Luca Signorelli, The Preaching of the Antichrist, 1500-1504
Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians can be read as a prophecy concerning the current situation in the West. The apostle evokes here “a mystery of anomia”, of “lawlessness”, which is already at work, but which will not be consummated with the second coming of Jesus Christ unless “the man of lawlessness (ho anthropos tes anomias), is revealed [first], the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” However, there is a power that restrains this revelation (Paul simply calls it, without further definition, “that or the one that withholds”, “the restrainer – the katechon”). It is therefore necessary for this power to be removed, for it is only then that “the lawless one (anomo) will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.”
Theological-political tradition has identified this “restraining power” with the Roman Empire (as in Jerome and, later, in Carl Schmitt) or with the Church itself (in Tychone and Augustine). In any case, it is clear that the power that restrains is identified with the institutions that sustain and govern human societies. That is why its elimination coincides with the advent of the anomos, a “lawless one” who takes the place of God and, “with signs and false wonders”, leads to perdition “those who have renounced the love of truth”.
It is possible to see in the mystery of anomie not so much a supratemporal arcane, whose sole meaning would be to put an end to history, but rather a historical drama (mysterion in Greek means “dramatic action”), which corresponds perfectly to what we are experiencing today.
The dominant institutions seem to have lost their meaning and are literally falling apart, giving way to an anomia, an absence of law that purports, so to speak, to be legal, but which has in fact abdicated all legitimacy. The State (the principle that restrains) and the “lawless one” are in reality two sides of the same mystery: the mystery of power. As the United States is demonstrating today without any scruples, the “man of anomie”, the “lawless” one, designates the figure of state power which, abandoning the constitutional and ethical principles that traditionally limited it and, with them, “the love of truth”, entrusts itself to the “signs and false wonders” of weapons and technology. This confusion of anarchy and legality in a state of emergency that has become permanent is what we must unmask and render inoperative in all areas.
Giorgio Agamben: The mystery of power
Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians can be read as a prophecy concerning the current situation in the West. The apostle evokes here “a mystery of anomia”, of “lawlessness”, which is already at work, but which will not be consummated with the second coming of Jesus Christ unless “the man of lawlessness (ho anthropos tes anomias), is revealed [first], the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” However, there is a power that restrains this revelation (Paul simply calls it, without further definition, “that or the one that withholds”, “the restrainer – the katechon”). It is therefore necessary for this power to be removed, for it is only then that “the lawless one (anomo) will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.”
Theological-political tradition has identified this “restraining power” with the Roman Empire (as in Jerome and, later, in Carl Schmitt) or with the Church itself (in Tychone and Augustine). In any case, it is clear that the power that restrains is identified with the institutions that sustain and govern human societies. That is why its elimination coincides with the advent of the anomos, a “lawless one” who takes the place of God and, “with signs and false wonders”, leads to perdition “those who have renounced the love of truth”.
It is possible to see in the mystery of anomie not so much a supratemporal arcane, whose sole meaning would be to put an end to history, but rather a historical drama (mysterion in Greek means “dramatic action”), which corresponds perfectly to what we are experiencing today.
The dominant institutions seem to have lost their meaning and are literally falling apart, giving way to an anomia, an absence of law that purports, so to speak, to be legal, but which has in fact abdicated all legitimacy. The State (the principle that restrains) and the “lawless one” are in reality two sides of the same mystery: the mystery of power. As the United States is demonstrating today without any scruples, the “man of anomie”, the “lawless” one, designates the figure of state power which, abandoning the constitutional and ethical principles that traditionally limited it and, with them, “the love of truth”, entrusts itself to the “signs and false wonders” of weapons and technology. This confusion of anarchy and legality in a state of emergency that has become permanent is what we must unmask and render inoperative in all areas.