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The axial age: the emergence of transcendental visions and the rise of clerics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt
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In the first millennium before the Christian era a revolution took place in the realm of ideas and their institutional base which had irreversible effects on several major civilizations and on human history in general. The revolution or series of revolutions, which are related to Karl Jaspers' ‘Axial Age’, have to do with the emergence, conceptualization and institutionalization of a basic tension between the transcendental and mundane orders. This revolutionary process took place in several major civilizations including Ancient Israel, Ancient Greece, early Christianity, Zoroastrian Iran, early Imperial China and in the Hindu and Buddhist civilizations. Although beyond the axial age proper, it also took place in Islam.

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Watersheds
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , November 1982 , pp. 294 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1982

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References

(1) Jaspers, K., Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (Zurich 1949), pp. 15–106Google Scholar.

(2) See Weber, Max, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religion-soziologie (Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1922 [1978])Google Scholar and the English translation: Ancient Judaism (New York, The Free Press, 1952)Google Scholar; The Religion of India (ibid. 1958); The Religion of China (ibid. 1951, 1964).

On Weber's thematic and vision see: Schluchter, W., The Paradox of Rationalization, in Roth, G. and Schluchter, W., Max Weber's Vision of History, Ethics and Methods (Berkeley-Los Angeles/London, University of California Press, 1979), pp. 11–64Google Scholar; and see also Bourdieu, P., Une interprétation de la théorie de la religion selon Max Weber, European Journal of Sociology, XII (1971), 1–24Google Scholar; Lennert, R., Die Religions-theorie Max Webers, Versuch einer Analyse seines religionsgeschichtlichen Verstands, Inaugural Dissertation (Stuttgart 1955)Google Scholar; Tennbruck, F.H., The Problem of thematic unity in the works of Max Weber, The British Journal of Sociology, XXI (1980), 316–351CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kalberg, Stephen, The search for thematic orientations in a fragmented œuvre; the discussion of Max Weber in recent German literature, Sociology (1979) 13, 127–39Google Scholar.

(3) Wisdom, Revelation and Doubt: perspectives on the First Millennium B.C., edited by Schwartz, B., Daedalus (Spring 1975)Google Scholar.

(4) Voegelin, E., Order and History, vols. I–IV (Baton Rouge, University of Louisiana Press, 1954–1974)Google Scholar.

(5) Schwartz, B.I., The age of transcendence in wisdom, doubt and uncertainty, Daedalus (Spring 1975), 3–4Google Scholar.

(6) For some of the many analyses of these premises of pagan religions see for instance: Fortes, M. & Dieterlen, G. (eds.), African Systems of Thought (London, Oxford University Press, 1965), esp. pp. 7–49Google Scholar; the analysis in E. Voegelin, Order and History, op. cit., vol. I, Israel and Revelation; the papers by Oppenheimer and Garelli in Wisdom, Revelation and Doubt, op. cit.; Frankfort, H., Kingship and the Gods (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1948)Google Scholar. For a case of individual transcendental vision which was not institutionalized see: Wiley, G., Mesoamerica Civilization and the Idea of Transcendence, Antiquity, L (1976), 205–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(7) See Max Weber, Gesammelte Auftsätze zur Religion-soziologie, op. cit., and G. Roth & W. Schluchter, Max Weber's Vision of History, op. cit.

(8) Obeysekere, G., The rebirth eschatology and its transformations: a contribution to the sociology of early Buddhism in O'Flaharty, W. Doniger (ed.), Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (Berkeley/Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1980), pp. 137–165Google Scholar.

(9) See, for instance, Erikson, E.H. (ed.), Adulthood (New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978)Google Scholar.

(10) The relations between the eschatological premises of civilizations and the construction of worlds of knowledge is one of the neglected—but also perhaps one of the most promising—arenas of the sociology of knowledge. They are now being worked out in an inter-disciplinary seminar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Some interesting material can be found in Nelson, B., Der Ursprung der Moderne Vergleichende Studien zum Zivilisations-prozess (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1977)Google Scholar.

(11) On Egypt, see Kees, H., Ägypten — Die Kulturgeschichte des Orients (Munich 1933)Google Scholar; and Wilson, J., The Burden of Egypt (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951)Google Scholar. On Japan see Hall, J.W., Japan from History to Modern Times (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1970)Google Scholar.

(12) These terms are derived from Shils, E., Primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties, in , Shils, Center and Periphery, essays in macro-sociology (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 111–126Google Scholar.

(13) These terms are derived from E. Shils, Center and periphery, and society and societies — The macrosociological view, in Shils, , Center and Periphery, op. cit. pp. 3–11 and 34–38Google Scholar; and see also their elaboration and application in Eisenstadt, S.N. (ed.), Political Sociology (New York, Basic Books, 1971)Google Scholar; and Eisenstadt, S.N., Revolution and the Transformation of Societies (New York, The Free Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

(14) The concept of Great Tradition derived from Redfield, R., Human Nature and The Study of Society (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar, passim.

(15) This point is more fully elaborated in Eisenstadt, S.N., Revolution and the Transformation of Societies, op. cit., esp. chs. III & IVGoogle Scholar.

(16) See Eisenstadt, S.N., Cultural traditions and political dynamics, the origins and modes of ideological politics, The British Journal of Sociology, XXXII, (1981), 155–181CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(17) See this also in greater detail in Eisenstadt, S.N., Social Differentiation and Stratification (Glenview, Scott Foresman & Co, 1971). VIGoogle Scholar; and Eisenstadt, S.N., Convergence and divergence of modern and modernizing societies, International Journal of Middle East Studies, VIII (1977). 1–18Google Scholar.

(18) Eisenstadt, S.N., Tradition, Change and Modernity (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1973), pp. 140–151Google Scholar.

(19) See on this the various discussions in Wisdom, Revelation and Doubt, op. cit.

(20) The literature on Utopia is, of course, immense. For a good survey, see Kaleb, G., Utopias and Utopianism, International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York, MacMillan & Free Press, 1968), XVI, pp. 267–270Google Scholar; and for a fascinating collection of essays, der Utopie, Vom Sinn, Eranos Jahrbuch (1963) (Zurich, Rhein Verlag, 1964)Google Scholar.

(21) Durkheim, E., De la division du travail social (Paris, Alcan, 1893)Google Scholar, English translation, The Division of Labor in Society (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1960)Google Scholar. See also Aron, R., Les étapes de la pensée sociologique (Paris, Gallimard, 1967), pp. 319–330Google Scholar.

(22) Gluckman, Max, Rituals of rebellion in South-East Africa, in Gluckman, , Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (New York, The Free Press, 1963), pp. 110–137Google Scholar; Decouflé, A., Sociologie des révolutions (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1966)Google Scholar.

(23) See Eisenstadt, S.N., Intellectuals and tradition, in Eisenstadt, S.N. & Graubard, S.R. (eds.), Intellectuals and Tradition (New York, Humanities Press, 1973), pp. 1–21Google Scholar; and E. Shils, Intellectuals, traditions and the tradition of intellectuals, ibid., pp. 21–35.

(24) See Eisenstadt, S.N., Some Observations on the Dynamics of Traditions, Comparative Studies in Society and History, II (1969), 451–475CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

* The analysis presented here, which constitutes part of a larger work on a sociological analysis of comparative civilizations, has been developed in lectures and seminars over the years at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Harvard University and in seminars in the summer 1980 at the Universities of Vienna and Berne. I am indebted to my colleagues and students in these institutions for continuous discussions. The research on which it has been based has been partially supported by a grant from the Volkswagen Foundation.

(25) For some preliminary attempts in such a direction see: S.N. Eisenstadt, Revolution and the Transformation of Societies, op. cit.; Id. Cultural traditions and political dynamics, loc. cit.; Id. Max Weber's Antike Judentum und der Charakter der Jüdisch Zivilisation, in W. Schluchter (ed.), Max Webers Studies über das antike Judentum (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 134–185; and This Worldly Transcendentalism and the Structuring of the World— Max Weber's Religion of China and the format of Chinese history and civilization (forthcoming).