Secularization of Political Authority. On the Political Content of Theology in Benjamin’s Theory of Trauerspiel

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between secular politics and theology in Walter Benjamin’s The Origin of German Trauerspiel. It explores that question by starting from how the Weimar legal theory conceived the relationship between modern, secular law and the theological tradition. Focusing on Carl Schmitt’s concept of secularization, it investigates the analogy model in term of which the legal discourse understood the named relationship as well as its political consequences. The article suggests that Benjamin’s theory of the Trauerspiel elaborates a different, dialectical model which deploys, on the contrary, the crisis of any analogy between theology and modern politics.