditions. The
82
what occurs be guaranteed,its linearorientation,its sense of direction,andthe unity of
its sense, because only this category refers occurrencesin a nonmechanicalway to an
origin and to further consequences in other occurrences. The Greek aition means
"provenance"as well as "guilt":guilt is a categoryof descent. It indicatesthatwhatever
is priorhas had somethingtakenfrom it by thatwhich follows; or whateveris priorhas
withheld something from that which follows it. Every "having"is thus declared as a
havingfrom something else that previously had it-as in the debere, the de habere of
debt. If guilt is a genealogical category, it is "the highest category of world history"
insofar as it is the category of genesis itself and the only categorythat can accountfor
occurrencesin a homogenous sequence. Whateverhappens, it happensfrom an other
andtowardyet anotherandis thereforeindebtedto these otheroccurrences.It is, however,
also indebtedin the sense thatwhateverhappensin the line of descent occurs as a theft
in which somethingis tornaway,leavinga lackin the place of its origin.Guiltaccordingly
designates the reason of an absence, a failure, a deficit.
Everythingthat happens is guilt. This is why guilt is "the highest category"of
history. Benjamin continues in his note: "Every world-historicalmoment is indebted
and indebting. Cause and effect can never be decisive categories for the structureof
worldhistory,becausethey cannotdetermineanytotality.Logic has to provetheprinciple
that no totality as such can be either cause or effect. It is a mistake of the rationalistic
conception of history to view any historical totality (that is, a state of the world) as
cause or effect. A state of the world is howeveralways guilty with regardto some other
later one" [GS 6: 92]. If Benjamin here makes "totality"the criterion for whether
something is "guilt"ratherthan "cause,"then this is presumablyfor the reason that a
cause as such is completely exhaustedin its being the cause of something other than
itself andthereforecannotbe a totalityin itself. Guiltis indeed,like causation,a category
of relationto an other-Benjamin defines it in exactly this sense: "A stateof the world
is only guilty with regardto some other laterstate"-and unlike the categoryof cause,
guilt is not only a categoryof provenancebutalso a categoryof moralandmoreprecisely
legal relations,that not only permitsbut ratherrequiresthat the one who is guilty is a
self and thus a totality-very much accordingto Cohen's presentationin the Ethics of
Pure Will [ErW370]. A moral connection, a relation out of freedom (even if it be a
minimumof freedom) can never be causally grounded.And thereforethe cause-effect
relationcannotbe validas a categoryof history,butonly the relatedyet markedlydistinct
relationshipof guilt. Guilt is not a mechanicalcausation;it is, however,as a makingor
letting happen,as giving occasion, release, and production,a causa in the sense of the
Greekaition.
The word aition names not only a causationof somethingthroughsomethingprior
to it, but it designates at the same time the moral guilt that a condition or occurrence
carries "with regard to some later one." Only an ait-ical occurrence is an ethical
occurrence:in the etiological structureof time and history that Benjaminhas in mind
here, every stateof the world is guilty to the extentthatit releases anotherdeficient state
of the worldandbearsthe guilt for it. Every stateof the worldis thereforean incomplete
one, a morally or legally lacking condition. Guilt is "thehighest category"of history,
because it is the category of the causation of deficiencies. Thus it must follow that
history is guilt, and thatit is guilty: it is historyonly to the extent thatit is guilt history,
a history out of guilt and a history of guilt. Guilt can only exist where there is history,
and every history is a phenomenonof deficiency. And, conversely,there can only be
history if a conditionor an occurrencesevers itself from anotherone without,however,
primary textual base is in any case quite small, comprised as it is by Benjamin's three-page
fragment, "Capitalismas Religion," which has been published in English as a part of Selected
Writings,Vol.1 [288-91].
diacritics / fall-winter 2002 83

completely losing all relationto it. Guilt is thus a deficitaryrelation,a relationto that
which is lacking or missing. All historyis thereforethe historyof guilt in the sense that
the form-and only thereforealso the content-of historyis determinedby guilt. There
is no history that is not about guilt, none that would not have been made guilty by
anotherandnone thatfor its own partwould not bearguilt towardyet another-an other
that,for its part,can only be historyand guilt in turn.History,in short,is the process by
which guilt is incurred-since in its everyproductionthe no-longer-beingof something
else is effected. Guilt is the cause of a not. History,therefore,includingthe study of it,
is etiology: the study of occurrencesas causationsof defects.
In anothernote that is not only chronologicallyclose to the one underdiscussion,
Benjamincharacterizesthe time of guilt, the time of world history,as the time of fate
(Schicksal):"Thetime of fate is the time thatat all times can be madesimultaneous(not
present).It standsunderthe orderof guilt, which determinesits coherence.It is a time
that is not independent;there is neitherpresent,nor past, nor futurewithin it" [GS 6:
91]. The decisive formulationof this note became partof a passage from the treatiseon
"Fateand Character"from September 1919. There it states, more precisely, "thatthis
time may at any time be made simultaneous(not present) with any other time" [GS
2.1.176]. A time with this kind of synchronicity,barredfrom the differentiationof past,
present,and future,can only be called "a completely impropertemporality,"because it
precludesthe separation,distance, and freedom that first make 'propertime'-as the
time of morally meaningful action-possible, along with its divisions into various
dimensions of time and experience. The dense coherence that obstructs temporal
differentiationis called the guilt-nexus;fate, thus conceived by Benjamin,is "theguilt-
nexus of the living" [GS 2.1.175]. This fate, being essentially guilt and more precisely
the generativeprocess by which guilt is incurred,blocks historyandproperlyhistorical
time. It categoricallyexcludes the possibility of leaving the chain of events connecting
everything that is and occurs without at once continuing its sequence and thus
reconsolidatingits order even in breaking it. HermannCohen's Ethics of Pure Will,
which clearly provides the-sometimes critical-orientation for the relevantissues in
Benjamin,statesin the same sense: "Itis [... .] always in a fall fromfate thatfate fulfills
andproves itself. The concept thatforms the properkernelof fate may be recognizedin
the concept of guilt. TheAte extends itself over a people, over a privilegedpeople, upon
whom the fate of humansmakesitself apparent.This is the reign thatfate extendsin the
subjectionof the individualsof this people. [ ...] [Myth]still sees no differencebetween
the individualandhis people,just as little as Zeus ceases to be an individualgod because
he is subjectto thefatum. The evil is guilt. And guilt is fate" [ErW361]. As long as the
"naturalcoherence"of a peopledefinesthe humanas a merelynaturalbeing,manremains
defined by the unity of his naturalgenus and by his generationunderthe category of
guilt. The sentence, therefore,pronouncedearlier,"everythingthat happens is guilt,"
can be made more precise: everything that happens by the coherence of natureand
generationis guilt-and this is precisely the reasonwhy guilt, as the ultimatecategory
of fate,is indeedthe ultimatecategoryof worldhistory,butbecausethe ethicaldimension
can only show itself withinthis historyin its negation,as evil, guilt cannotbe the decisive
categoryfor humanhistory,norfor historicaltime in general.The time of guilt, the time
of theAte andthe aitionthatcan only be improperlycalled"time,"is the time of causation
in the sense of the incursionof guilt, valid for the-principally unforeseeable-duration
of naturalman toto genere andthereforevalid not for a time or for some time but for all
time, not for some individualhumanin his or her singulartime, andneverfor the human
as an ethical being, but for the "barelife" in him, which is incapableof any temporal
determination,much less a historical one-and which thereforecan only provide the
84
ahistorical and atemporalfundus out of which another order can emerge through
individuation,an orderthatwould now be historicalin a strictersense.
BothBenjaminandCohenview "theperpetualconcatenationof guiltandatonement"
as "heathen"and therefore as prereligious and protoethical[GS 2.1.175], because it
leaves no room for the individual'scapacityof freedom,nor for any relationto an other
thatwouldnot standexclusivelyunderthe categoryof guilt.Both Benjamin'sandCohen's
conceptionsof ethicsas well as of religionaredefinedin oppositionto theguiltmechanics
of the fate systems of antiquity-and especially againstthose of the Greeks-as well as
against their later and modern variants.Everythingbelonging to the realm of ethics
(thatis of self-determinationout of freedom)qualifies itself to this realmby its rigorous
separationfrom all of the elements of myth-from genealogically enforcedguilt, from
succession, from sequence,resultsand theircausation,from familial and chronological
lines of provenance.Only by the resolute cessation of commerce between guilt and
retributiondoes the human emerge into the realm of his freedom.Acting in the guilt-
nexus means following an obligation to act, dictated in advance by another-and is
thereforeonly a form of not acting.Anyone who is boundby guilt and obligationdoes
not do whathe does, butinsteadexecutesa preordainedprogramandfalls fatally,lethally
for action itself, into the predestinationof an inheritancefrom whose succession he is
not free to abstain.
As ethics first takes hold, like strict monotheistic religion-the Judaism of the
prophets-where the categoryof guilt falls away,time as historicaltime can only begin
where it no longer assumesthe form of a guilt nexus, but ratherof an initiativeex nihilo
where every coherence based on indebting-its every bond and chain-falls away. In
"Fateand Character"Benjaminopposes "thedogma of the naturalguilt of humanlife,
of original guilt" with "the vision of the naturalinnocence of man" [GS 2.1.178] and
points in the directionof a realmthat-beyond the merely "natural"innocence-might
be called moral and historical innocence. The pagan teaching insists however, to the
contrary,on the "principleindissolubility"of originalguilt, thepeccata originale, from
which, as Benjaminemphasizes,the pagan"cult"can offer only "atemporarysolution."
Whathe understandsby the word "pagan"(also accordingto Cohen's sense of it) is not
only Greek polytheism, but also-and not a bit less-the Christianitythat raised the
doctrineof originalsin to the statusof a dogma and extendedthis logic into the furthest
reaches of its systems of faith, thought,and behavior.
Capital Guilt History,Methodological
If the task of a critiqueof historycan only be satisfiedby a critiqueof guilt history,then

the privilegedobjectof this critiquemustbe Christianityas the religionof guilt economy,
andcapitalismas the systemof a deterministicdebtreligion.By specifyingthese objects,
some indication is given as to the place and the weight of Benjamin's fragment
"Capitalismas Religion"within the vast projectof his theory of historyand politics.
The point of the diagnosis given in the formula "Capitalismas Religion" can be
highlighted in contrast with Max Weber's works on the sociology of religion-
particularly,as mightbe supposed,with the workscollectedunderthe title TheProtestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.Benjaminwrites: "In capitalisma religion may be
discerned-that is to say,capitalismservesessentiallyto allaythe sameworries,torments
and restlessness to which the so-called religions used to provideanswers.The proof of
the religious structureof capitalism-not only, as Weber believes, as a formation
conditionedby religion, but as an essentially religious phenomenon-would still lead
us, even today, astray into an immeasurableuniversalpolemic" [GS 6: 100]. Weber

performedhis studies accordingto the methodologicalprincipleof causality,and thus
he characterizedthe rationalethics of ascetic Protestantismas the preconditionfor the
modern-capitalist-business ethos of occidental societies: "The conditioning of the
genesis of a 'business mentality' [. . .] by the content of certain religious beliefs
represents,"as he says, "a causal relation"[DpE 21]. And thus capitalism's genesis
follows, thoughWeberdoes not say it, preciselythe same kind of rationality-a logic of
provenanceandguilt-that supposedlyfirst acquiresits privilegedmodernstatusin the
rise of the "businessmentality"that Weber describes. The methodological apparatus
appliedto the spiritof capitalismis thatof rationalcausalityitself-and is thusstructurally
capitalisticin its inspiration.Thismethodcannotthereforeprovideanymeansof liberation
from capitalism and its structures.The fact that Weber incorporatesa supplemental
reverse causality in his analysis (turningProtestantChristianityinto a result of the
capitalisteconomic form) changes nothing in the specific form of his derivation.3No
matter where the series of causation starts-and no matter how it is additionally
legitimated-it securesthe economic form on the one side andthe religiousform on the
other as fixed positions within a system of dependencies.Weberthus insists upon the
derivationof economy andreligion from one another,but does not take into accountthe
possibility that both might refer themselves to a third sphere that does not represent
their condition-as aition or causa-but ratherpresentsthe space of their articulation.
Benjaminavoidsthis methodologicalaporiaandthe theoreticalas well as politicalfutility
of Weber'sinterpretationby defining both capitalismand Protestantreligiosity in the
same terms. Both are relatively independentstructuresof relation with an identical
function:namelythatof providingan answerto "worries,tormentsandrestlessness."In
this characterization,Benjaminis careful to speak of "the religious structure"and of
"anessentially religious phenomenon,"withoutbasing this structureon anythingother
than the conventionalconcept of religion, that of the "so-called"religions. It is not his
own concept of religion (a rigorousone undoubtedlyrelying on Cohen andthe tradition
of Judaism) that underlies the notion of capitalism as an "essentially religious
phenomenon.""FateandCharacter"is unambiguouson this: "Anorder,however,whose
constitutiveconcepts are misfortuneand guilt, and within which there is no thinkable
courseof liberation[....]-such an ordercannotbe religious"[GS2.1.174].The "capitalist
religion"is thereforenot a religion, but rathera "cult-religion,"a structureof belief and
behavior, of law and economy, pursuing, like every other cult within the context of
myth, the sole aim of organizing"theguilt- and debt-nexusof the living."
As religious,cultic, andculturalstructureshaddone previously,the rulesof conduct
under capitalism give an answer to what Benjamin calls "worries, torments and
restlessness"-they systematize a deficit without permittingany escape from it. The
functionof capitalismconsists in structuringthe lack by explainingits provenanceand
by giving instructionsfor its remediation.Capitalismis thus essentially etiology, the
attributionof provenance and guilt. And more precisely, it is the positing of guilt,
aetiotaxy. Like all "so-called religions,"capitalismfollows a logic that Benjaminhas
made explicit in a sentence from "Fateand Character." Thoughthis sentence speaksof
law andof legal decrees,it is valid (since law for Benjaminis an institutionof myth)for
all of the componentsof mythandits correspondingrites:"Thelaw does not sentenceto
punishmentbut to guilt" [GS 2.1.175]. Thus it may correspondinglybe said of all ritual
and cultic practices,and particularlyof capitalismas a cult religion: they condemn to
guiltby positingguiltas thereasonfor a lack-for the"worries,tormentsandrestlessness"
3. Cf in this regard Weber'sclaim on the same page, where he speaks of "both causal
relationships."Also wherehe indicates[190] thatbotha "materialist"and a "spiritualistcausal
interpretationof cultureand history" are "equallypossible."
86
of naturallife-and condemn to punishmentin order to make good on this debt and
simultaneouslyperpetuateit. Capitalismis a system for the attributionof guilt as well as
debt, just as all pagan cult religions that precede it, and just as Christianitythat goes
along and identifies with it.
The religious functionof capitalism,of the positing and maintainingof reasons,of
the attributionof guilt and cause-of aetiotaxy-is not contradictedby the fact thatthe
development of capitalism mostly relied upon anotherreligious system for its form.
Benjaminnotes:"Capitalismhas developedas a parasiteof Christianityin the occidental
countries(this mustbe shown notjust in the case of Calvinism,butin the otherorthodox
Christianchurches as well), until it reached a point where the history of Christianity
became essentially that of its parasite-that is to say, of capitalism" [GS 6: 102].
Christianitywould not have been able to transformitself into capitalismif capitalism
had not been essentially Christian-"essentially religious,"and, as "cultreligion"and
guilt religion, intenton filling up a lack. Thatwhich is Christianin capitalism,and that
which is capitalist in Christianity,is its parasitic relation to guilt. Thus Benjamin's
summation:"TheChristianityof the Reformationdid not favorthe growthof capitalism;
instead it transformed itself into capitalism" [GS 6: 102]. This transformationof
Christianityinto capitalism, from religious form into economic form, can only have
come aboutin such a way thatthe form of the one remainedpreservedin the formof the
other.For both are "essentiallyreligious" forms, aetiotaxies, guilt forms positing the
cause of a deficit.
Capital Guilt History,Structural
Thatwhich is "alreadyrecognizablein the presentin the religiousstructureof capitalism"

is shown by Benjaminin threefeatures-and a fourththat lies in the unrecognizability
of its God.
The first feature of capitalismis that it is a pure cult religion, "perhapsthe most
extremethathas ever existed,"in which everything,thoughwithoutany special dogmas
or theology, "only has meaning with immediate reference to the cult." The capital-
religious structureguaranteesan immediacy of meaning, of value and its source, an
immediaterelationto its God, which assigns a ratingin the salvationeconomy to every
stancetakenandevery actionundertakenandpermitsno one to leave the nexus of value
and meaning installedby its rituals.The obsessive attributionof an economic index to
every detail of conduct-according to the scales of capital and salvation-turns this
structureinto a cult of meaning that is "extreme"in terms of both its universalityand
intensity. It is a cult of the "immediate"significance of everyday activities, a cult in
which every individualis not only the means but is also, as means, already an end, a
purpose,a value, anda meaning.Benjamindescribesthis immediaterelationto the God
Capitalas "theconcretion"of the cult [GS6: 100]. Meansandends, actionandmeaning,
money andGod, are"growntogether"in this "concretion"to constitutea closed complex
of semantictransaction.Everythingthathas meaningis immediatelyidenticalwith what
it means;the sign is immediatelythe signified andits referent.Since the realmof means
has been thus deleted and substitutedwith that of immediate ends, this rite without
transcendencepermitsonly the pure presence of what it inscribes.Temporaldistances
arejust as excludedas semioticdifferencesbetweenthe elementsof this cult of meaning.
The immediate presence, however, that is in concreto actualized with every move in
this cult is that of a lack-of a debt and of guilt.
Benjamin emphasizes, as the second featureof the capitalistrite, its "permanent
duration."Since every relationbetween secularact and salvation-historicalsignificance

has been contractedinto the single point of their immediatecopresence,the rites of the
salvation business offer an image of the undifferentiatedduration of the present.
"Capitalismis the celebrationof a cult sans troveet sans merci.Thereis no 'weekday,'
no day that would not be a holiday in the terrifyingsense of the unfolding of all of its
sacralpomp, of the most extremetension of the worshipper"[GS 6: 100].4
At this point a shortexcursusrecommendsitself to consideranothertext from the
same time, a text thatwas likewise mainly inspiredby Max Weberand which likewise
radicalizeshis connectingof capitalismandChristianity:ErnstBloch's ThomasMiinzer
as Theologian of the Revolution.Benjamin had entered into an amicable but critical
relationshipwith Bloch even before the publicationof TheSpiritof Utopiain 1919, and
Bloch's thirdbook, ThomasMiinzer,provoked in 1921 some scathing remarksfrom
Benjamin,who readits typescript.Bloch writesin ThomasMiinzer,in the chapterentitled
"On Calvin and the Ideology of Money":"It is ultimatelyjust the record-keepingthat
keeps company with God, in orderto give flourish and figurationto His majesty-in
sucha way thateven Calvin'soriginalsentimentof God as 'theLord'of Handel'smajestic
music quicklylet itself be reducedto the paradoxicalrelaxationof a dead Sunday"[TM
142]. Bloch's formulationhere-in combinationwith his commentaryon the "social-
religious homogeneityof life," "theeliminationof the tensiontowardthe beyond,"and
"the tension between the state of sin and the state of origin"-makes it likely that
Benjaminalreadyknew "Miinzer"(or at leastthis chapter)when he wrotein "Capitalism
as Religion"thatunderthe conditionsof the capitalreligion "therewould be no day that
would not be a holiday in the terrifyingsense [.. ..] of the most extremetension of the
worshippers."But it is not only this observation that might be an echo of Bloch's
formulations:an even more importantone bindsthe two together,namely,the one at the
end of his chapteron Calvin, where Bloch writes that the Reformation"inauguratedin
the end not merelythe misuse of Christianity,butratherits complete desertionandeven
elements of a new 'religion': of capitalismas religion and the true churchof Satan."5
The identity,however,of the decisive formulation"capitalismas religion"in the texts
of Bloch and Benjamin can easily draw attentionaway from the differences in their
overall tendencies. Though Bloch identifies capitalism as a religion (and indeed as a
"so-calledreligion,"as Benjaminalso calls it), anddespitethe severityof his formulation,
his judgment is nevertheless a moderateone: for the capitalism in question does not
representfor Bloch, as it does for Benjamin,the metamorphosisof Christianityinto its
trueform,butratherthe "completedesertion"fromit. ForBloch,the diagnosis"capitalism
as religion"is a blatantmetaphorof the Calvinistic apostasy to the sataniccult of the
profit rates of life. It thereforerepresentsa regressionto the merely pseudo-Christian
schema of guilt, from which the Reformation-and that of Mtinzerabove all-was
meant to be the liberation.For Benjamin,on the otherhand,"capitalismas religion"is
4. Uwe Steinerhas plausibly suggested [156-57] that, instead of "sans reve et sans merci"
(as the editors of the collected works have read it), the text should read "sans trove et sans
merci": withoutrest and withoutmercy.
5. In the revised version that has been in print since 1960, thefinal words read instead:
"introducedelementsofa new 'religion':thatof capitalismas religionand the churchofMammon"
[TM 143]. A thirdpoint of agreementbetweenBenjaminand Bloch lies in their suggestion that
capitalism transformstheologyinto codes of conductand dogmas into the laws of the workethic.
Bloch writes: "The content, however, (of divine commandments)-the only thing which
understandingcan take referenceto in this case-is not a statutizedchurch-dogma,but is instead
precisely the God-ordainedworkethic as the sole purpose of thejustification.And nothingthatis
beyond reason wishes to appear amidstsuch a skewedKantianism;only thepre-rationalwill to
cultivate the worldseeks to appear to set value, to determinetruthor to use the instrumentof the
mind" [TM 141-42; cf context].
88
the diagnostic formulaby which the essence of capitalismas well as of Christianityis
defined.6
Bloch's sentence, however, on the "paradoxicalrelaxation of a dead Sunday,"
expressesthe particularcharacterthattime assumesin the capitalistreligion, and it does
so more forcefully-especially in light of Hegel's "Sundayof life" in which historyhas
come to its end-than Benjamindoes when he says that therewould be no "weekday"
underCapitalChristianity,"no day thatwould not be a holiday."In Bloch's religion of
capitalism,time has retiredinto its Sabbath,the day when God rests fromhis works and
finds them good, and in which the meaning and the goal of humanwork have become
one with the workitself-so thatmoney-makingis God. But this Sundayof Capitalis-
andhereinlies the paradoxof its relaxation-dead, becausein it the motionof production
and self-productionnot only come to rest, but areeternallyput to rest in the expectation
of ever the same product,the same Sunday as the ever-unchangingfinal day, in which
all time contracts itself and simultaneously strives for its return and for the further
intensificationof its production.The permanentholiday of capitalismconsists in the
ritualeffortsto celebratethis holiday always once again and at the same time ever more
festively. Capitalism'sever-lastingSunday is the perennialworkdayof surplusvalue
and surpluslabor.The time of capital,thus characterized,extendsthe end of historyinto
the dead eternityof surplustime. In the time of capital,thereis no "now"thatmight not
be simultaneouswith any other"now";thereis no "now"thatwould not be intentupon
its returnin another,none thatwould not itself standunderthe law of returnsand appear
as the mere revenantof another"now."This means, however,that the time of capitalis
the time of the dead "now"as its own second coming as revenueand surplus,as re-now
and over-now.It is the automatictime of a homogenouscontinuum,of which Benjamin
says in "FateandCharacter" it is "improperlytemporal."Every"now"owes itself another
"now" and owes itself to another"now."And it itself is meanwhile only a deficient
"now,"replicatingitself in yet another"now"that is equally deficient. This formulaof
a "now"owing to another"now"characterizesnot only capitaltime andthe time of the
Capital Christianepoch, but the philosophical conception of time in the epoch from
6. If Benjamintooktheformula "capitalismas religion"fromBloch (a possibilitythatstrongly

suggests itself here), then thefragment, whose terminusad quem is given by the editors as "the
middleof 1921" [GS 6: 690], can only be dated at the end of 1921 at the earliest. In a letterfrom
November27, 1921, Benjaminwrites to Scholem: "Contactwith Bloch has been, very carefully,
re-established.Machiavellisticallynaturally.Thecompleteproofsof Miinzerwererecentlyhanded
over to me, on hisfirst visit, and I have startedreading"[GesammelteBriefe 212-13]. Therehad
also however been very intense conversationsbetween Benjaminand Bloch long before 1921,
especially in Switzerland,and thus the suppositionwould not be inadmissiblethat at that time
Benjaminhad alreadylaunchedthisformula, whichwas thenonly later takenover by Bloch in his
Miinzer.
The material connections, however,between Bloch's texts and Benjamin's-including the
ambivalentrelationshipbetweentheirauthorsand the relatedquestionof the datingofBenjamin's
sketch-should not be addressedhere withoutfurther opening the questionof whetherthis has to
do with a historicalproblem in the emphaticsense-or whetherit is not, as the present context
suggests, a matterof blame and indebtedness,a questionof who owes what to whom,whetherit
be Bloch to Benjaminor Benjaminto Bloch-or maybethat neitherowes the otherfor an insight.
Thereare sufficientsoundargumentsfor all threesuppositions,and thereforethe questioncannot
be decided.And it is precisely this undecidabilityand the consequentnecessity of suspendingthe
judgment,whichisolates the two textsfrom one another,releasingthemfrom the guilt relationship
and turning them in their independence (even if it is merely a possible one) into historical
phenomena. Thetexts, like all others, do not acquire theirgenuinelyhistoricalpregnancy(which
is somethingcompletelydifferentthan the truthcontent of their diagnoses) out of the historyof
their origination, but ratherfrom theforce (or the weakness) by which they release themselves
from this historyand come to standfor themselves.

Aristotle to Hegel and beyond: it describes the negativity of the "now" that is now
alreadypast andpassedon into another.Andjust as the time of this epoch is "improperly
temporal,"its history is improperlyhistorical, frozen in the reproductionof the ever-
unchanging schema of debt and debt-increasing compensations, consisting in the
"paradoxicalrelaxationof a dead Sunday."
Capitalismis not only a cult and a permanentcult of immediacy;it is both of these,
both cult and permanent,only because it functions by accruingguilt. This is the third
and the decisive trait,emphasizedby Benjaminin the essentially religious structureof
this economic form and life form. He writes:"Capitalismis probablythe first case of a
cult thatproducesguilt ratherthanatonement.In this respect,its religious system exists
in the downfallof a monstrousmovement.A monstrousconsciousness of guilt, unable
to find atonement,reachesfor the cult not to find atonement,butratherto makethe guilt
universal-to hammerit into the conscious mind and finally and above all to include
God Himself in this guilt, so as to finally interestHim in atonement"[GS 6: 100-01].
Withthis traitof the religion of capital,thatit produces,accumulates,and universalizes
guilt, the fusion now emergeswith greaterclarity,of its economic,juridical-and to this
extentmoral-and psychologicalaspects.Benjaminhimself pointsto fusion as an aspect
existing withinthe conceptof Schulditself, at the pointwhen he speaksof the "demonic
ambiguityof this concept"[GS 6: 102]. It is the ambiguity,namely,by which financial
debts (Schulden)always serve as an index of legal, moral,and affectiveguilt (Schuld)-
andby which everyguilt manifestsitself in debts,andeverydebtin guilt.This ambiguity
is demonic,like all ambiguityfor Benjamin,becauseit offersthe vaguesign of something
undecided or undifferentiated,with respect to which man has not yet secured his
freedom-freedom lying in decision alone-and in which he thereforeleaves himself
at the mercyof the forcesof provenanceandsuccession,the dominationof etio-economic
descendancy.In the "demonicambiguity"of Schuld and Verschuldung,the concept of
guilt itself atteststo the guilt thatit shoulddesignate,and thus continuallybegets itself.
Under the conditions of the capital- and guilt religion, there is no liberation.And
thus it is all the more decisive for Benjamin'sanalysis that the extent and the logic of
this fusion be determined:the logic thatprovidesfor the turbulencesaroundthe hollow
center of this religion.
"Monstrousconsciousness of guilt,"Predestination,"the utterguilt of God"
ForBenjaminthe startingpointfor the universaldominanceof guilt in recentChristianity

is the disenchantmentof the world;this is indicatedby his referenceto Weber'streatises
(presumablyabove all "TheWork-Ethicof Ascetic Protestantism")."Demystification"
was introducedby Calvinism'smethodicalexclusion of sacramentalmagic as a means
of salvation, as well as by the silent eliminationof the sacramentof penitence in the
form of private confession. Calvinism thereby withheld, according to Weber, all
possibility of relief from the sinful conscience: "Themeans of a periodic 'workingoff'
(Abreagieren)of an affectively chargedconsciousness of guilt were done away with"
[DpE 124]. So Weberwrites, and Benjamin, in turn:"A monstrousconsciousness of
guilt, unableto find atonement,reaches for the cult [. . .] in orderto make it universal
[. . .]."The guilt becomes universalbecause every means of influencingit-whether by
the devout, through sacraments, through the church, by God Himself-have been
withdrawn.Theterrifyingpointof the doctrineof predestination-whichis in factnothing
but a doctrine of fate-lies precisely in the fact that its God died exclusively for the
elect "towhom He had resolved in all eternityto contributeHis sacrificialdeath"[DpE
123],butthatnot one of the elect canreachcertaintyabouthis stateof grace,andtherefore
90
must remain perpetually incarcerated in the consciousness of guilt. Weber's curt
sentence-"No one could help him" [DpE 122]--characterizes the world of
predestinationas one of ultimatemercilessness.This guilty consciousness is denied all
relief, whetherin confession, or in the ostentationof financial freedom from debts, or
even in the most zealous efforts at "sanctity by good works" [DpE 133]. Such a
consciousness cannot even find liberationin God: for God, no matterhow much He
may have sacrificed Himself for the guilt of the world, still remains indebted-and
thereforeguilty-with respectto His own will and His decision. He essentially defines
Himself as the one who does nothing but sacrifice Himself to Himself in all eternity.
The doctrineof predestinationstatesas its final consequence(one thatis seldom stated)
that God is not at liberty to reverse or suspend a decision that He once made. The
doctrine thus claims that He owes it to Himself to carry out His decision-that He
relates to Himself as to a causa sui, and that He is thus made guilty by His original
resolve, guilty towardHimself and for Himself as His own determiningcause. A God
who must inalterablyfollow His own decision is subject to a relation within Himself
that is one of cause and result-therefore a relationship of guilt and indebtedness.
Predestinationis predestinationthroughGod, because it is essentially predestination
within God. A God who exists purely in His decision must behave with absolute
indifferencetowardeverythingtemporalHe created,andHe thereforecannoteven come
under considerationas the redeemer of this creation and must remain guilty, not as
muchwith respectto everythingover which He decided,butfirstandabove all regarding
His own decision. Under whatever guise one wishes to consider the God of
predestination-that is, the God of self- andworldfoundationin will-He is a God who
stands in a relation of guilt toward Himself. Since He is nothing but His relation to
Himself, this God is sheer guilt in the sense of aition, of causa, ratio andfundamentum
as well as in the sense of debitumand of culpa. "Capitalismas religion"supposes "God
as guilt."
The climax of the guilt consciousness characteristicof CapitalChristianityis thus
reachedin the conviction that God Himself is guilty, that He owes Himself to Himself
and is therebyguilty of the guilt of His followers-of those who are indebtedto Him.
God's guilt, as well as the resulting irremediabilityand unredeemabilityof the world
and the universal guilt consciousness of His faithful, is no longer just a gloomy
theologoumenon,nor is it a merely affective state that determinesthe entire emotional
structureof the society of the capital religion, condemningthe history of Christianity
and all of its practicesto be a historyof guilt, of the laying of blame, of retributionand
restitution.Moreover,the process by which God becomes guilty-and indebted-is at
the same time an economic fact, one, however, that has not been technically
conceptualizedby Weber(who in any case uses the concept of guilt with conspicuous
rarity)butratherby Marx.In the twenty-fourthchapterof the seventhsection of Capital,
entitled "The So-Called OriginalAccumulation,"Marx comments on "the system of
public credit, i.e. of state debts":"Thepublic debt becomes one of the most energetic
levers of original accumulation.As if by the wave of a magic wand, debt endows
unproductivemoney with generativepower and thus transformsit into capital [...]" [K
782]. The public debt turnsmoney into capital,which is to say: into money thatrealizes
itself and multiplies itself, always turningitself into more money-and thus into more
money thanit actuallyis. But, in the case of capital,somethingthat is more than it is is
first of all the bare, though utterlyeffective, semblanceof capital;and second, it is the
thoroughlyproductiveand over-productivecapitaldebt, since, in the measurein which
it is more thanitself, it is also less thanitself. "Hence,"accordingto Marx,"themodern
doctrineis perfectlyconsequent,thata people becomes all the richer,the deeperit goes
into debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital [. . .]" [K 782]. Following this

formulaof the metamorphosisfrom seculareconomic creditinto the sacramentalcredo
and its implicit diagnosis thatcapitalismbecomes structurallyreligious in the phase of
its "original"accumulation,Marx continues by suggesting a furthercontraction of
economy andreligion:"Andwith the rise of nationaldebts,infidelityagainstthe national
debttakesthe place of the sin againstthe Holy Spirit,for which thereis no forgiveness."
What appearshere as a sacramentalprocess of an indebtingthat endows capital with
productivityappearsin the transformationof money into capitalas a generativeprocess
within God Himself: "Insteadof representingthe relationsof commodities,value now
enters,so to speak,into a privaterelationshipwith itself. It differentiatesitself as original
value from itself as addedvalue, just as God the Fatherfrom Himself as God the Son,
even thoughboth are of the same age and in fact form only a single person.Only from
the surplusvalue of ?10 does an advanceof ?100 become capital-and as soon as this
has happened,as soon as the son has been producedby the father,and throughthe son,
the fatheras well, theirdifferencevanishesagainandthey become one, ?110" [K 169].7
The mechanicsof debt-of "advanced"or "credited"money-compose the process by
which value transformsitself into surplusvalue-which is what defines value as value
to begin with. This transformationis the process of a god's genesis out of something
that is not-a theogeny out of self-incurreddebts.And more precisely,it is a theogeny
out of credit, a creditthat is itself drawnfrom unpaidlabor,exploitation,colonization,
theft, and murder,legalized under the laws of the privileged. The general formulaof
value "money-commodity-more money,"that is abbreviatedin "thelapidarystyle"
of interest-bearingcapital as "money-more money"; "money that is instantly more
money, value that is greaterthan itself' is the productionformula of the "automatic
subject,"the formulaof the generationof God out of nothing.Thusfor Marxthe "credo
of capital" is not the tradesman'sfaith in capital. It is instead, as value's "private
relationshipwith itself,"capital'sfaith in capitalitself, a credo quia absurdumthat can
be confessed only in the absence of what is believed in. It is a credo in which capital-
God the Fatherin unity with His son-confesses its own debit:I owe myself myself.
Money,preeminentlyin the form of capital,is not only a god thatmakes guilty but
also a guilty god. This is somethingthatis underscoredin a more or less analytic-but
always polemical-fashion in all of the works that Benjamin makes note of in his
fragment.GeorgesSorel writes in his Rdflexionssur la violence from 1908: "therightof
debt-relationsrules every advanced capitalism" [207]. Adam Muillerin his Twelve
Speeches on Eloquencefrom 1816: "economicmisery [... ] from now on-since every
deed and every action has become expressed in money-pours itself over posterityin
heavy and always heavier masses of debt" [68]. And Gustav Landauerin his Call to
Socialismfrom 1911and 1919,referringto an etymologicalsuggestionof FritzMauthner:
"Theonly thing ever cast in a mould [der einzige Gegossene], the only idol [der einzige
Gotze],the only god [dereinzige Gott],which humanseverbroughtintobodily existence
is money [Geld]. Money is artificialand alive; it begets money and money and money;
it has all of the powers of the world. [... .] We are beggars and simpletons and fools,
because money has become God, because money has become cannibal"[144-45].8 And
finally Nietzsche, but not his Zarathustra,to which Benjaminalludes in the fragment
with the conceptof the UObermensch,but in the 1887 Genealogyof Morals, in particular
its treatiseon "'Guilt,' 'Bad Conscience,' andRelatedMatters."HereNietzsche speaks
of a moralization,of a backwardsturn and reversal in the concept of guilt, so that it
turns"againstthe 'creditor'[Gldiubiger]"-which is to say,againstGod:"Inthis process,
7. I have correctedthepeculiar misprint(thus also rectifyingthe credit reductionimposed)

in the text of the edition cited, where the capital sum is namedas ?101.
8. Uwe Steineralso makes referenceto this passage in his essay [see footnote 5].
92
h
?I?
:46
........
'
M.&'
one would think simultaneouslyof the causa prima of man, of the beginning of the
human race, of his progenitor[. . .]-of existence itself, which remains left over as
valuelessness in itself (as the nihilisticturningaway fromexistence, as yearningtoward
nothingness .. .) [. . .] until we stand at once before that paradoxicaland horrifying
result [. . .], Christianity'sstroke of genius: God sacrificing Himself for the guilt of
humans,God paying Himself off to Himself [. ..]-the creditorsacrificingHimself to
his debtorout of love (can one believe it?), out of love to his debtor!..." [N 2: 832-
33].9 The divine creditorsacrifices himself not only for his debtor,but actually owes
him this sacrifice.If this thoughtis combinedwith the suspicionthatthis "creditor"may
also be "existenceitself," then the conclusion is unavoidable:thatExistence itself, and
particularlythe ultimateBeing, the summumens, is nothingotherthanmaximaculpa, a
debitummaximumthatcannotbe restituted-because thereis no further,much less any
higher,instanceof debt resolution.
Primacausa,primaculpa-this is Nietzsche's diagnosis,andit makeshim evaluate
Christianityas an "executioner'smetaphysics"and a "backdoorinto nothingness"[N 2:
977], as rationalizationof asceticism and as nihilism.According to Marx, the formula
of politico-economictheologyreads:God producesHimselfout of His own credit(never
to be covered);accordingto Nietzsche, the formulaof moral-economictheology reads:
God not only owes somethingto someone, but He also owes Himself to Himself-and
this is the only way thatHe can "be"out of His "non-being."
Even if the conceptsof "capital"and"capitalism"aremissingin Nietzsche'sanalysis,
there is little doubt-just as little as in Marx's christologicalcredit formula or in the
inheritanceof debt observed by Adam Miiller or Landauer'spolemical etymology-
that the causal relation describedby Weber is insufficient in its determinationof the
terms"Christianity" and"capitalism."Like the formulasofferedby Bloch andBenjamin,
Nietzsche suggests an understandingof capitalismas a religion-and moreover as a
religion of guilt-and an understandingof religion-more precisely the Christian
religion-as capitalism.
Dead End History
Out of the materialand the argumentsthus preparedby these authors,Benjamindraws

the consequencethat "GodHimself' is being includedin this guilt, "in orderto finally
interestHim in atonement.This atonementthus cannotbe expectedfrom withinthe cult
itself, nor in the reformationof this religion, which would need to be able to hold onto
something solid within the religion itself, nor in its renunciation"[GS 6: 101]. In this
sentence the overall tendency of Benjamin'sreflections is indicatedby the refusal of
three conceivable alternatives.
First, an atonement of the system of guilt that has assumed world-historical
proportionsin the religion of capital is-despite the promise of redemptionthat this
system never ceases to make-not possible withinthis religion, since God, the highest
instancewho alone would be able to offer the atonement,is subjectto guilt. Neither is
any liberationto be expected from the merely immanentmotions within the system of
guilt, as long as the constitutiveprincipleof this system exhaustsitself in being at fault
and owing, and thereforeunfree.
9. Beyond Good and Evil is also cataloged (assigned with the number722) in Benjamin's
list of bookshe had read;Nietzsche's textappears in the vicinityof threeof the other textsthatare
cited in "Capitalismas Religion"[GS 7.1.477]. Also, since The Genealogyof Moralsis introduced
as "the supplementand clarification" to Beyond Good and Evil, it is plausible to assume that
both of these texts were knownto Benjamin.
94
Atonement is, secondly, not to be expected from a reformationof this religion,
because every reformation-which would necessarily amountto a reformationof the
ProtestantReformation-and all reformatoryeffortsas they were undertaken,especially
in Benjamin's time, by social-democraticand socialist politics would have to find a
startingpointin an elementof the capitalcultandits economicandpsychosocialstructures
thatwould be free of guilt-or which mightat least have some prospectfor the liberation
fromguilt.But thereis no such element.Even the Marxistvariantof socialismrepresents,
in Benjamin'sestimation(which is closely relatedto thatof GustavLandauer),a social
and economic form resulting from the dynamic progression of debts in capitalism.
"Capital-socialism"Landauertitles it in his Call to Socialism,referringto the socialism
prognosticated by Marx: "One is stunned by such exemplary nonsense, but it is
unquestionablyKarl Marx's real opinion: that Capitalism develops socialism out of
itself, completelyandtotally.The socialistmode of production'blooms'out of capitalism
[.. .]."And in orderto clarifythe theologicalconnotationof this metaphorof 'blooming,'
Landauercontinues: "Marxism-the absence of all spirit, the paper blossom on the
beloved thorn-bushof capitalism"[41-42]. Socialism is supposedto produceitself out
of the automatismof capitalism's own motion, and thus the burningthorn-bush,the
bitter emblem of the theophanyof capital, is for Landauerthe only place where the
socialism projectedby Marx can blossom. Benjaminuses the same argument,placing
the accent on the structureof indebtingthat grantsthe continuitybetween capitalism
and socialism. He interpretsthe historical process that transformsthe one mode of
productioninto the other as a debt progressionaccordingto the metaphorsof interest
and compoundinterest, and therebyinterpretshistory in the age of capital religion as
debt history.The socialism projectedby Marxcan only become a more advancedstate
in the debt history of capital, since, as Benjaminwrites, "the capitalismthat does not
turnback will become socialism by way of the simple and compoundinterestthat are
the functionsof debt" [GS 6: 101-02].
If an end to the history of guilt accumulationis possible neither out of its own
internalstructurenorby its reform,then the only furtherpossibility of a liberationfrom
this history seems to lie in its renunciation.Such a notion depends on the idea that it
wouldbe possibleto utterthe renunciationfroma positionexternalto the guilt structure-
or else thatthe renunciationwould be able to introducea division within the structure.
Renunciation as well, however, must fail to accomplish the atonement, because no
renunciationcould avoid having the cult as its cause and speakingthe language of the
cult, which is precisely that of accusation and indictment. And therefore even the
renunciationwould remainguilty before this religion and indebtedto it. Renunciation
remainsan ambiguousrelationship(demonically ambiguous,as Benjaminmight say),
one that still participatesin myth while declaringits independencefrom it. As long as
the renunciationof guilt retainsthe slightestbit of dependence-guilt is dependencepar
excellence-the renunciationwill only intensify the guilt and will fail to allow any
liberationfrom it.
If these three alternativesto the guilt relationonly perpetuatethis relation,then a
liberationis not to be expected from within its system, nor from outside of it. Neither
inside nor outside of it would a historybe possible thatis not guilt history.The formula
of this double exclusion-"neither within nor without"-contains a hint, however,as to
where this sought-afterliberationmay neverthelessbe possible. If it is possible neither
within the guilt relationsof the capitalreligion nor withoutthem, then it is possible in a
place-and only here-where these relations have reached an extreme that belongs
neitherto these relationsthemselves nor to their outside. The possibility of liberation
from guilt can thus only be located at the very extremeof guilt. This extremewould be
the outer- and innermostlimit upon which guilt is no longer itself and yet is nothing
otherthan itself: where it is-as guilt-freed of itself.

Ruinationof Being
Benjamin'sremarksmove througha descriptionof the aporiasof guilt in orderto reach

the most extreme aporia, in which the process of guilt accumulationcollapses upon
itself, collapsing in such a way thatthe system thathad maintainedthis process is itself
includedin its ruin.Havingdismissed every way out of the bind of history,reformistas
well as renunciatorysolutions, Benjaminwrites: "It lies in the natureof the religious
movementcalled capitalism,to hold out untilthe very end, untilGod has finally become
utterlyguilty-to the pointwherea conditionof the worldis achievedthatis totaldespair,
something which is precisely hoped for. This is the historically unprecedented,the
unheard-ofcharacterof capitalism,thatreligionis notthereformof beingbutits ruination:
the expansion of despairto the religious condition of the world-a state from which
salvationis to be expected. God's transcendencehas fallen. But he is not dead; he has
been includedin the destiny of man"[GS 6: 101]. The point at which "Godhas finally
become utterlyguilty and utterlyindebted"correspondsto the place of exposed credit
in Marx'sstructuralanalysis of capital,God being in both instancescapital:God is the
uncoveredcredit from which capital takes its start-and the uncovered surplusvalue
that it never ceases to producein every cycle of the circulationof goods, without ever
beingableto tie thisvalueto anyactualvalue-equivalent. Absolutesurplusvalue,absolute
is but
capital, nothing credit, and God nothing but debts. This same "completeindebting
of God"also corresponds,in Nietzsche's GenealogyofMorals, to God's takingover the
debts of His faithful, to the godforsakennessof God in His "eli, eli, lama sabachtani,"
and to the godlessness of God in the world historyof His credit.The process by which
God is "made utterly indebted" is not restricted to a process internal to Him as a
transcendentbeing or a transcendentalidea: it makes transcendenceitself guilty and
bringsaboutthe ruin of all transcendentaliain the process of God's despair,and it is at
the same time the "expansion,"the universalizationof this despairuntil it becomes "the
stateof the world."This statedetermineseverydetailof every"humandestiny,"including
every force and institutionin which humanstake part,determiningthem all as guilt, as
despair and as loneliness. The system of capitalistreligion is pantheisticto the exact
point that it is schizo-theistic:the world and every humanin it is God in His despair,i.
e. in His split from Himself. It is for this reason that Benjamincan speak, in a pathos-
laden astrologicalmetaphor,of the "passageof the planetof man throughthe house of
despair in the absolute loneliness of his course" [GS 6: 101], referring thereby to
Nietzsche's Ubermenschand his astrologicalimages. This loneliness and despairmay
well be understoodwith referenceto the relevantdescriptionsin Weberof the emotional
devastationimposed by Calvinism, to the self-tormentsof conscience under ascetic
ideals as describedby Nietzsche, and to Kierkegaard'scharacterizationof despairas a
mental illness unto death.10Both solitude and despair, however, are the structural
consequencesfrom the universalizedsystem of debt andthereforeof guilt in relationto
the causaprima-that is, guilt in itself-and emergebothfroma historywhose "ultimate
category"is guilt, and out of a political-economictheology thatculminatesin "theutter
guilt of God."If God himself becomes guilty-along with everythingin economy and
society, history, language, and morality that is structuredaccording to this highest
instance-then indeed His "transcendence"has "fallen,"and deeperthanAdam, whose
fall was still ordainedand caughtby a God. God Himself has fallen from Himself in an
10. In the treatise by the same title, Kierkegaarddefines "sicknessunto death" as despair
Benjamin speaks of "worries" in his sketch as "the mental illness belonging to the epoch of
capitalism" [GS 6: 102]. ThoughKierkegaardremains unnamed in Benjamin'sfragment, he
leaves traces throughout:in the referencesto despair fear and loneliness, no less than in the
passages about guilt andfate, as well as in the "demonicambiguity."
96
auto-apostasywithoutcompare,drivingHim to division anddespair,severingHim from
His own community,isolating Him even from Himself. Despair would not be able to
become "the state of the world" at the end of history,if this despair were not also the
despairof God in everythingthat defines itself throughHim. The isolation within this
"everything"must also be God's isolation, the isolation of a God who no longer has
anything in common with Himself and who has lost even the minimal company with
Himself. That He is not dead, this God of fallen and split transcendence,does not save
Him, since He "hasbeen includedin the destiny of man"-and therebycollapsed into a
networkof guilt that is worse thandeath.
What,then, does it mean for God to "finallybecome utterlyguilty"-die endliche
v5llige VerschuldungGottes?It cannotmean thatHe is the prime moverand cause of a
deficient creation.In this case, He would be capableof other more ideal creationsand
would thus become guilty of not correspondingwith His own ideal. The accusation
againsta God who does not live up to His abilities is an accusationmade againsta God
who is guilty only in part-and in partinnocent or at least capable of innocence. This
chargethusdoes not addressan "utterly"guilty God. "ForGod to become utterlyguilty"
can only mean thatHe is guilt in and of Himself, that He is guilt in itself as a guilt that
has not yet been and never can be resolved;thatHe is guilty, responsibleand liable for
Himself as the one who is not only incomplete,unsuccessful,or mistaken-but who is
utterlylacking.If being guilty meansbeing the cause of a nonbeing,then"thebecoming
utterlyguilty of God" means that He is the cause of His own nonbeing.He can be this
cause not by withholdingbeing from Himself merely arbitrarilyor from time to time,
but ratheronly if he cannot but withhold it, not having it at His disposal and thus not
being his being. God's guilt must lie, if it is to determineHim in His entirety,in His
being His own nonbeing-and thus in not being. Only out of this highly paradoxical
reason,a reasonthatannihilatesitself, is Benjaminable to reachthe most fully expounded
and the strictest conclusion of his sketch: that "the historical unprecedentednessof
capitalism"lies in its being a "religion that is no longer the reform of being but its
ruination."Religious capitalismis the structureof thought,experience and action that
demonstratesthat being, set up as a capital value, is infinitely more-and therefore
infinitely less-than it is; thatbeing is somethingtoto coelo otherthanitself; thatit is a
ruinedbeing, a being split off from itself and splitting,ruiningitself, and that it is the
event of the devastationof being, its annihilation.
This devastationof being in capitalism, in Capital Christianityand in all of the
structures,institutions,discourses, and nondiscursiveexperiences affected by it, is, as
Benjamin emphasizes, "historicallyunprecedentedand unheardof' (das historisch
UnerhYrte).It is not only a singularevent withoutprecedent,but it is a literallyunheard
of andunheardevent,one thatresistshearingandeveryotherdistinctsensoryexperience
and every concept. Only by being "historicallyunheardof' can capitalismat its zenith
turninto a historical,a singularevent, and be called historicalin the emphaticsense of
thatwhich escapes sense andthe senses, perceivedby no one, inaccessible andunheard
even to itself-an occurrencein whichexperienceconfrontssomethinginexperienceable.
The ruinationof being broughtaboutby the CapitalChristiancult of guilt, the ruination
of the value of all values, the self-annihilationof the summumens-reaches the extreme
point in the mythical nexus of guilt, which can only be called "improperlyhistorical,"
and rupturesits network:the devastationof being is the opening of history.
Unheardof as the ontological ruin is, since no being can be attributedto it, it can
offer itself neitheras an empiricalnor as an ideal object of knowledge.The splittingin
God, the ruinationof being, is "inaddressable"and "a secret,"because an entitythathas
been explodedinto discontinuouspieces can have no access to itself andbarsall external
access. ThereforeBenjamin,after indicatingthe three traitsof "thereligious structure

of capitalism"that are recognizable in the present, needs to add the fourth trait of
capitalism,the unrecognizabilityof its God. "Its fourthtraitis that [capitalism's]God
must be kept secret. Only in the zenith of His guilt may He firstbe addressed.The cult
is celebratedbefore an unripedivinity,every representationand thoughtof it damages
the secret of its fruition"[GS 6: 101]. Until its maturityis achieved-which may mean
the state of its separationfrom "natural"connections and above all from "itself'-the
divinity of the cult of guilt mustbe kept secret in orderto preservethe "mystery"of the
ripening process. This "secret"can be none other than the secret of His guilt, of His
deficitarybeingandHis nonbeing.A structuralsecret,whichmustcarryits own forgetting
or "repression"alongwith it, it belongsfor Benjaminnot only to the realmof ontological,
theological, and political-economic thinking, but also to the most advanced
"psychological"theory that he was aware of: to that of psychoanalysis." Like Marx,
Nietzsche, presumablyKierkegaard,andWeber,Freudtoo is countedamongthose who
sanctionthe religion of guilt in theirtheories-instead of recognizing in its course the
elements of its demise. The "Freudiantheory"thereforefalls underBenjamin'sverdict
that it is "completelycapitalisticallyconceived" and belongs "to the ruling priesthood
of the cult." Benjamindeclares:"The repressed,the sinful imagination,is, by a most
profound analogy that remains to be illuminated, capital itself, and the hell of the
unconscious draws interest on it" [GS 6: 101]. If this comment is combined with the
mythological note on "Pluto,"the god of the underworld-of hell, the unconscious-
who is also "thegod of wealth,"then it suggests thatGod is unconscious.He is a sinful
imagination and even the most sinful one, the first and most deeply repressed idea
consisting in nothing but guilt and failure, in nothing but absence and nothing but
nothingness-and wouldthereforeofferno possibleobjectfor consciousness.Benjamin's
assessmentcould indeed find supportin the Freudiantheoremof originaryrepression,
as well as in the ethno-psychologicalmyth of the murderof the primalfather,a murder
which,repressed,leadsto anunconscioussense of guiltthatmotivatessubsequentcultural
accomplishments.But just as in the case of Marx and of Nietzsche, Benjaminfinds in
Freudian psychoanalysis the structure of the capital divinity indicated-and
simultaneouslydisavowed.In the Freudiandiagnosis-at least as Benjaminwould have
it-the concept of guilt and the process of its accumulationare consolidated as the
indissolublefundamentof all social andreligiousrelations.Such a conceptiondoes not,
however,allow for the possibility thatthis guilt may become eliminable as soon as it is
made absolutein God, in capitaland its religion.
Ruinationof Being, Reversal
Benjaminmaintainsthatit correspondsto the essence of capitalismas religion to "hold

out to the very end, until God has finally become utterly guilty, to the point where a
conditionof the world's total despairis achieved, somethingwhich is still being hoped
11. GershomScholem notes, very dryly, in WalterBenjamin:The Story of a Friendship:

"Benjaminsat (1917/1918) in a seminaron Freudtaughtby Hiiberlin.At thattimeFreud'stheory
of driveswas Benjamin'stopicfor an extensivelyelaboratedresearch-presentation. Thejudgment
passed in Benjamin'spresentationwas a dismissive one" [75]. Thepresentationthat Scholem
refersto has been lost, and onlyfrom it wouldit be possible to say how Benjaminactually "passed
judgment"on Freud'stheoryof drives. Scholem's apodictic claim of the "dismissivejudgment"
does indeed correspond with the sharp tone of Benjamin's characterizations elsewhere, but
Scholem'sassessmentwouldbe unfairto theacknowledgedhistoricalimportanceofpsychoanalysis
for Benjamin.He recognizedin the Freudian"unconscious"(as in Nietzsche's Ubermensch)one
of the signaturesof the era of the zenith of guilt.
98
for" [GS 6: 101]. Whatis hoped for, therefore,is the "achievedconditionof despair"--
achievedhere andnow, in Benjamin'stime, in the historicalinstantof his analysisof the
capital-Christiancult of guilt-in a moment that is simultaneouslythe one in which
"God has become utterly guilty" at "the end" of the cult. But if this end were thus
alreadyreached, then the "hope"that Benjamin speaks of would have no object and
would be unable to "still"direct itself-"precisely" now-toward this end. Since this
hope, however,directsitself in the end toward"despair," this despairmust"still"continue
to displace the end from its end, splittingthe "now"of the historicalmoment,rupturing
the state of the world and the God who has mergedwith it. This division, the despairof
God in His "finalutterguilt,"leads thereforein the end to the "turn-around" or reversal
(Umkehr)namedthree times in Benjamin'ssketch. It is a reversalthat is not metanoia
or penitence, but rather a turning away from guilt that emerges out of guilt's own
immanentmotion. Umkehris guilt's "own"turningagainst itself. Benjamin does not
comment furtheron this motion of despair's reversal, but from the logic developed
already(of the "completeguilt of God"andof the "zenithof His guilt"andthe "ruination
of being"), the formal shape of this motion can be sketched:
God is guilt in itself; He is guilty of Himself. Which is to say: He owes Himself
Himself, He is still lacking, is not yet God, and can only be God so long as He actually
is not God. He is, therefore,guiltily, His own "not"and nonbeing.As this "nonbeing"
however,He is also the "nonguilt."
If God is nothingbut guilt, then He is the cause of a "nothing"(of a lack, a defect,
a deficiency, a mistake), but, as such a cause, which is itself a "nothing"(a lack, a
mistake), He is thereforethe "null cause of a void," "the vain and inane reason of a
'nothing"'(nichtiger Grundeines Nichts)-and thus neithercause nor guilt.12
To be the cause of a "nothing"andnothingbutthis cause, God mustbe just as much
the cause as no cause at all. He mustbe guilty withoutguilt, being withoutbeing, nothing
without nothing-and even a nothing without the "without"of a nothing. He is life-
12. Heidegger's definitionfrom Being and Time [?? 58, 62], which states that guilt is "the
null cause of a void" (nichtiger Grundeines Nichts), is not cited here just for the sake of its
accuracy.Thisdefinitionalso attests to a proximityto the issue that concernsBenjaminin the text
in question. Heidegger's definition,punctual though it may be, cannot be belittled in light of its
materialdifferenceswiththese unfinishedthoughtsofBenjamin.AndHeidegger'sdefinitioncannot
be ignored here, considering the importanceof the problem of guilt for both authors. In the
present analysis, however,Heidegger'sformula is not used within the limits of its own context,
and this for reasons pertaining to the material itself Among these reasons (which cannot be
presented here in anything approachingtheirfull extent), one shall be named withoutfurther
argumentation:existentialguiltiness (Schuldigsein)as the constitutionof being (Dasein) cannot
be distinguishedby a "nothing"in a way thatwouldmaintainterminologicalprecision and at the
same time be differentiablefrom other modes of privation, lack, or absence (assumingthat these
modes were those of a world conditionor of a god). Theone who is despairingorfearful may be
his own "not," but this does not in any way exclude the possibility that he also experiences his
being as privation,lack, or rapture.It wouldneed to be tested, whetherthe implicitpositivization
of the "nothing"(which is to be achieved in the distinctionbetween existentialnothingnessand
the nothingnessof simple absence) hindersHeidegger in Being and Timefrom even considering
the thoughtof an ex-cusation (Ent-schuldung).This thought,a completelysober thought,is led
neither by "faith"nor by any kind of confessional sentiment.Benjaminwould presumablynot
have hesitatedfor a second to count Heidegger-like Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud--among the
"rulingpriesthoodof the cult" of guilt. Thespecific conclusionsdrawnby way of Benjaminin the
present essay would at any rate have been quite distantto the Heideggerof Being andTime. The
situation is different,however,in Heidegger's reflectionsbearing the title "Whois Nietzsche's
Zarathustra?,"a text that speaks of the temporal structure of revenge and the possibility of
redemption[cf VortriigeundAufsfitze102-03].

but no naturalone, and He is God-but before and beyond every causa prima and
causa sui.
God, thoughtof in the extremeof His despairat "thezenith"of the cult of capital,
is a God who owes Himself to Himself as the one who is at fault for Himself. He is
therebyHis own "nothing"-and in this nothing also His own not-guilt:if He is guilty
of Himself, then as His own cause; and if this guilt is His own "nothing,"then as the
ongoing absenceof this cause, as the uncauseandas the anetiologicalfact of freedom-
a freedom this side of guilt and one that first opens up the possibility to be guilty and
allows for a freedomin which guilt is no longer subjectto restitutionbutto forgiveness.
And likewise capital: it is advance, surplus value beyond the value by which it
would be able to representinvested labor and raw materials;it is inequivalence and
credit-debt.It is mere debit, so that the creditorbecomes the total debtor in his most
nakedpoverty,unableto coverhimself with a banknoteor bill-and which is thusneither
credit nor debit.
The logic of this reversal-of "thecapitalismthat turnsaround"[GS 6: 101], also
evoked in the metaphorof the "zenith"of the accumulationof guilt-clearly cannot
follow any prescriptivemoralitythatwould seek to hold the "turnaround"to some kind
of ideal of behavior.Such a moralityis of the kind thatlies at the base of Christianityin
its capitalistmode, and,as such, as an ethics of absoluteowing in the formof obligations
to be fulfilled, it would be a system of absoluteguilt-but never its absoluterestitution.
The reversalmust insteademerge from guilt itself, and it can do so only at the pinnacle
where it separatesfrom itself andturnsagainstitself. At this point, worldhistorystrikes
against a "nothing"upon which guilt, this history's "ultimatecategory,"gives out-
alongwith this historyitself. Guilthistoryis thusa motionin nihilo-into the nothingness
of guilt and its divinity-just as it emerges ex nihilo, out of the nothingnessof God and
the "nothing"of guilt.
TheLogic of the Recoil
Already as early as 1918, Benjaminmust have been familiarwith HermannCohen's

Logic of Pure Knowledge. Cohen's text had broughtthe ex nihilo to new esteem by
using an operational'nothing'as the startingpointin whathe called "thelogic of origin":
"On the detour of the 'nothing,' judgment representsthe origin of the 'something'"
[LrE84]. In the logic of the indefinite(of the adriston), in the ontology of the infinite
(of the dpeiron and the anhypitheton [LrE 86-88]), and in the mathematicsof the
infinitesimal[LrE89-90], it is the in- that serves (like the alphaprivativumandthe me
in Greek)as the index for a "nothing"in which the "something"of being can first find
its determination.In this context,Cohenrehabilitatesthe "infinitejudgment"in orderto
make it purelogic's originalmeans of knowledge.Withoutreferenceto empiricaldata,
thisjudgmentdefines a "something"by the negation(or even annihilation)of something
that(it) is not. This negationdoes not referto some particular"something"thatprecedes
it, but ratherto a "nothing"-it is an original negation that remainsindependentfrom
any position.In the infinitejudgment,A = non-B always meansabove all:A = non-nihil.
The infinitejudgmentconsists in the annihilationof a "nothing,"in the repulsionof a
privation.Only by this immemorialannihilationof a "nothing"can the "something"of
being be achieved.Thusthe infinitejudgment(whichplaces a "not"againstnothingness)
containsthe preontologicalorigin of being. "So it is," writes Cohen, "thatthe so-called
(but by no means thus understood)'nothing' becomes the operativemeans by which
each and every 'something' in question is broughtinto its origin, and therebyfor the
first time actuallybroughtinto productionand determination"[LrE89].
100
If God has, as Benjaminsays, "finallybecome utterlyguilty"by a guilt thatbrings
aboutthe emptyingandthe nothingnessof God, then it also bringsabout,in its extreme,
the annihilationof His guilt and His nothingness:It operatesandeffectuates,according
to the logic of Cohen's infinitejudgment, the annihilationof an infinite privationand
opens the origin ex nihilo of a God who is otherthan the God of guilt; it inauguratesa
history thatis somethingotherthanguilt history.The "ruinationof being"at the end of
the cult of capitalcan be understoodas the ruinationof a privativebeing in guilt. It is a
destructio destructionis,the infinite judgment in its theo-economic form, by which a
"nothing"annihilatesitself in orderto open the possibility of a "something"that is as
yet withoutpositive determination.Justas in the Trauerspielbuch,where he transforms
Cohen's purelylogical categoryof origin into a historicalone, Benjamin,alreadyin the
early sketchon "Capitalismas Religion,"turnsCohen'soperational"nothing"of logical
knowledge into a historical "nothing"in which capitalism and Christianityturn back
into theirhistoricalorigin. Theirretrogrademotion happensno longer as a logical self-
annihilation,but ratheras an economic self-annihilationof the guilt system-as its
historicalreductionto its originin the differentialof the "not-guilt"andthe "not-nothing."
Benjamin'sstudies on Kantas well as his work on the arttheoryof the earlyRomantics
madehim familiarwith speculationson the creatioex nihilo,with theoriesof annihilation
and their connections to the mathematicsof the infinitesimaland differentialcalculus.
(Benjamin'sfriendGerhardScholemwas at thattimepursuinga specializationin calculus
as a part of his study of mathematics.)Meanwhile, Benjamin was also learning the
doctrineof the self-emptyingof God in the Zimzum;he also learned,a shorttime later,
throughthe presentationon Maimonidesin Salomon Maimon'sLife History,aboutthe
theoryof the negative attributesof God and His existence withoutexistence. Injust this
sense Benjaminargues, in his theoremof the "Theological-PoliticalFragment"(from
about the same time as "Capitalismas Religion") that the contradictorytendencies of
profane and messianic history make up a "world politics," "whose method must be
called nihilism" [GS 2: 204]. This methodical nihilism is the political complementof
the operational,methodical"nothing"of Cohen's theoryof judgment.The turn-around
projectedby "Capitalismas Religion"is a repetitionof the origin."'
Timeas a Stormof Forgiveness
The "utterguilt" of capital's divinity is thus the ultimatemomentof a jump back to its
origin where it becomes the "not"of a "nothing,"the "not"of guilt. At the origin, the
law of retributiondoes not rule,butthatof guilt's annihilation.Outof the Christianityof
capital, in its self-devastation,emerges the Messianismof forgiveness.If, however,the
annihilationof guilt is the infinitejudgmentthatthe capitalcult carriesout uponitself-
and if thisjudgmenthas always belonged to the structureof guilt-then the forgiveness
practicedhere must have been always operative,even within the system of guilt and
retribution itself. This forgiveness must extend through all of guilt history, thus
transformingit into a double history,a history of guilt and guilt's deletion. Neither of
these can be reducedto the other,but they must neverthelessboth relate to each other.
The decisive relationbetween them can once again only lie in a "nothing":if the guilt
history is precisely a history of annihilation-as "thedevastationof being"-then it is
at the same time the history of the annihilation of history. This immanent recoil
13. A more extensivetreatment(also with differentemphases)of this complexof the infinite,

the infinitesimaland the intensivebetweenKant, Cohen,and Benjamincan befound in my study
"IntensiveSprachen."

accomplishes itself and becomes history in a sense that is contraryto that of "guilt
history": It comes about not as reform or reformation, but as the true revolution
eliminating at every moment the traces of the guilt system. The nothing of this
counterhistoryis time itself as the time to come.
Under the dominationof the category of guilt there can be no experience of time,
because in it all times are synchronized according to the schema of ever-identical
causationof ever-identicalguilt. Guiltknows no time and no history.Benjaminclarifies
this in a fragmentthat depicts the institutionof law in its relationto time. Out of their
interestin retribution,the forces of law demandthat even misdeeds of the distantpast
should be judged and prosecuted,"reachinginto the succession of distantgenerations.
Retributionis basically indifferentto time" [GS 6: 97]. To the institutionsof law, which
insist on retribution,time is only an impediment,a burdensomedelay in the execution
of theirintentions.ForBenjaminthis delay in carryingout the punishmenthas the dignity
of an independentethical phenomenon.For him the time of delay between misdeed and
retribution-and especially if this retributionis expected of the Last Judgment-is not
an "emptytarrying."It does notbelong to the worldof law,ruledby retributionindifferent
to time,butratherto the moralworldof "forgiveness." Time,to the extentthatit intervenes
as delay within the orderof retribution,is forgiveness. It is not a function of law, but
rathera figure of justice. When Benjamin writes that the moral world of forgiveness
finds "its most powerful figurationin time" [GS 6: 98], he thereby says nothing less
thanthattime itself is moral,thatit is justice itself, thatit is the forgivenessof guilt and
in this forgivenessthe annihilationof a historythattakes guilt as its "ultimatecategory."
Cohenhad written,in his Ethics of the Pure Will:"Thebasic concept formingthe proper
kernelof fate may be recognizedin the concept of guilt. The Ate extends itself across a
generation.. ." [ErW363]. In his sketch, Benjaminleaves the Ate to a vain struggle
againsttime, since for him, time is the forgivenessof guilt: "Thetime in which the Ate
pursues the criminal is [. . .] the thunderouslyloud oncoming storm of forgiveness
before the ever-approachingcourt-against which it can do nothing"[GS 6: 98]. The
timeof deferral-and moreprecisely,time as deferral-is not only theirreducibledistance
between guilt and retribution.It is also the distance,likewise irreducible,between the
judgment and its implementation, between the moral predication and its actual
completion,between the constativeutteranceof a judgmentand its execution.
The cessation or suspension in judgment (and indeed of divine Judgmentmost of
all) is the theme of a 1919 essay by GerhardScholem, the friendof Benjamin'syouth.
The essay was entitled "On Jonahand the Concept of Justice,"whose earlierversion,
called "Notes on Justice,"Scholem had already sharedwith Benjamin in Octoberof
1918.14The considerationsof this text made a powerful impressionon Benjamin;in it
Scholem wrote:"Forjustice in its deepestsense meansthis andnothingelse: that,though
it is indeed permissible to judge, the execution of a judgment remains as something
entirely different.The unambiguousrelationof judgmentto its executive function (as
the actual legal order)is suspendedin the delay of execution. This is what God does
with Nineveh"[T526; also 336]. Because the delay in the executionof the sentencealso
affects God's Judgment,Scholem is able to drawthe following consequences:"Justice
is the idea of the historical annihilationof the divine judgment [. . .]. Justice is the
indifferenceof the Final Judgment:This means thatjustice unfolds from within itself
the sphere in which the coming of the Last Judgmentis infinitely postponed"[T 527;
also 336]. This idea of justice-as "the carryingout of a not carryingout" [T 341] of
God's Judgment-lies at the bottom of Benjamin'scharacterizationof historical and
ethical time. Time is nothingbut the delay of the JudgmentDay whose coming would
14. Cf GershomScholem,Diaries, 1917-23 [T 401].
102
annihilatethe Nineveh of the Creation.This delay saves the Creation-only hereinlies
itsjustice-by annihilatingannihilationin a way thatexactlyfollows the "logicof origin"
in the infinitejudgmentas Cohenoutlinedit: as the annihilatingrepulsionof a "nothing."
Time is the span-virtually infinite-between the sentence, condemning to
punishment,and its execution, turningthe sentence into deed. Time, and thereby the
medium of everythingthat lives, is thus not the act (which was requiredeven for the
constitutionof time as Kantconceived it throughthe auto-affectionof the spirit),just as
little as it is a performativeact by which consciousness operates (whether it does so
immediately or with some hesitation). Instead, time is the noncarrying out, the
aperformative,afformative'5 cessationin the execution-and thereinalso the annihilation
of thejudgmentitself in its illocutionarydemand.Time as delay is the suspensionof the
sentence. It is not an act (whether it be of human or divine will), and what happens
within it is not boundby the principleof action to pass througha chain of effectuations
in orderachieve a preset purpose.This is because every legal order,whetherimplicitly
or explicitly, presupposesprecisely this principle:that everythingthat happenscan be
tracedback to intentionsthat would lend the occurrencethe status of an action. And,
since law to this extent propoundsthe schema of causalityand the causalityof the will,
its orderdefines itself (in principleas well as in its particularforms) as the instancethat
is the most deeply struckby time as the suspensionof action, by the delay of execution
andthe epoche in performance.Precisely this fundamentalstructureof law andits logic
of retributionis what is meantto be unhinged-the hinges being those of the concept of
action-in Scholem's and Benjamin'sreflectionson thejustice of time.16ForBenjamin
and Scholem, time is the deactivationof the carryingout of sentence and thereforethe
suspensionof the strictconnectionbetween sentence and execution-and thereforethe
disenabling of the sentence itself, and finally, the disassembly of the entire nexus of
actiondefininglaw-makingandjudicial power.Time, once conceived in its strictethical
significance,is the coming aboutof justice, which, extendingthroughevery legal order,
would disenable all of them. The orderof execution, whetherlinguistic or actual, has
always founded the legal order by the causality of violence. This is the order that is
deactivatedby time's irreducibledelay, which is valid for all acts.
As nonexecution and nonaction-this is how Benjamin elsewhere characterizes
the revolutionarystrike [GS 2:1:184]-and as nonactivity,time is the "nothing"that
separates the sentence from its performance and erases both. Time is the a-thetic
happening,to which both are exposed and in which both are suspended.The "now"of
this time of nonexecutionis the an-etiological and an-archicsuspensionof every time
sequence, linear as well as circular.It is the breakingoff of succession between cause
and effect. It is the ongoing crisis of the exchangeof equivalentgoods. It is the deletion
not only of the sentence but also of the guilt. This is because it is not only the not
15. The afformative, in the sense developed in the essay "Afformative,Strike," is a

preperformativeevent that is not the act of a linguisticsubjectwithinthe horizonof a convention
or consensus concerning speech acts, but is rathera literal parapraxis in the strict sense that it
offers the very possibility of such a horizon, while at once breakingthis horizon and shifting it.
Theafformativeevent is, in both senses of the word,the ex-positionof the horizonof the "act"as
it has been classically-and thoroughlyontologically-conceived. The afformativeis the act's
unconditionalprerequisiteand at the same time the deactivationof the act, insofar as an "act"is
consideredto be a resultof thepositingofa constituting,egologicalsubject,individualor collective.
16. Thissuspensionis misrecognizedifjustice is characterizedas an "absoluteperformative"
or as a "pureperformativeact," which is what occurs in one of the most significant of recent
Benjaminstudies,JacquesDerrida's "Forceof Law" [78-79]. Dealing with the same complexof
problems,but independentfrom Derrida's reading,see also my study "Afformative,Strike,"and,
specifically referringto Derrida, "Linguaamissa."

carryingout of the sentence: as the breakingoff of every consequence, it is also the
deletion of the guilt by which the misdeed pursues its doer. Time is the "storm of
forgiveness,"and "thisstormis not only the voice thatdrownsout the criminal'sscream
of terror,it is also the handthatexpungesthe tracesof his misdeed-though the earthbe
laid to waste thereby"[GS 6: 98]. This stormof time cannotrestrainguilt, the Ate, in its
persecutionof the wrongdoer,but,blowing fromthe future,it can erasethe tracesof the
deed andobscurethe courseof his flight.This time does not stretchitself froma point of
origin in the past, over a succession of points on a line, throughthe presentand into the
future:It is not the time of genealogical descendency,not that of guilt and resulting
punishmentand not the time of progress,of strivingtowardan ideal in the future.It is
the otherway around,the time thatcomes fromthe "ever-approaching" futureandmoves
into its past-and only thus can it be "the thunderously loud oncoming storm of
forgivenessbefore the ever-approachingcourt"[GS 6: 98].
Ethical time does not flow in futurum,but rathercomes ex futuro. This reversed
time, this countertime,moving againstthe lineartime of developmentand againstguilt
time's indifferenceto time, is able to restrainthe cause-effect sequence-breaking its
nexus of guilt and punishmentand even expunging the traces of the misdeed-only
because it is not a thetic, positing, or giving time. It is ratheraforgiving, an annulling,
annihilating, coming time. As future it is not already taken; it is uncertain and
undeterminableby programsand prognoses;it is a "nothing"for knowledge as for the
intentionsandactionsthatdevolve fromit. As a "nothing"thatholds backannihilation-
a counter-"nothing"and re-"nothing,"over-"nothing"and alter-"nothing"' '-this time
from the future would be the infinite judgment of the origin of temporal movement
itself-while every execution of judgmentandeven everyjudgmentitself is suspended
by it. The time to come is the time of origin-not because time must emerge from it
before it can pass, but because its coming out of the futureopposes the time thatmoves
into the future and gives pause to its movement of annihilation.The time of delay is
historical time. It is not logical and mechanical time, but instead the ethical time of
history.Its methodmay, as Benjamindemandsin his "Theological-PoliticalFragment,"
be called nihilism,but its resultis the counternihilismof the always renewedbeginning.
"The Meaning of Time in the Economy of the Moral World":this is the title of
Benjamin's sketch, and the "meaning"can thus be found in time's suspension of the
principleof guilt-economy(thatof the quidpro quo andthe exchangeof equivalents)in
such a way thatonly the "quid"is saved.The dike of Anaximanderfoundedthe orderof
a time thatrequitedgenesis with demise, permanentlyaccruingguilt andpunishmentin
self-persecution and self-execution, in the incessant pursuit of the business of "the
devastationof being."Justice,however,as Benjaminand Scholem tried to conceive it,
is the justice not of a time that comes into being and then passes away, but ratherone
that restrainsand gives pause to everythingthat it comes into contact with. It springs
free of the mere course of time and,just as the riveris separatefrom its flowing, thus it
isolates the individualphenomenaby endowing each of them with an impulse against
itself: thus justice is the "eddy" in the flow of time. This is also how Benjamin
characterizesthe origin (the category of the work's title) in the "Epistemo-Critical
Preface"to his Originof the GermanTrauerspiel.This frequentlycited passage cannot
be understoodwithout taking into account its relation to Cohen's concept of origin:
"Origin, though certainly an entirely historical category, has nothing to do with
something's genesis. In origin what is meant is not the becoming of that which is
originated,but ratherand moreover:it means that which emerges out of something's
becoming and passing away.The origin standsin the streamof becoming as the eddy,
and it tugs the materialof genesis into itself with its rhythmicpulsation"[GS 1: 226].
Historicaltime is nothing but the delay, impediment,and ultimatelythe preventionof
104
consequences, successions, and descendanciesin the moralworld;it is the liberationof
ethical singularityas well as the epoche of economy and all of its branches-within
naturalscience, naturallaw, and naturaleconomy. If the orderof the "moralworld"is
imaginedas an orderof acts andmethodicaloperations,thenhistoricaltime, as Benjamin
representsit, is not an operational"nothing"as conceived by Cohen, but ratherthe
"nothing"of nonoperationality.It is the omission andthe epoch6withinevery execution,
and only thus does it interruptthe guilt economy withoutcontinuingit.
Time excuses and is nothingbut the very motion ex causa. The principleof reason,
of causa andaftion, the etiological principleparexcellence-ceases in the "nothing"of
this pardon.Anyone who seeks to think history has to think this pause and this ex-
position of temporalsuccession in the countertimeto come-and must thereforethink
history without groundand reason,sine culpa et causa.
Translatedby Kirk Wetters
WORKS CITED
Benjamin, Walter."Capitalism Religion."Selected Writings,Vol.1. 288-91.
as
--. "Fateand Character."Selected Writings,Vol.1. 201-06.
-- . GesammelteBriefe, Bd. II. Ed. C. Godde and H. Lonitz. Frankfurtam Main:
Suhrkamp,1996.
- . GesammelteSchriften.Ed. R. Tiedemannand H. Schweppenhiuser.Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp,1972-. [GS]
--. "The Meaning of Time in the MoralUniverse."Selected Writings,Vol. 1. 286-
87.
. SelectedWritings,Vol.1:1913-1926. Ed.M. BullockandM. Jennings.Cambridge,
MA: HarvardUP, 1996.
Bloch, Ernst. Thomas Miinzer als Theologe der Revolution. Frankfurtam Main:
Suhrkamp,1962. [TM]
Cohen, Hermann.Ethik des reinen Willens. Reprint of the second edition of 1907.
Hildesheim:Georg Olms, 1981. [ErW]
- . Logik der reinenErkenntnis.Berlin:Cassirir,1902. [LrE]
Derrida,Jacques.Gesetzeskraft.[ForceofLaw.]Trans.Alex GarciaDiittmann.Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp,1991.
Hamacher,Werner."Afformativ,Streik."Washeif3t'Darstellen'? Ed. ChristiaanHart
Nibbrig. Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1994. 340-71.
-. "Afformative,Strike: Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence."' WalterBenjamin's
Philosophy-Destruction and Experience.Ed. AndrewBenjamin,Peter Osborne.
London:Routledge 1994. 110-38.
-- . "IntensiveSprachen."Ubersetzen:WalterBenjamin.Ed. ChristiaanHartNibbrig.
Frankfurtam Main:Suhrkamp,2002. 174-235.
-- . "Linguaamissa."Futures.Ed. RichardRand.Stanford,StanfordUP, 2001. 130-
78.
--. "Linguaamissa."GhostlyDemarcations.Ed. Michael Sprinker.London:Verso,
1999. 168-212.
Heidegger, Martin. "Der Spruch des Anaximander."Holzwege. Frankfurtam Main:
Klostermann,1959. 296-343.
--. "Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra?"Vortriigeund Aufsditze.Pfullingen: Neske,
1954. 101-26.
LandauerGustav."AufrufzumSozialismus,"Revolutionsausgabe1920. Berlin:Cassirer,
1920.

Marx,Karl.Das Kapital. Berlin:Dietz, 1969. [K]
MiUller,Adam. Zw6ilfRedeniiber die Beredsamkeitund deren Verfallin Deutschland.
Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1967.
Nietzsche,Friedrich.Werkein dreiBainden.Ed. KarlSchlechta.Munchen:HanserVerlag,
1966. [N]
Scholem, Gershom. Tagebficher 1917-23. [Diaries] Ed. K. Grtinder, H. Kopp-
Oberstebrink,F. Niewohner.Frankfurtam Main:JiidischerVerlag,2000. [7]
. WalterBenjamin-die Geschichte einer Freundschaft. Frankfurtam Main:
Suhrkamp,1975.
Sorel, Georges. Uber die Gewalt. Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,1981.
Steiner,Uwe. "Kapitalismusals Religion-Anmerkungen zu einem FragmentWalter
Benjamins." Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift fiir Literaturwissenschaft und
Geistesgeschichte72.1 (1998): 147-71.
Weber,Max. TheProtestantEthic and the Spiritof Capitalism.Trans.TalcottParsons.
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Hamacher - Guilt History

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Hamacher - Guilt History

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Guilt History: Benjamin's Sketch "Capitalism as Religion"

Author(s): Werner Hamacher and Kirk Wetters

Since historycannotbe conceivedas a chainof eventsproducedby mechanicalcausation,

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 diacritics32.3-4: 81-106 81

It is unknownwhetherWalterBenjaminwas familiarwith this sentenceof Anaximander.

1. Thisis howHeideggerdescribesit in his "SpruchdesAnaximander"[304]. Hisformulation

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 83

Capital Guilt History,Methodological

If the task of a critiqueof historycan only be satisfiedby a critiqueof guilt history,then

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 85

Capital Guilt History,Structural

Thatwhich is "alreadyrecognizablein the presentin the religiousstructureof capitalism"

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 87

6. If Benjamintooktheformula "capitalismas religion"fromBloch (a possibilitythatstrongly

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 89

"Monstrousconsciousness of guilt,"Predestination,"the utterguilt of God"

ForBenjaminthe startingpointfor the universaldominanceof guilt in recentChristianity

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 91

7. I have correctedthepeculiar misprint(thus also rectifyingthe credit reductionimposed)

Dead End History

Out of the materialand the argumentsthus preparedby these authors,Benjamindraws

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 95

Benjamin'sremarksmove througha descriptionof the aporiasof guilt in orderto reach

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 97

Ruinationof Being, Reversal

Benjaminmaintainsthatit correspondsto the essence of capitalismas religion to "hold

11. GershomScholem notes, very dryly, in WalterBenjamin:The Story of a Friendship:

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 99

TheLogic of the Recoil

Already as early as 1918, Benjaminmust have been familiarwith HermannCohen's

Timeas a Stormof Forgiveness

13. A more extensivetreatment(also with differentemphases)of this complexof the infinite,

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 101

14. Cf GershomScholem,Diaries, 1917-23 [T 401].

15. The afformative, in the sense developed in the essay "Afformative,Strike," is a

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 103

Translatedby Kirk Wetters

diacritics / fall-winter 2002 105

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