Reading of Die Schere #2

[Guenter Rebing <Rebing@compuserve.com>]

Ernst Jünger, Die Schere §2, Abdalbarr's Translation, and some notes by
Guenter Rebing

1. The text

"Die Kulte können nicht ohne Bilder bestehen. Selbst in der Wüste muß zum
"mindesten ein Stein gesetzt werden. Dort ist etwas geschehen, dessen
"wird gedacht. Vielleicht fiel ein Meteor vom Himmel, oder es ist nur ein
"Gerücht. Dann wirkt das Gerücht stärker als die Tatsache.
"Die Bilder sind das Urgestein der Kulte; sie leben länger als die
"Götter, zu deren Ehren sie errichtet worden sind. Wir stehen vor einer
"Statue, die aus dem Schutt geborgen wurde, und fühlen: Hier muß ein Gott
"gewesen sein. Obwohl wir weder das Heiligtum noch seinen Namen kennen,
"berührt uns ein verborgener Sinn, der auch dem Künstler selbst
"verschlossen war. Im Kunstwerk lebt ein Glaube, der jedes Dogma
"überwährt."

2. Translation by Abdalbarr
> 2
> Cults can't persist without images. Even in the desert at least a stone
> has to be put up. Something took place, is memorated. Maybe a meteor
> dropped from heaven or it is just a rumour. Then the rumour works
> stronger than the fact.
> Images are the primordial rocks of the cults, they outlive the gods to
whose

> honour they were errected. We stand in front of a statue drawn from
rubble
> and feel: a god must have been present here. Though we neither know
> this sanctuary nor its name, we are touched by a hidden sense, which
> was also concealed from the artist himself. There lives a belief in a
work 
of
> art that outlasts any dogma.

3. Some notes by Günter Rebing:

In §2 the role of images, whose vital importance was stated in the final
sentence of §1, is further enhanced. They are seen as more basic than the
religious cults they originally were supposed to serve. Even when the gods
of a cult are finally forgotten their images can, centuries later, convey
the premonition that the artist sensed the presence of the divine, or as EJ
puts it more cautiously, a "hidden sense".The final sentence of §2 draws
the conclusion: the work of art is thus superior to the literal teachings
of religions. Granted, art works may originally have been created just for
the sake of illustrating those teachings, seem to be merely subservient.
But they turn out to be superior because of longer life because they
preserve belief while the teachings of a religion will be eventually
abandoned. 
I think this should not be read as a mere apotheosis of the visual arts.
The images EJ is talking about include religious texts like the Bible —
provided that they are not read in a literal, fundamentalist sense. During
the darkest years in his life EJ undertook a systematic reading of the
Bible, as "Strahlungen", his diaries of 1942-44, bear witness. Granted,
there were various motives for this exercise which should surprise with an
officer of the Wehrmacht who surely could not be called a Christian. I
believe, in order to sustain this terrible time he looked for and found in
the stories and words of the Bible the images (not the dogmas, the literal
meaning) the "hidden meaning" which was even opaque to the authors of the
text themselves. 
Likewise, the deep respect EJ pays to the Buddhist temples he visits during
his journeys to East Asia, as recorded in "Siebzig verweht", may be
explained by his sensing the "hidden meaning" of the statues and even of
the sacral aura around them, across the centuries and the cultural divide.