the paradigm of the kingdom to that of the pastorate (that is, once again, the
Kingdom to the Government): while the pastor is inferior to the beings he takes
care of, since his perfection is bound to their well-being,
the providence exercised by a king over the things he governs does not proceed
in this way: he does not take care of everything, universal and particular things,
continuously or in a way that none of the things that are subjected to him—and
to which he would dedicate all his life—would slip his mind. The mind of the king
prefers to exercise his providence in a universal and general way: his duties are in-
deed too noble and dignified for him to take care of these trivialities. (Ibid., p. 117)
Certainly God is the first source of all providence, but this does not mean that
he observes and knows every inferior being:
Not even a man can provide for all that is in his house, to the point of taking
care of mice, ants, and all the other things that are in it. Therefore, we need to
say that the fact that a noble man puts in order in their place all the things that
are in his house and administers them according to what is convenient is not
the most beautiful of his acts nor is it worthy of him. He rather needs to take
into consideration the most important things, while these kinds of actions and
preoccupations should remain irrelevant for him. If thus this behavior is not
worthy of a sensible man, it is all the more unworthy of God: indeed, he is too
high for us to say of him that he looks after men, mice, and ants [ . . . ] and that
his providence includes all the earthly things. (Ibid., p. 119)
We see here that the double articulation of providence is already constituted, an
articulation that, later in Christian theology, will take the name of providentia
generalis and providentia specialis; here, it is presented as providence for itself ( kat’ hauto) and accidental ( kata symbebēkos) providence. But what is decisive in Alexander is the way in which he tries to think a third intermediate model,
which neutralizes these oppositions and seems to constitute for him the true
paradigm of providential action.
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477
Alexander writes that the providence of the gods for the things that are in
the sublunar world cannot be a primary activity, intentionally carried out in
view of these things, because in that case, since all that is in view of something is
inferior to it, God would be inferior to the entities of the sublunar world (ibid.,
p. 143). But it would equally be absurd to state that providence is produced in
a purely accidental way, because this would amount to the claim that God is
in no way aware of it, while he cannot but be the wisest of beings. Here, Alex-
ander outlines the paradigm of a divine action that avoids both the model of
voluntary activity and that of the unwitting accident, a paradigm that presents
itself, so to speak, in the paradoxical guise of a conscious accident or of a con-
sciousness without aim. Alexander calls “nature” that which corresponds to this
providential canon and consistently defines this nature as a “divine technique”
(ibid., p. 149):
The divine power which we also call “nature” makes subsist the things in which
it is found and gives them a form according to a certain ordered connection,
but this does not happen in virtue of some decision. Nature does not exercise
decision and rational reflection with regard to all the things that it does, since
nature is an irrational power. (Ibid., p. 151)
Precisely for this reason, Alexander is able to assimilate natural movements to
those produced by mechanical automata, which “seem to dance, fight and move
with movements endowed with order and rhythm, because their creator has
arranged them in this way” (ibid.). But while in the case of art products artisans
set themselves a given purpose, nature as a divine technique comes to comple-
tion in an involuntary way—which is however not accidental—“only thanks to
a continuous succession of generated beings” (ibid., p. 153).
5.5. How should we understand this particular intermediate nature of prov-
idential action—involuntary, yet not accidental? Alexander specifies and refines
his model in Question 2, 21. He writes that if it were possible to find an inter-
mediate term between the “for itself ” and the “by accident,” then the alternative
that makes providential action unintelligible would disappear. The latter neither
takes as the aim of its activity the fact that it is useful to the being it provides for
(providence for itself ), nor is it simply accidental.
We say that somebody provides for something when he sets as his aim to benefit
the object in question, and in view of this benefit he acts and carries out actions
by means of which he considers himself to be able to achieve the aim that he has
set, taking as the objective of his activity the benefit of the being he provides for.
478
HOMO SACER II, 4
We say that a being provides for another by accident [ kata symbebēkos], when
the one that is said to be providing for does not do anything to benefit the one
which he provides for, but it happens that the latter takes some benefit from the
things the other does. Yet the one that provides for is in this way completely
unaware of this accidental consequence. Indeed it seems that somebody finds a
treasure accidentally if he initially was digging for some other purpose and did
not anticipate finding it. And somebody was killed accidentally by lightning,
since the lightning did not fall for that purpose, nor was there any awareness on
the part of the demiurge that created the lightning. (Alexander of Aphrodisias,
La provvidenza, p. 236)
According to Alexander, the nature of the providential action—and here lies its
particular importance—is neither the “for itself,” nor the “by accident,” neither
what is primary, nor what is collateral, but what could be defined as a “collateral
effect that is calculated.”
The knowledge of some of the consequences of what happens for some other
purpose eliminates their accidental character, since something is accidental when
it seems to happen against expectations, while a forecast seems to be the indica-
tion of a rational connections of facts [ . . . ] The being that does not act in view
of something, but knows that it benefits it and wants it, can be said to provide
for it, but neither for itself nor by accident. (Ibid., pp. 236–240)
In Alexander, the theory of providence—in accordance with the Aristotelian the-
ology from which he begins—is not intended to found a Government of the
world, but the latter—that is, the correlation between what is general and what
is particular—results, in a contingent but knowing way, from the universal prov-
idence. The god that reigns, yet does not govern, thus makes possible the govern-
ment. In other words, the government is an epiphenomenon of providence (or
of the kingdom).
Defining in this way the nature of the providential act, Alexander transmit-
ted to Christian theology the possible canon of a divine gubernatio of the world.
Whether providence manife
sts itself only in the universal principles or descends
to earth to look after the lowest particular things, it will in any case need to pass
through the very nature of things and follow their immanent “economy.” The
government of the world occurs neither by means of the tyrannical imposition
of an external general will, nor by accident, but through the knowing anticipa-
tion of the collateral effects that arise from the very nature of things and remain
absolutely contingent in their singularity. Thus, what appeared to be a marginal
phenomenon or a secondary effect becomes the very paradigm of the act of
government.
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
479
It is therefore not surprising that an Arabic author of the ninth century, Jabir
ibn Hayyan, could interpret Alexander’s thought on providence in a way that
turns it into a kind of original paradigm of liberalism, as if the master, providing
for his own interests and those of his house, could also be useful—it does not
matter how knowingly—to the little animals that hide in it:
Alexander of Aphrodisias’s book is characterized by the fact that, according to
him, the ninth sphere does not deliberately exercise its providence over this
world: there is nothing in this world that escapes its providence, but only acci-
dentally. To demonstrate this, he gives the following example: the master of a
household or of a palace does not look after the feeding of the mice, the lizards,
the cockroaches and the ants that live in it, or provide for their subsistence, as
he does for him and his family. However, providing for his household, he acci-
dentally also provides for these little animals. (Ibid., p. 167)
א The theory, of Stoic origin, of the negative collateral effect of providence is fully
articulated by Philo. The irreducibly harmful and “malevolent” elements of creation (from
lightning to hail, from poisonous snakes to scorpions) are conceived as concomitant
effects, or blurrings [ bavures] of the providential structure of the cosmos:
And hail and snow-storms, and other things of that kind, are {collateral effects}
[ epakolouthei] of the cooling of the air. And, again, lightnings and thunders arise from the collision and repercussions of the clouds [ . . . ] And earthquakes, and
pestilences, and the fall of thunderbolts, and things of that kind [ . . . ] {are not
primary works of nature, but follow necessary things as concomitant effects}
[ . . . ] As for reptiles, those which are venomous have not been called into ex-
istence by an immediate providence, but by {collateral effects}, as I said before;
for they are brought into life when the moisture which is in them changes to a
more violent heat. (Philo, On Providence [Fragment II], pp. 753–754)
Modern governmental reason reproduces precisely the double structure of providence.
Every act of government aims at a primary target, yet, precisely for this reason, it can lead to “collateral damages,”* which can be expected or unexpected in their specifics, but are
in any case taken for granted. The computation of collateral effects, which can even be
considerable (in the case of war, they entail the death of human beings and the destruction of cities), is, in this sense, an inherent part of the logic of government.
א The idea that special providence, brought to an extreme, leads to absurd conse-
quences, can also be found in Christian theologians. The following passage from Jerome
is significant ( Commentarium in Abacuc Prophetam, I, I; PL, 25, 1286 a–b): It is absurd to extend the majesty of God to the point of making him aware of
how many mosquitoes are born and die at any moment, of the number of fleas
* In English in the original .—Trans.
480
HOMO SACER II, 4
and the immense multitude of flies, or of how many fish are born in the sea and
similar issues. We should not be fatuous adulators of God who reduce providence
to the level of these issues.
5.6. In Stoic thought, where the concept originated, providence is strictly en-
twined with the problem of fate. Plutarch’s treatise On Fate offers, in this sense, an instructive example of how a pagan philosopher active between the first and
second centuries of the Christian era could contribute, without the least inten-
tion, to the elaboration of the governmental paradigm.
Plutarch begins by defining the concept of fate ( heimarmenē): following a
Stoic model that clearly shows how ontology had by then redoubled itself into
a pragmatics [ prammatica], he distinguishes between fate as a substance ( ousia) and fate as an activity ( energeia, “effectiveness”). As a substance, fate amounts
to the soul of the world that is divided spatially into three parts: the heaven of
the fixed stars, the part containing the “errant” planets, and the part located be-
neath the heavens in the terrestrial region. As an activity—and this is the aspect
that seems to interest Plutarch the most—fate is assimilated to a law ( nomos)
“determining the course of everything that comes to pass” (Plutarch, On Fate,
568d, p. 313).
However, what is decisive is the way in which Plutarch uses the paradigm of
the law to articulate the connection between fate in general and fate in partic-
ular ( kata meros or kath’ ekastha: ibid., 569d, p. 321). Just as civil law ( politikos nomos: ibid.) does not address this or that individual, but arranges according to a universal condition ( hypothesis, “presupposition”) all that happens in the city, so fate establishes the general conditions according to which connections between
particular facts will then take place (ibid., pp. 321–323). In other words, from the
perspective of fate, all that happens is considered as the effect of an antecedent.
Plutarch thus identifies what pertains to destiny with what is effectual or condi-
tional ( to ex hypotheseōs):
Let us next determine the character of what is “consequent of an hypothesis,”
and show that fate is of that character. We meant by “consequent of an hypoth-
esis” that which is not laid down independently, but in some fashion is really
“subjoined” to something else, wherever there is an expression implying that if
one is true, another follows. (Ibid., 570a, p. 323)
The principle according to which “everything conforms to destiny [ panta kath’
heimarmenēn]” (ibid., 570c, p. 325) has a meaning only if we specify that the
phrase “conforms to destiny” does not refer to the antecedents, but exclusively
to the order of the effects and consequences. “And we must call ‘destined’ and
THE KINGDOM AND THE GLORY
481
‘in conformity with destiny’ only the things that are effects of what has been es-
tablished primarily [ proēgēsamenois] in the divine appointment of things” (ibid.,
570e, p. 327). That is, destiny divides what is real into two different levels: that
of the general antecedents ( proēgoumena) and that of the particular effects. The
former are somehow in destiny, but do not occur according to destiny, and destiny is that which results effectually from the correlation between the two levels.
It is at this stage that Plutarch introduces his doctrine of providence, which
is nothing but a more rigorous formulation of his theory of fate. Like the fate-
substance, providence also has a triple figure, which reflects the schema
of the
three divine orders of the second pseudo-Platonic Letter. The first and supreme
providence is the intellection or the will of the primary god, “beneficent to all
things,” in accordance with which every being has been ordered “as is best and
most excellent” (ibid., 572f, p. 343). It “has begotten destiny, and includes it in a
sense” (ibid., 574b, p. 351). The second providence, which was created together
with destiny and is, like it, included in the first providence, is that of the second-
ary gods that walk through heaven; mortal things are arranged and preserved in
conformity with it. The third providence, which was created “after destiny” and
is contained within it, rests with the demons who are commissioned to oversee
and order the individual actions of men. According to Plutarch, only the first
providence is worthy of its name. It is the “eldest of all beings,” and as such
superior to destiny, since “all that conforms to destiny conforms to providence”
but not vice versa (ibid., 573b, pp. 343–345). While destiny was compared with
a law, the first providence is similar to a “political legislation appropriate to the
souls of men” (ibid., 573d, p. 347).
For Plutarch, providence and fate are, at the same time, different and strictly
intertwined. If the first providence corresponds to the level of what is primary
and of the universal, fate, which is contained by providence and partly identical
with it, corresponds to the level of particular effects that derive from it. But
nothing is more ambiguous than the relation of “collaterality” or of “effectuality”
( akolouthia). It is necessary to measure the novelty that this concept introduces
into classical ontology. Overturning the Aristotelian definition of the final cause
and its primacy, it transforms what appeared in Aristotle as the aim into an
“ effect.” Plutarch seems to be aware of it when he observes that “perhaps a stick-
ler for precision in such matters might insist that on the contrary it is the par-
ticulars that have priority, and that the universal exists for their sake—the end
being prior to what serves it” (ibid., 569f, pp. 322–323). In other words, what is
specific to the providence-fate machine is its functioning as a bipolar system that
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