Adorno urged Benjamin to keep theology in and social theory out of the Arcades.

Evidence

What you write about the end of your essay period, and above all about starting work on the Passagen, is really the best news I have heard from you for many years. You know I see this work as truly the one piece of prima philosophia which has been given to us, and my one wish is that you will be as strong and as capable of carrying it out, after a long and painful break, as the scale of the task requires. And if I might offer your work something of what I hope for it as it starts on its way, without your taking this as immodesty, then it would be this: that it should ruthlessly bring to fruit all of the theological content and literalness in the most extreme theses which have been invested in it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 212

Categorization

• XREF: The whole essay-burning dispute turns on what Benjamin owed and owed not to articulate to the public.
• DEFINE: Defines ‘prima philosophia’ as Adorno’s designation for the Passagen-Werk — first philosophy, not cultural history.