Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“The repetition of the sparagmos as sacrifice is the central feature of these rituals. The complex organization that Durkheim describes, where throughout the year the several clans offer feasts each centered on their specific “totem” animal, is both a transition to a truly hierarchical big-man society and a means of deferring it. “Alternate firstness” is the pattern of human life; only in ritual acts like the sparagmos, and even then only “ideally,” can reciprocity be simultaneous. In what Voegelin calls the “compact” world of the early kingdoms, the ritual universe was built around the centrality of the monarch, who was often himself worshiped as a deity. The Hebrew Exodus was a liberation from this association of worship with political domination. The Hebrew nation did not deny the necessity of human firstness, but no longer attached it directly to the divinity, which was revealed as the universal One God. Having escaped from the compact world that confuses worldly sovereignty with sacrality, the Hebrews saw themselves as chosen to reveal this truth to the “nations.” Samuel’s famous warning (Samuel I, 8) to the Israelites who demanded a king is a sign of this detachment. The entire society, the people , is the effective agent of enlightenment; its governing agency is of merely instrumental importance.”

— Eric Gans, Religion and Firstness · Saturday, September 12th, 2015 · Chronicles of Love & Resentment