Paul’s theology frames enmity and subjection as a single divided condition

Evidence

This internal division-which continues to operate within each of the terms-is a temporally extended state of war, the permanent possibility of a war of subjection, where law, institutions, and obligations are suspended, stripped of their eternity. But this narrative, which would give away-carry over, give up, and betray, paredoken-its subject from enmity to subjection, is also the structural division that affects enmity as undecidably active or passive. What fails to come together, but offers itself to a reading here is a history of the enemy as the internal division of a subject that is first active, then passive, and both active and passive. The narrative version echoes throughout Romans and in 1 Corinthians, but maintains a nonnarrativized, structural link between subjection and enmity, activity and passivity: “for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (8:20). Even emancipation remains an experience in passivity. It is war. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 112

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Introduces the key conceptual move: enmity as internal division of a subject that is both active and passive, and subjection as war.

Related

• Enmity and subjection form one internal division of the Pauline subject (similarity 0.95)
• Paul’s theology constitutes the self as a permanent battlefield of spiritual war (similarity 0.81)
• Pauline messianism divides the enemy into hated and beloved (similarity 0.78)