Thomas Bolin, «Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth on the Divine-Human Relationship», Vol. 86 (2005) 245-259
This article looks at the repeated gnomic phrase in the Book
of Qoheleth, "All is vanity and a chasing after wind" (NRSV) and reads it as a
disjunctive parallelism in which the terms lbh
and xwr denote mortality and the divine spirit,
respectively, thus showing the sense of the phrase to be, "All is mortal, but
strives for immortality". Using René Girard’s concept of mimetic rivalry
clarifies this reading of the proverb, and shows it to be a concise expression
of a major theme in the Book of Qoheleth, viz., the author’s thoughts on the
difference between humanity and God, understood as paradoxical relationship
based on both similarity and difference between humans and the divine. More
importantly, Girard helps to understand more deeply how and why Qoheleth views
human proximity with the divine as the cause of conflict and pain in human life.
Because this tension is also evident in numerous other biblical and
extra-biblical texts, caution must be exercised, in referring to the Book of
Ecclesiastes as a "radical" or "heterodox" writing.
Rivalry and Resignation: Girard and Qoheleth 255
Equally important in this arrangement is the proximity between
subject and mediator. The smaller the difference, the greater the rivalry,
due to the ongoing presence of the mediator and the object in the
subject’s frame of reference. Girard terms this “internal mediationâ€.
The opposite case, in which the distance between the subject and the
mediator is so great as to make impossible any real hope of the subject
appropriating the object and replacing the mediator, is what Girard calls
“external mediationâ€. This arrangement makes rivalry impossible (42).
Girard offers detailed analysis of how mimetic rivalry between the
gods and humankind is present in Greek myth (43). Through portrayal
of close interaction between humanity and divinity, myth creates a
situation of internal mediation that invariably is expressed as desire
and rivalry when a human upstart attempts to usurp divine prerogati-
ves, e.g., Theseus, or Oedipus. Such attempts are, however, doomed to
failure, because the gods use their power to pull back (or send the
human rival toppling down) and reaffirm their unassailable sover-
eignty. Divine removal shatters human aspirations to possess the
reality of the gods, and the consequent re-establishment of external
mediation is portrayed in the stunning reversals of fortune for which
Greek epic and tragedy is known. Thus myth both assumes and
establishes the distance between gods and humanity. In Girardian
terms, myth reinforces the external mediation of the gods by means of
vivid portrayal of the suffering involved when a person acts as if the
gods occupied a place of internal mediation (44).
Briefly, we can see this pattern at work in some of the most well
known biblical and Ancient Near Eastern myths (45). Both The Epic of
——————
more idolatrous a faith the less it is able to overcome the cleavage between subject
and object†(12). Girard would concur.
(42) See Deceit, 9-10. Note also the meaning of distance for Girard: “the
distance between mediator and subject is primarily spiritual†(9).
(43) In particular, Girard looks at The Iliad, Oedipus the King, and The
Bacchae.
(44) For the function of myths as authoritative rationales for the religious
hierarchy that places humanity at the service of the gods, see W. BURKERT, The
Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions (Cambridge 1996)
80-101. Note also Girard’s observation regarding The Bacchae: “Insofar as
divinity is real, it cannot serve as a prize to be won in a contest. Insofar as it is
regarded as a prize, it is merely a phantom that will escape man’s grasp and turn
to violence†(Violence, 143).
(45) It merits mention that Girard deals with the social ramifications of the
idea of divinity as a check on violence. In contrast, but not in contradiction, I see
FOLLOW US