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Authors: Jonathan Sacks
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will pale in the heavens and the stars will be shaken from the sky. Eventually, exhausted, he is vanquished, never to return.
The other source of dualism, more evident in Nag Hammadi than Qumran, is ancient Greece, especially Orphism. Here the division is not between good and evil but between the soul and the body, the spiritual and the physical. Orphic myth tells the story of the Titans’ clash with Dionysus, son of Zeus, whom they murder and eat. Zeus burns them in his anger, and from the ash, humans are born, containing elements of both: Dionysus in the form of the soul, the Titans in the form of the body. The soul is imprisoned within the body but lives on after it and is reincarnated. Elements of this doctrine persist in the philosophy of Plato, who distinguished between the world as we encounter it through the physical senses and as we truly know it through the soul.
The sects that produced the manuscripts at Qumran and Nag Hammadi disappeared, but dualism lived on. In Persia it became known as Manichaeism (after the Iranian thinker Mani, c. 216–76 CE ). In Greece it was called Gnosticism. The Nag Hammadi texts are known as the Gnostic Gospels.
It might seem strange to turn to two ancient and marginal sects to understand the connection between religion and violence, but they contain a clue that is an essential piece of the puzzle. The last chapter argued that violence is born of the need for identity and the formation of groups. These lead to conflict and war. But war is normal. Altruistic evil is not normal. Suicide bombings, the targeting of civilians and the murder of schoolchildren are not normal. Violence may be possible wherever there is an Us and a Them. But radical violence emerges only when we see the Us as all-good and the Them as all-evil, heralding a war between the children of light and the forces of darkness. That is when altruistic evil is born.
—
Why would even sectarian members of Judaism and Christianity be tempted by an idea that is clearly incompatible with their faith in a single God?
Dualism is what happens when cognitive dissonance becomes unbearable, when the world as it is, is simply too unlike the world as we believed it ought to be
. In the words of historian Jeffrey Russell, dualism ‘denied the unity and omnipotence of God in order to preserve his perfect goodness’. 3
The God of Abraham is, among other things, the Lord of history who redeemed his people from slavery in Egypt. Yet for the Jews of the second century BCE , the great prophetic visions had not come true. Israel had been defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. The Temple had been destroyed. The people had gone into exile in Babylon. Some had returned, but not all. The lost ten tribes for the most part stayed lost. The Second Temple was a pale shadow of Solomon’s. The nation was not truly independent. Persian rule was succeeded by the Alexandrian Empire, eventually to be followed by Rome. Many Jews had become Hellenised, including the Hasmonean kings and high priests. It was at this point, probably around 125 BCE , that a priestly group decided to leave Jerusalem, live in purity in the lonely wastes of the Dead Sea, andwait for the end of history, when God would fight a cosmic battle and defeat the forces of evil.
Among the early Christians, the cognitive dissonance was even greater. The first Christians were Jews who believed that the Messiah had come. But the Messiah in mainstream Judaism is not a supernatural being with the power to transform the human condition. He is simply an anointed king (the word
messiah
means ‘anointed’) in the line of David who will fight Israel’s battles, restore its independence, unite the people and usher in a reign of peace.
Manifestly that had not happened. After the death of Jesus the fate of the faithful became worse, not better. The Romans were ruthless. Religious liberty was curtailed. Jews rose in revolt but suffered devastating defeat. It became easier, particularly for some Gentile
The other source of dualism, more evident in Nag Hammadi than Qumran, is ancient Greece, especially Orphism. Here the division is not between good and evil but between the soul and the body, the spiritual and the physical. Orphic myth tells the story of the Titans’ clash with Dionysus, son of Zeus, whom they murder and eat. Zeus burns them in his anger, and from the ash, humans are born, containing elements of both: Dionysus in the form of the soul, the Titans in the form of the body. The soul is imprisoned within the body but lives on after it and is reincarnated. Elements of this doctrine persist in the philosophy of Plato, who distinguished between the world as we encounter it through the physical senses and as we truly know it through the soul.
The sects that produced the manuscripts at Qumran and Nag Hammadi disappeared, but dualism lived on. In Persia it became known as Manichaeism (after the Iranian thinker Mani, c. 216–76 CE ). In Greece it was called Gnosticism. The Nag Hammadi texts are known as the Gnostic Gospels.
It might seem strange to turn to two ancient and marginal sects to understand the connection between religion and violence, but they contain a clue that is an essential piece of the puzzle. The last chapter argued that violence is born of the need for identity and the formation of groups. These lead to conflict and war. But war is normal. Altruistic evil is not normal. Suicide bombings, the targeting of civilians and the murder of schoolchildren are not normal. Violence may be possible wherever there is an Us and a Them. But radical violence emerges only when we see the Us as all-good and the Them as all-evil, heralding a war between the children of light and the forces of darkness. That is when altruistic evil is born.
—
Why would even sectarian members of Judaism and Christianity be tempted by an idea that is clearly incompatible with their faith in a single God?
Dualism is what happens when cognitive dissonance becomes unbearable, when the world as it is, is simply too unlike the world as we believed it ought to be
. In the words of historian Jeffrey Russell, dualism ‘denied the unity and omnipotence of God in order to preserve his perfect goodness’. 3
The God of Abraham is, among other things, the Lord of history who redeemed his people from slavery in Egypt. Yet for the Jews of the second century BCE , the great prophetic visions had not come true. Israel had been defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. The Temple had been destroyed. The people had gone into exile in Babylon. Some had returned, but not all. The lost ten tribes for the most part stayed lost. The Second Temple was a pale shadow of Solomon’s. The nation was not truly independent. Persian rule was succeeded by the Alexandrian Empire, eventually to be followed by Rome. Many Jews had become Hellenised, including the Hasmonean kings and high priests. It was at this point, probably around 125 BCE , that a priestly group decided to leave Jerusalem, live in purity in the lonely wastes of the Dead Sea, andwait for the end of history, when God would fight a cosmic battle and defeat the forces of evil.
Among the early Christians, the cognitive dissonance was even greater. The first Christians were Jews who believed that the Messiah had come. But the Messiah in mainstream Judaism is not a supernatural being with the power to transform the human condition. He is simply an anointed king (the word
messiah
means ‘anointed’) in the line of David who will fight Israel’s battles, restore its independence, unite the people and usher in a reign of peace.
Manifestly that had not happened. After the death of Jesus the fate of the faithful became worse, not better. The Romans were ruthless. Religious liberty was curtailed. Jews rose in revolt but suffered devastating defeat. It became easier, particularly for some Gentile
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