Catechon

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Katechon (Greek ὁ Κατέχων, τὸ Κατέχον Katéchon) is a Greek participle , which in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians has to be interpreted as a stopper of the Antichrist . The form occurs in 2 Thess 2,6  EU in the neuter and in 2,7 EU - now personalized - in the masculine. In Catholic theology, the figure of the stopper is not of central importance.

overview

The background of the Katechon is the teaching of Paul to the Thessalonians that "the day on which the Lord comes", that is, the Last Judgment , is not imminent. Before the apocalypse comes, “the enemy of God” must appear, “who unites all evil”. This cannot happen as long as the “enemy of God” is stopped. Although the “power of rebellion” is already at work, “he must first open the way that has been holding it back”. However, the enemy of God can only emerge "when the time is right". The Christian does not know when this is the case. Since the restraint saves the world from chaos, he is directly linked to the divine order. But because at the same time it delays the coming of Christ, it remains a paradoxical magnitude that also includes evil.

If one interprets the Katechon idea against the background of the doctrine of the Last Judgment, the following connection arises: The believer finds himself in the paradoxical situation that he has to fight the "enemy of God", although his preliminary victory and the subsequent eternal repudiation are already certain (cf. . Apocalypse ). The believer is fighting something that he cannot stop and that is also a prerequisite for the desired salvation. Through this paradoxical struggle, however, the believer proves that he belongs to the “good Christians” whose reward is the creation of a new world and eternal life .

The stopper of the Antichrist is an argumentative figure that is intended to provide an explanation for the fact that the second coming of the Messiah , which has been announced several times as imminent, did not materialize.

The figure of the Katechon was popularized in the Middle Ages and later made known again especially by Carl Schmitt (Metzger, Katechon, p. 23). But it is not an idea that plays an important role in Catholic teaching. The Catholic Álvaro d'Ors , for example, emphasizes that the Christian must want His Kingdom to come and therefore should not ask for a delay.

Biblical basis of the term

In Martin Luther's translation, the biblical passages mentioned above read: “ And what else it will open up / knows / that it will be revealed in its time. Because the malice is already stirring secretly / On that who is now opening it / must be done away with [.] "

The Vulgate also resolves the participle into subordinate clauses: “Et nunc quid detineat , scitis, ut reveletur in suo tempore. Nam mysterium iam operatur iniquitatis: tantum ut, qui tenet nunc, teneat, donec de medio fiat. "

Early Christianity

In the political theology of early Christianity, this term was related to the Roman Empire , which stopped the Antichrist; B. in Tertullian , (Liber de resurrectione carnis, 24, 18: “'Tantum, qui nunc tenet, teneat, donec de medio fiat.' Quis nisi Romanus status, cuius abscessio in decem reges dispersa Antichristum superducet?") In Daniel's commentary Hippolyt (Comm. In Dan IV, 21, 3.) or with Lactantius (Div. Inst. VII, 25, 8.).

middle Ages

For the Middle Ages, the interpretation of the Pauline catechon as a stopper of the Antichrist was formative through the commentary on Daniel by the church father Jerome , especially after it was included in the Glossa ordinaria (see glossary ).

The reason for the popularization of the above-mentioned interpretation of the catechon in post-Patristic (see Patristic ) mediaeval journalism is the Translatio Imperii , the transfer of the imperial idea from the fallen Roman Empire to its Carolingian, Ottonian and Staufer successors. An important representative of the interpretation of catechons from the Carolingian period is Haymo von Halberstadt , who in his influential commentary on the 2nd Letter to the Thessalonians states that the Roman Empire must first be destroyed before the Antichrist comes ('ut discedent omnia regna a regno et imperio Romanorum': Patrologiae cursus completus, ed. Migne, 117, 779 D).

I.a. Haymo, in turn, had a strong influence on the work of the abbot Adso De ortu et tempore Antichristi , which he dedicated to the Frankish Queen Gerberga, a daughter of Henry I , in 954 . The Medievalist Alois Dempf calls Adso "the real teacher of the tradition about the Antichrist in the Middle Ages".

The interpretation of the catechon as the Roman Empire holding back the Antichrist was conveyed to broad strata of the people via the antichrist poetry of the Middle Ages. B. about the Tegernsee Antichristspiel, the Ludus de Antichristo .

Catechon in the journalism of the "Conservative Revolution"

In the course of the renaissance of the concept of the Reich in the journalism of the Protestant Conservative Revolution in the 1930s, the concept of the catechon is taken up, e. B. in Wilhelm Stapel : “The essence of 'the empire' is nothing other than the apocalyptic responsibility (2. Thes. 2,7). Every state has the purpose of ensuring order and peace, but 'the Reich' has this purpose in a special sense ” or also with Albrecht Erich Günther .

The catechon has a great place in the political theology of Carl Schmitt , who in his book 'Nomos der Erde' asks the question whether "for an originally Christian faith a different historical picture than that of the catechon is at all possible" says in his posthumously published diaries it even said in the entry of December 19, 1947: “I believe in the catechon: for me, as a Christian, it is the only way to understand history and to find it meaningful.” (Glossary, p. 63) And Schmitt added: “ One must be able to name the catechon for each epoch of the last 1948 years. The place was never unoccupied, otherwise we would no longer exist. "

Especially during the war against the Soviet Union in World War II , the medieval idea of ​​the empire functioning as a catechon to stop the work of the Antichrist (who for some contemporaries was personified in Soviet communism or the person of Josef Stalin ) was not only used by Carl Schmitt , but also taken up again by Catholic bishops and historians in order to legitimize the “fight against Jewish Bolshevism ”.

Katechon with Dietrich Bonhoeffer

At about the same time as Schmitt, the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to the catechon in his “Ethics”, but in contrast to the German constitutional law scholar he emphasized that this figure, despite its political and ethical significance, was not free from guilt. He also described the complex relationship between the church and the catechontic political order in a way that tried to ward off any arrogant moralism on the part of the church. For Bonhoeffer, the catechon does not stand in the way of possible demise alone, because even before the catechontic powers of order he names the church, which could save from the abyss through the “miracle of a new awakening of faith”. This distinction is not aimed at their radical separation, but at a new form of cooperation - “in a well-established distinction and yet in a sincere alliance”. According to Bonhoeffer, the church does not push away the powers of order seeking their proximity, but calls them "to listen, to repent".

literature

  • Josef Adamek: From the Roman Empire of the Medieval Biblical Explainers , Diss., Munich 1938.
  • Giorgio Agamben : "Rulership and glory. On the theological genealogy of economy and government." Berlin 2010.
  • Wilhelm Bousset : The Antichrist in the Tradition of Judaism, the New Testament and the Old Church. A contribution to the interpretation of the Apocalypse. Goettingen 1895
  • Wolfgang Drechsler and Vasilis Kostakis: "Should Law Keep Pace with Technology? Law as Katechon." In: Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society , Vol. 34 (5-6), 2014, 128-132.
  • Felix Grossheutschi: Carl Schmitt and the doctrine of the Katechon. , Berlin 1996.
  • Robert Konrad: De ortu et tempore Antichristi. Antichrist conception and historical picture of the abbot Adso von Montier-en-Der. , Kallmünz 1964
  • Günter Meuter, The Katechon: On Carl Schmitt's fundamental criticism of the time. , Berlin 1994.
  • Paul Metzger: Katechon. II Thess 2: 1–12 on the horizon of apocalyptic thinking. BZNW 135, Berlin-New York 2005.
  • Hannes Möhring : The world emperor of the end times. Stuttgart 2000.
  • Alfons Motschenbacher: Katechon or Grand Inquisitor - A Study of the Content and Structure of Political Theology Carl Schmitt ., Marburg 2000.
  • Wolfgang Palaver : Hobbes and the Katéchon: The Secularization of Sacrificial Christianity. In: Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture , Vol. 2 (Spring 1995) 37-54.
  • Wolfgang Palaver: Carl Schmitt's 'Apocalyptic' Resistance against Global Civil War. In: Hamerton-Kelly, Robert (Ed.): Politics & Apocalypse . East Lansing, Mich .: Michigan State University Press, 2007, 69-94.
  • J. Schmid: The Antichrist and the restraining power. in: Theologische Quartalsschrift 1949, pp. 323–343.
  • August Strobel : Investigations into the eschatological delay problem on the basis of the late Jewish-early Christian history of Habakkuk. 2.2 ff., Leiden / Cologne 1961.
  • Wolfgang Trilling : The second letter to the Thessalonians. Zurich et al. 1980.
  • Ernst Wadstein: The eschatological group of ideas: Antichrist - World Sabbath - End of the World and Last Judgment, in the main moments of its overall Christian-medieval development. Leipzig 1896.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hieronymus, Selected Writings, Volume II, Munich 1936, p. 209.
  2. ↑ Dempf: Sacrum Imperium. The philosophy of history and the state of the Middle Ages and the political renaissance. Munich / Berlin 1929, p. 255
  3. ↑ Wilhelm Stapel, Das Reich. A final word, in: DVt vol. 15 (1933), p. 181ff, p. 183.
  4. ↑ s. Albrecht Erich Günther, Der Ludus de Antichristo, a Christian myth of the empire and the German rulership, in: Der fahrende Gesell, 20th year (1932), pp. 67–75, p. 68.
  5. ↑ Carl Schmitt, Der Nomos der Erde, Berlin 1988 (3rd edition), p. 29.
  6. ^ Heinrich August Winkler: The long way to the west , Munich 2000, Volume 2, page 83-84.

Web links

  • W. Palaver: [1] Hobbes and the Katéchon. In: Contagion 2 (1995) 37-54.