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H A E R O U R E E N

Satan Divided against Himsel

EXTUAL ANALYSIS REVEALS nothing about the miraculous cures themselves. It can only have bearing on the language describing them TheGospels speak the language of their universe. They therefore seem tomake ofJesus a healer among healers, while at the same time protestingthat the Messiah is very dierent. The text of Gerasa justies this bydescribing the destruction of all the demons and their universe, thatsame universe which has provided the evangelists with the language todescribe the demons and their expulsion The central subject, then,is an expulsion, the expulsion that will rid the universe forever of itsdemons and the demoniac.

In a few passages in the Gospels Jesus himself uses the language ofdemonology and pulsion. The most signicant of these is a debatewith a hostile audience. The text is crucial and appears in all threesynopti Gospels. Here it is in Matthew's version which is the richestJesus has just cured someone possessed The crowd is full of admirationbut there are members of the religious elite presntthe "Pharisees inMatthew, the "scribes in Mark and they are suspicious of this cure.

l the peope were astounded and said, "Can this be the Son of David But

when the Pharisees heard this they said "he man casts out devils only through

Beelzebu the prince of devils?' Knowing what as in their minds he said to

them "Every kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin: and no ton

no househod divided against itself can stand. No if Satan casts out Satan h

1. On miraces and the meaning of mraculous ce, see Xaver Uon-Dufour Etu

d'Evangl (ars: Seu 1965) See als by the same author Faca la mort, Jsus et Paular

Seuil 19 79), pecay on the sacrical readng of he Passon.

S A A N D V I D E D A A N S M S E L F 5

is divided against himself; so how can his kingdom stand nd if it is through

Beelzebu that cast out devils through whom do your on experts cast them

out Lt them be your judges then. But if it is through the spirit of God that

I cast devils out, then know that the kingdom of God has overtaken you.

(Matthew 1223-28)

It is impossible to understand this text in one reading. The imme-diate reading leads into a deeper reading on another level. On initialreading we recognize in the rst sentence only an unarguable but com-monplace principle that retains the wisdom of nations English turns itinto a kind of maxim: Eve kingdom divided against itse sha notstand.

The next sentence at rst glance seems to apply this principle: "andif Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; so how can hiskingdom stand? Jesus does not answer, but the answer is obvious If itis divided against itself, the kingdom of Satan will not stand. If thePharisees are truly hostile to Satan, they should not reproach Jesus forcasting out Satan by Satan; even if they are right, what Jesus has justdone will contribute to Satan's nal destruction

But here is a dierent supposition and a dierent uestion: nd ifit is through Beelzebul that I cast out devils, through whom do yourown perts cast them out? If my action is prompted by the devil, whatabout yours and your disciples� your spiritual sons? Jesus returns hiscritics' accusation to them: it is they who cast out demons mns ofSatan, and he claims for himself a radically dierent way of expulsion,casting out by the Spirit of God: "But if it is through the spirit of Godthat I cast devils out, then know that the Kingdom of God has overtakenyou'

Jesus seems to be involved in an exchange of arguments that is

bound to be sterile. Each of the healers claims to cast out demons byGod, and therefore to be more eective and more orthodox, whereas hisrival works through the devil. We nd ourselves in the middle of mi-metic competition in which each casts out the other, like Oedipus andTiresias, the rival prophets in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. Violence is per-vasive and everything can be reduced to a uestion of force, as the seuelto the passage implies. The presentation of the relationship between thetwo methods of casting out devils is almost a caricature: "Or again, howcan anyone make his way into a strong man's house and burgle his prop-erty unless he has tied up the strong man rst? Only then can he burgle

his house (Matt. 12:29)_

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H E S A E G O A

was at rst apparent. The Jersalem Bible, from which I qoted, doesnot convey this very well becase it does not repeat the initia adjectiveey, which appears twice in the origina Greek. Evey kingdom dividedagainst itse is heading fo uin and evey ity o house divided against

itse The repetition of evey emphasizes the impression of symmetry among all the forms of commnity mentioned here. The text enmer-ates all the hman societies, from the greatest to the smalest, the kingdom, the city, the hose. For reasons that at rst elde s, care is takennot to omit any category, and the repetition of ey nderines thatintention even more, althogh its importance is not apparent, immediatey. This is not fortitos or an accident of style that has no reationto the meaning. There is a second meaning that cannot escape s.

The text is, in fact, insisting that al kingdoms, all cities, and allhoses are divided against themselves. In other words al hman com-mnities withot exception are based on the one principle, both con-strctive and destrctive, that is fond in the second sentence; these areall examples of the kingdom of Satan, and it is not this kingdom of Satanor kingdom of violence which serves as one example of society, in the

empirica sense of sociologists. Ths the rst two sentences are richerthan they seem; an entire sociology or basic anthropology is smma-rized in them. That is not all. We can now begin to nderstand the third,and particlarly the forth sentence, which seems the most enigmatic:nd if it is throgh Beelzebl that I cast ot devils, throgh whom doyor own experts cast them ot? Let them be yor jdges, then'

Why shod the spirital sons, the disciples and imitators, becomejdges of their masters and models? The word for jdges is kitai; itevokes the idea of crisis and division. Under the eect of mimetic escala-tion, the interna division of every "satanic commnity is exacerbated;

the dierence between legitimate and iegitimate vioence diminishes,plsions become reciproca; sons repeat and reinforce the vioence oftheir fathers with even more deplorable rests for everybody; nalythey nderstand the evil of the paterna exampe and crse their ownfathers. They pass negative jdgment, as impied by the word kitai oneveryhing that precedes them jst as we do today.

The concept of the existence of an apower divine violenceseems to emerge from or text; it is even explicit as in the accont of themirace of Gerasa. Bt if the reader goes beyond a certain point, theinterpretation is reversed by the observation that divine plsion does

not exist or, rather it ony exists for the representation of persection

S A A N D V I D E D A G A N S H I M S E L F 9

from the persector's standpoint, for the spirit of reciprocal accsationr otherwise known as Satan himsef. The force of expsion alwaysI

originates in Satan, and God has nothing to do with it; it is more thanenogh to pt an end to the "kingdom of Satan' These men are dividedI by their mimeticism, "possessed by Satan, each in trn casting the

\ other ot to the point of tota extinction.L If self divided against self (mimetic rivary and the expsion of

expsion (the scapegoat mechanism are principles of both decomposi-tion and composition for hman societies, why does Jess not mentionthe atter in all his nal apocalyptic prononcements? Perhaps I amright in identifying mimetic violence as the sorce of both order and dis-order. Possibly the text is as grossly polemic, as nconsciosly mimeticand grossy daistic as the immediate reading sggests.

It seems that Satan has never ceased to expel Satan, and there is noreason to beieve he wil cease in the foreseeable ftre. Jess speaks asif the satanic principle had sed p its force for order and as ifall socialorder wold henceforth sccmb to its own disorder. The principle oforder is merey allded to in the rst two sentences, ike a styistic eect,something that has more or less come to its end, condemned to followthe path to destrction, which constittes the only explicit message thatis accessible to most readers.

The meaning of order is there, bt it is precisey its presence thatdetermines the vestigia character of the treatment ofit. The reason iesin the fact that the violence of the ctral order is revealed in theGospes, both in the accont of the Passion and in al the other episodeswe have read, incding this one, and the cltra order cannot srvivesch a reveation. Once the basic mechanism is reveaed, the scapegoatmechanism, that explsion of violence by vioence, is rendered seless

by the revelation. It is no longer of interest. ! i_! r st of the G lslies in the tre oered mankind by this r v atioJ)h end of San'smechnis. The good s is that scapegoats can no lc:r sathe persectors' accotfr ersectons arno 10r_! ndtrth shines into dark pes. od is not violent, the tre God has nothing to do ith violence, ad he speaks to s not throgh distant inter-mediaries bt directy. The Son he sends s is one with him. TheKingdom of God is at hand.

If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast ot demons, then the Kingdom of God has come pon yo. The Kingdom of God has nothing in

common with the kingdom of Satan and the kingdoms of this word

l •

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based on the satanic principle of internal division and expulsion. It hasnothing to do with expulsion. Jesus agrees to debate his own action interms of expulsion and violence because those are the only terms hisquestioners understand. But he is telling them of an event that has noth-ing in common with this language Ifit is by the Spirit of God that I castout demons, then soon there will be no more demons or expulsions forthe kingdom of violence and expulsion will rapidly be destroyed The

Kingdom of God is at handfo you

His listeners are addressed directlyThe Kingdom arrives like a bolt of lightning Like the bridegroom ofthe foolish and the wise virgins, it has delayed a long time but has suddenly arrived.

The Kingdom of God has arrived for you who are listening to menow, but not for those Gerasenes whom I have just le without sayinganything to them because they have not yet reached the point you are atJesus intervenes when the tme has come or, in other words, when vio-lence can no longer cast out violence and internal division has reachedits crisis The victimscapegoat is at the point of no return Though fora while he may seem to bring back the old order, in reality it is destroyedforever. Instead of casting it out he is himself cast out, thereby revealingto men the mystery of expulsion, the secret on which rests the positivedimension of Satan's power, its organizing force of violence

Ever attentive to the historical aspects ofthe revelation, Matthew, inhis account of Gerasa, includes a statement by his two possessed thatsuggests a temporary separation between a universe that is based on thelaw and one that is not: "What do you want with us, Son of God? Haveyou come here to torture us before the time? (Matt. 8:29). This complaint is signicant in the context of our current analysis. I pointed outthat the crowd ofGerasenes is less like a mob than the shepherdless ock

to which Jesus usually preached The Gerasene community is still more"structured' Paganism is responsible for this. This does not mean weshould rate paganism more highly than Judaism It suggests, rather, thatpaganism has not yet reached the same critical point in its evolution.

The nal crisis that determines the nal revelation both is and is notspecic. In principle it is the same as the disintegration of all sacricialsystems that are based on the "satanic expulsion of violence by vio-lence For better or for worse, the Gospel revelation makes the crisis in-evitable By exposing the secret of the persecutors' representation itprevents the mechanism of the victim from ever functioning and creat

S A A N D V D E D A G A N S H M S E L F 9

ing, at the height of mimetic disorder, a new order of ritual expulsionthat replaces the old.

Sooner or later the ferment of the Gospels will cause the breakup ofthe social order it inltrates and of all similar societies, even socalledChristian societies that claim to be based on it. This claim is partiallytrue, but rests upon a partial misunderstanding, a necessarily sacricialmisunderstanding, which is rooted in the deceptive similarity between

the Gospels and other religious mythological charters nd if a houseis divided against itsel that house will not be able to stand' Mark tellsus, but that collapse is not just a stronger expulsion initiated by God orJesus It is the end of all expulsion That is why the coming of the King-dom of God means destruction for those who only understand destruc-tion and reconciliation for those who always seek reconciliation

The logic of the kingdom that cannot stand if it is always dividedagainst itself has always been true in the absolute but was never true inreality because the hidden scapegoat mechanism always restored sacri-cial dierentiation and expelled violence by violence. Finally, thatlogic becomes a historical reality in the Crucixion, rst for the Jewsand then for the pagans, the Gerasenes of the modern world who havealways behaved a little like the people of Gerasa while claiming to beguided by Jesus. They are happy to think that nothing so drastic canhappen to their communities, and are convinced that the catastrophesannounced by the Gospels are imaginary.

An initial reading of the account of the demons of Gerasa gives theimpression that everything is ased on a logic of double explsion.There were no decisive results from the rst expulsion. It was a pettysquabble between the demons and their Gerasenes who got along likethieves at a fair. Jesus was responsible for the second expulsion that

made a clean sweep of the whole place and its inhabitantsThe same double expulsion, the one within the system it stabilizes,the other external to that same system that it destroys, is explicitly men-tioned in the text we have just read: '�nd t s though Beelzebul thatI st out dls though whom do you own expets st them out? A moreprofound comprehension reveals that the divine power is not destruc-tive; it does not expel anyone The truth oered to mankind unleashesthe forces of Satan, the destructive mimeticism, by taking away itspower of selregulation. The ndamental ambiguity of Satan makesdivine action supercially ambiguous. Jesus brings war into the divided

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world of Satan because, ndamentally, he brings peace. People do notor pretend not to understand this. he tt is admirably suited to be readby both those who understand and those who do not. he sentencesdealing with communities diided against themseles and Satan castingout Satan indicate both the power of satanic mimesis to regulate itselfand the loss of that power. he text does not explicitly identify the prin-ciple of order and disorder, but coneys it in sentences with double

meaning. he endless fascination of these sentences lies in thechiaroscuro of the truth they contain that must not be highlighted if itis to function in the text exactly as it nctions in reality. hose who donot see it remain in Satans unierse, on the leel of the immediate read-ing, belieing that there exists a diine iolence, the rial of Satansiolence, and remaining prisoners of the persecution mentality. hosewho see the truth understand that Satans kingdom is headed for de-struction because of the reelation of the truth about it, and they areliberated from the persecution mentality.

hus we come to understand what is inoled in the Kingdom ofGod and why it does not represent for men an unmitigated blessing. Ithas nothing to do with a ock of sheep grazing in an eternally greenpasture. t brings men face to face with their hardest task in history.Compared to ourseles, the people of erasa are onest and sthetic. hey do not yet behae like imperious users of the consumersociety. hey admit that it is dicult for them to lie withoutscapegoats and demons. In all the texts we hae read the demonologicalperspectie persists but is suberted. o get rid of it completely we onlyneed to broaden a little the jurisdiction of the skandalon as dened byJesus, whose prodigious power can be seen in operation eerywhere.he texts I hae interpreted are representatie of all the synoptic

Gospels. o put an end once and for all to the demon, we need onlyfocus on the notion of scandal and all that goes with it to help us under-stand the problem of mimesis and its expulsions.

Mark and Matthew hae good reason to warn us not to take too literally the greatest of all Jesus demonological statements. We need onlyconsult a dictionary to learn that the parabolic distortion of a tt inoles a certain concession to the mythological representation of iolence that results from the collectie murder of a scapegoat.

araba�

means to throw the crowd something edible in order to assuage its appe-i r ;�ne, preferably· a ictim,omeone condemned to-

 

ath.

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Obiously, this is a way out of a ery dicult situation. he speaker hasrecourse to a parablethat is, a metaphorin order to preent the crowdfrom turning on him. Ultimately, there is no discourse that is not a parable. All human language, and other cultural institutions, in fact, originated in collectie murder. After some of Jesus most hardhittingparables the crowd often makes a moement of iolence, but Jesusescapes because his hour has not come.

By warning the readers that Jesus speaks in parables, the Ean-gelists alert the readers to the distortion of persecution. Here we areclearly being warned about the language of expulsion. here is no otheralternatie. Ifwe do not recognize the parabolic dimension of the expul-sion we will be duped by iolence. Our reading will hae been of thetype that Jesus warned must be aoided but was ineitable;

Then the diiple went up to him and aked, "Why do you talk to them in para

ble "eaue' he replied, "the myterie of the kingdom of heaven are re

vealed to you, but they are not revealed to them. For anyone who ha will be

given more, and he will have more than enough but from anyone who ha not,

even what he ha will be taken away The reaon I talk to them in parable ithat they look without eeing and liten without hearing or undertanding'

(tt. 13:10-14)

Mark at this point connects the parable een more clearly thanMatthew to the persecution mentality. For those caught in it eerythingappers in parables. Instead of freeing us, the parable, when taken liter-ally, reinforces the walls of our prison. his is the meaning of the follow-ing lines. It would not be accurate to conclude that the parable is notaimed at conerting the listener. Een here, Jesus is talking to hisdisciples:

To you ha been given the eret of the Kingdom of God, but or thoe outideeverything i in parable; o that they may ee and ee again, but not pereive;

may hear and hear again, but not undertand; otherwie they might be on

verted and be forgiven? (ark 4:1012)

EN N THE TEXTS generally described as "archaic belief in demonsmay seem to ourish but in reality always tends toward suppression.his is true in the dialogue on expulsion we hae just read and also inthe miracle of Gerasa. We are not aware of the ultimate suppressionbecause it is pressed in the contradictory language of the pulsion

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reationship between what the French psychoanalysis cal the sbolicand the imainary

The demonic allows, on the one hand, for every tendency towardconict in human relations and for the centrigal force at the heart ofthe community, and, on the other hand, for the centripetal force thatbrings men together, the mysterious gue of that same community norder to transform this demonology into true knowedge we must follow

the path indicated by the Gospes and complete the translation that theybegin t is obvious that the same force that divides peope by mimeticrivary aso unites them by the mimetic unanimity of the scapegoat

Cearly, this is what John is speaking of when he presents Satan as"liar and the father of lies because he is "a murderer from the start(John 8:44) This lie is discredited by the Passion which shows thevictims innocence f Satans defeat is so closely inked to the precisemoment of the Passion this is because the trthl account of this eventwil provide men with what is needed to escape the eternal ie and recog-nize that the victim is slandered Thanks to his welknown mimetic

ability Satan succeeds in making the victim's git credible Satan, inHebrew, means the auser All the meanings and symbols are inter-woven so carefuly that they constitute a structure of awess rationalityCoud this be pure coincidence?

With the deepening of the mimetic crisis, desire and its conictsbecome more immaterial because they have lost their object As the situation becomes more "perverse it even fosters beief in a purey spirituamimesis; reationships inevitaby become increasingy obsessive andautonomous Demonology is not competey duped by this autonomysince it tels us of the absoute need that demons have to possess a livingbeing in order to survive The demon is not capable of existing apartfrom that possession But its existence is strengthened as mens resist-ance to mimetic urges weakens The principal ampes of this are to befound in the great scene of Jesus temptation in the desert The mostimportant of these is the ast, which shows us Satan desirous of takinGods pace as an object of adoration, as a mode of a necessariy rs-trated imitation This imitation makes Sata the mimetic skdlo wesee in Jesus response which is amost identica with the response hegives Peter whe he teats him as Satan The same Greek verb uabegone, appears in both episodes and the scandaous obstace is impied To adore Satan is to aspire to word domination t invoves

reciproca reationships o idoatry and hate which can ony ed in ase

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gods of violence and the sacred as long as men maintain the ilusionWhen that iusion is no onger possible, tota destrction will folow:

Next, taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the king

doms of the world and their slendour "I will give you all these he said, "if

you fall at my feet and worshi me' Then Jesus relied, "Be o, Satan! For

sriture says

Yu must worship the Lord your Go

 and serve him alone." (Matt 4:810)