The Image of Happiness We Harbor: The Messianic Power of Weakness in Cohen, Benjamin, and Paul

Abstract

Tragedy, writes Hermann Cohen in his 1904 Ethics of Pure Will, gener ates the individual in the hero, in the demi-god; and it generates and trans figures his guilt through his heroic suffering. Religion, on the other hand, generates the individual in the human soul and in its sins. But it brings redemp tion in the recognition of human weakness; weakness becomes the attribute of human morality:'1 In these three sentences, Cohen develops in nuce the concept of a messianism that draws its power from the recognition of human weakness. Redemption means in this context not redemption from weakness but transformation of weakness into strength. Human strength based on human weakness relies on the possibility of self-transformation and self-renewal lim ited only by death. Cohen's interpretation of human weakness not only represents an alter native but, in many respects, a counterposition to the famous passage in 2 Cor inthians in which Paul boasts of his weakness instead of fighting against Satan, so that the power of Christ will descend on him: Then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong (12:9-10; RSV). Unlike in Cohen, no transformation