I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

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F Chapter 11 The Triumph of the Cross ROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STANDPOINT I would define Chris- tian revelation as the true representation 1 of what had never been completely represented or what had been falsely represented: the mimetic convergence of all against one, the single victim mechanism with its antecedent developments, particularly "interdividual" 2 scandals. Mythology falsifies this mechanism to the detriment of victims and to the advantage of persecutors of the victim. The Hebrew Bible frequently suggests the truth, evokes it, and even partially represents it, but never completely and perfectly. The Gospels, taken in their totality, are this representation, precisely and perfectly. Once we understand this, a passage from the letter to the Colossians, which appears obscure at first, becomes illuminating: [Christ has] canceled the accusation that stands against us with its legal claims. He set it aside, nailing it to the cross. He thus dis- armed the principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them, drawing them along in his triumph. (Col. 2:14-15)
138 139 The accusation against humankind is the accusation against the innocent victim that we find in the myths. To hold the principalities and powers responsible for it is the same thing as holding Satan himself responsible, in his role of public prosecutor that I have already mentioned. Before Christ and the Bible the satanic accusation was always victorious by virtue of the violent contagion that imprisoned human beings within systems of myth and ritual. The Crucifixion reduces mythology to powerlessness by exposing violent contagion, which is so effective in the myths that it prevents communities from ever finding out the truth, namely, the innocence of their victims. This accusation temporarily relieves communities of their violence, but it turns back again and "stands against" the persecutors, for it subjects them to Satan, or in other words to the principalities and powers with their deceitful gods and bloody sacrifices. Jesus, in showing his innocence in the Passion accounts, has "canceled" this accusation; he "set it aside." He nails the accusation to the Cross, which is to say that he reveals its falsity. Though ordinar- ily the accusation nails the victim to a cross, here by contrast the accusation itself is nailed and publicly exhibited and exposed as a lie. The Cross enables the truth to triumph because the Gospels disclose the falseness of the accusation; they unmask Satan as an imposter. Or to say it in another way, they discredit once and for all the untruth of the principalities and powers in the wake of the Cross. The Cross of Christ restores all the victims of the single victim mechanism, whether it goes under the label of legal accusation, Satan, or principalities and powers. As Satan was making humans obligated to him, putting them in his debt, he was making them accomplices in his crimes. The Cross, by revealing the lie at the bottom of Satan's game, exposes human beings to a temporary increase of violence, but at a deeper level it liberates them from a servitude that has lasted since the beginning of human history, since "the foundation of the world." It is not only the accusation that Christ has nailed to the Cross and publicly exhibited; the principalities and powers themselves are paraded, in full public view, in the triumphal process of the crucified Christ, so in a way they too are crucified. These metaphors are not at all fantastic and badly improvised; they are so precise it takes your breath away. Why? Because the revealer and what is revealed are one: the mimetic war of all against one, concealed in Satan and the powers, is revealed in the crucifixion of Christ as narrated in the truthful accounts of his Passion. The Cross and the satanic origin of the false religions and the powers are one and the same phenomenon, revealed in one case, concealed in the other. This is why Dante, in his Inferno, represented Satan as nailed to the Cross. 3 When the single victim mechanism is correctly nailed to the Cross, its ultimately banal, insignificant basis appears in broad daylight, and everything based on it gradually loses its prestige, grows more and more feeble, and finally disappears. The principal metaphor is triumph in the Roman sense, which is the reward that Rome bestowed on its victorious generals. Standing on his chariot, the victorious general made a solemn entrance into the city and received the acclamations of the crowd. The enemy leaders, in chains, were led along at the rear of the procession. Be- fore the Romans executed these prisoners, they exhibited them like ferocious beasts reduced to utter helplessness. Vercingetorix played this role in the triumph of Caesar. The victorious general here is Christ, and his victory is the Cross. What Christianity conquers is the pagan way of organizing the world. The enemy leaders in chains behind their conqueror are the principalities and powers. The au- thor compares the irresistible power of the Cross to the power of military might, the Roman army, which was still utterly dominant when he wrote. Of all the Christian ideas, none nowadays arouses more sarcasm than the one that our text expresses so openly, the idea of a triumph of the Cross. To progressive Christians, proud of their humility, it seems as arrogant as it is absurd. To characterize the attitude that they condemn, they have brought the term "triumphalism"
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