The Axial Moment and Its Critics: Jaspers, Bellah, and Voegelin

Abstract

Axial theory locates the turning point in history in the Axial Age, the first millennium BCE prior to Christ, in which Hebrew prophets and scripture, Greek tragedians and philosophers, Indian Brahmins and the Buddha, and Chinese sages and teachers of worldly ethics began the process of desacralizing nature and the human world. Karl Jaspers’ later American disciple, the sociologist Robert Bellah, presents the Axial Age in epic spread in his most important work on the subject. Later, we will bring to bear Jaspers’ student and critic Eric Voegelin, who turned the notion on its head. We conclude by showing how Girard’s idea of history brings a closure to this cycle, by showing the apocalyptic implications of the concept of humanity in purely secular terms.