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(All parts in English)

This article by Sperber, whose translation Mrs. Hubert provided last time, was something connected to our discussion about sublimation, and I wanted you to be aware of it.

I will not delve into an extremely in-depth critique of this text. I hope that, for most of you, after the few years of teaching you have had here, something about this way of proceeding must have struck you as off. I mean, while the aim of the article is undoubtedly interesting—we wouldn’t have lingered on it otherwise—I think the method of demonstration must have appeared flawed to you. Specifically, relying on and referencing the fact that words with a presumed originally sexual meaning have progressively carried a series of meanings increasingly distant from their primitive significance, to demonstrate a sort of common sexual origin—albeit sublimated—of fundamental human activities, is clearly a method whose demonstrative validity should, in the eyes of any rational mind, appear eminently questionable.

This is evident, first, because the mere fact that words with a primitively sexual meaning have, so to speak, “spread” in terms of their semantic field to encompass meanings very far removed from their original significance does not imply that the entire field of meaning has been covered.

This does not mean that everything we use as language can ultimately be reduced to these key words he presents, whose valorization and position are significantly facilitated for the demonstration by assuming as proven the most contestable aspect—the notion of root or radical, in the sense that roots and radicals in human language are inherently tied to a meaning.

The emphasis on roots and radicals in inflected languages raises specific issues far from applicable to the universality of languages. It would be particularly challenging to highlight this in a language like Chinese, where all meaningful elements are monosyllabic. The notion of root becomes exceedingly elusive.

In fact, this is clearly an illusion tied to the significant development of language, of its usage, where all that is “root” must be regarded with great suspicion. This is not to say that everything you heard presented before you as observations about the use of these words—let’s call them sexually rooted words—in languages, all of which are Indo-European, is without interest. However, from the perspective in which I believe I have sufficiently immersed and trained you—one that consists of carefully distinguishing the function of the signifier from the creation of meaning through the metonymic and metaphoric use of signifiers—it is evident that this is where the real problem begins.

Why do these areas, in which sexual meaning, as I mentioned earlier, spreads like an oil stain—why are these particular rivers where it commonly flows, and which are not just any meanings, specifically chosen to employ words that have already had uses within the sexual domain?

For instance, it is extremely interesting to ask why it is precisely in relation to an act that is more or less muted, stifled, botched—to cutting, to pruning, to a half-failed act—that the presumed origin resurfaces in the excavation of the most primitive works with a meaning of sexual operation, of phallic penetration?

Why, in other words, does the metaphor of “foutre” [French vulgar term for sex] resurface in reference to something poorly done? Why does the image of the vulva arise to express various acts, including that of fleeing, escaping, cutting out, as was repeatedly used to translate the German term in the text?

I mention in passing: this particularly lovely expression, “cutting out,” to mean fleeing or evading, I tried to trace its attestation. That is, the moment in history when we see it appear as such with this meaning, but I did not have enough time. In the dictionaries or resources at my disposal, I could not find it. If anyone could research this matter. It is true that I do not have access to dictionaries on the colloquial usage of words in Paris. Nonetheless, it remains a question.

So, why in life is it a particular type of meaning, certain signifiers marked by a primitive use in sexual relations, that are used metaphorically? How is it that specific slang terms, originally sexual in meaning, come to describe non-sexual situations in a metaphorical usage as I define it? And this metaphorical usage is employed to achieve a certain modification.

Is there, then, nothing more in this article than an opportunity to see, through a particularly specific case, how, in the normal, diachronic evolution of language usage, metaphorical modes are employed? Specifically, how and why references to sexuality are utilized in a certain metaphorical usage?

Would it reduce the scope of the article to this, that is, to demonstrate that it completely missed its mark? Certainly not. If that were all—if this article could be taken merely as another example of certain aberrations of psychoanalytic speculation—I would not have presented it to you here. I believe what sustains its value is something present on its horizon, not demonstrated but intended, namely, the notion of a radical relationship. This refers to the fundamental instrumental relationships, the primordial techniques, the major acts of agriculture, such as opening the belly of the earth, the major acts of pottery-making that I have so emphasized, and various other acts, all of which are naturally metaphorized around something very specific: less the sexual act than the female sexual organ.

I mean to say that it is precisely because the female sexual organ—or more precisely, the form of an opening and emptiness—was central to all these metaphors that the article took on its interest and its central value for reflection. For it is evident that there is a gap, a leap in the supposed reference. It is a fascinating idea that the sexual call as such, the vocalization thought to accompany the sexual act, could have initiated the origin of human use of the signifier to denote: substantively, either the organ, particularly the female organ, or verbally, the act of coitus.

The leap in this article lies in the suggestion that if the use of a term that originally signifies coitus is capable of an extension presumed almost infinite, and if the use of a term that originally signifies vulva is susceptible to all kinds of metaphorical usages, this bridges the gap to the assumption that the prevalence of vocal signifier usage among humans may originate from activities accompanied by sung calls, presumed to be those of primitive human sexual relations, as they are in certain animals, especially birds. There is clearly a leap here in the article.

For you sense the difference between a more or less typified cry accompanying an activity and the use of a signifier that isolates an element of articulation, whether the act or the organ. While it is not without interest to consider that humanity might have been introduced to the use of the signifier via this route, it is clear that this alone does not provide the structure of the signifier. That is to say, nothing inherently in the “natural sexual call” implies the oppositional element that constitutes the structure of signifier usage, the structure fully developed in the fort-da example we took as the original case. The sexual call may pertain to a temporal modulation of an act whose repetition could fix certain elements of vocal activity. However, it is not yet something that can provide us with the structuring element, even in its most primitive form. There is a gap here.

Nevertheless, the article’s value lies in showing us, by what means, what is so essential to the elaboration of our experience and Freud’s doctrine can be conceived. Specifically, how sexual symbolism—in the ordinary sense of the term—could, at the origin, polarize the metaphorical play of the signifier. I will leave it there for today, but I may return to this point later.

I questioned myself on how I would pick up the thread today and where I would resume. I thought—based on conversations I had with some of you—that it might not be uninteresting to give you an idea of the talks, discussions, or lectures I gave in Brussels. This is because I do indeed have something to convey to you. This remains at the center of my discourse, and even when I bring it outside, I essentially take it up at the point where I sustain it.

Of course, it is not one or two additional seminars that I conducted before my audience in Brussels; nevertheless, what I articulated there was situated at the point where we are now in what I articulate here. What I risk, then, is skipping too quickly over certain parts for you, assuming implicitly that you are already familiar with what I presented there. However, this is not certain, as what I said to a different audience may have included elements not yet addressed here, and it is worthwhile ensuring these elements are not overlooked in our discourse.

This may seem, after all, quite bold regarding how I proceed with what I have to say, but it deserved this approach. I do not have much time, given the path we have left to cover, to concern myself with strictly “professorial” worries. That is not my function, as I suggested and even formally stated to them. I dislike, to put it bluntly, placing myself in front of an audience in a teaching position, as a psychoanalyst speaking to an uninitiated audience always takes on the role of a propagandist. If I accepted to speak at this university—the Catholic University of Brussels—I did so in a certain spirit that, in my view, is not one to be put foremost but rather secondarily. This spirit is one of assistance and cooperation, aiming to contribute, in some way—I dare hope I achieved this—to harmonizing the presence and actions of those who are our friends and comrades in Belgium.

I was, therefore, speaking before a very large audience, and one that left me with the best impression, convened at the invitation of a Catholic university. This fact alone might explain why I began my talk with something related to Freud’s theme, notion, and function of the father. As might be expected of me, I did not mince my words or temper my language; that is, I did not attempt to soften Freud’s position on religion in front of such an audience.

Nevertheless, you are aware of my stance on what might be called “religious truths.” This occasion perhaps merits further clarification, even though I believe I have already made my position sufficiently clear through my remarks and approach.

The paradox lies in the position—whether arising from personal conviction, methodological stance, or a so-called scientific attitude—taken by those who, despite being believers themselves, feel compelled to set aside, as they say, their confessional point of view in certain domains. Whether in one case or the other, there is something paradoxical about practically excluding from debate, discussion, and examination, the terms and doctrines articulated within the proper field of faith, as if they were to remain in a domain reserved exclusively for believers.

You have heard me, on one occasion, directly delve into a passage from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans concerning the theme of the law that creates sin. You saw that, with the help of an artifice—one I could easily have done without—by substituting the term, still undefined in my discourse at the time, of the Thing for what in Saint Paul’s text is referred to as sin, we arrived at a very precise and exact formulation of what I intended to convey regarding the relationship, the knot, between law and desire. This example, which gains its effectiveness from addressing a specific case, is something I feel compelled to revisit because I do not consider it a mere coincidental borrowing or a particularly favorable sleight of hand to arrive at the point I needed to make before you at that time.

On the contrary, I believe there is no need to adopt a form of adherence—of any kind—about which I have no reason to elaborate here, and which may range widely within the domain of what is called faith. For us analysts, who claim to approach the phenomena within our own field without preconceptions and to go beyond certain pre-psychological conceptions, I consider it impossible for us to ignore or neglect what has been articulated—articulated explicitly, in its own terms—within religious experience, such as the conflict between freedom and grace.

A notion as articulated, precise, and irreplaceable as that of grace, particularly concerning the psychology of action, has no equivalent in classical academic psychology. Therefore, I believe that not only the doctrines but also the historical texts, the history of choices—that is, the heresies attested throughout history in this domain, and the lines of fervor that motivated various ethical directions in successive generations—belong to our examination. Indeed, I insist that they require our attention in their proper register and mode of expression.

It is insufficient to argue that certain themes are used only within the domain of those we might call “believers.” After all, how can we truly know whether they believe what they claim to believe? For them, these are not mere beliefs; if we suppose they genuinely believe in them, these are truths. What they believe, whether they believe they believe it or not—nothing is more ambiguous than belief—one thing is certain: they believe they know.

It is a knowledge like any other, and as such, it falls within the scope of our examination. From our standpoint, we consider all knowledge to arise from a foundation of ignorance. This perspective enables us to accept various forms of knowledge, even those not scientifically grounded.

I thus felt compelled to confront an audience that I deemed valuable to engage with, not so much for the sake of eliciting reactions—whether favorable or not, which remains problematic and can only be determined by the future—but because this audience, far from hypothetical since the event indeed occurred, allows me, here before you, a different audience entirely, to highlight certain points. While these points may not carry the same weight for you as they might for them, it is nonetheless necessary that you see how these issues might be presented to an audience representing a significant sector of the public sphere.

I believe no prejudice is more common than the assumption that Freud, because he adopted the most categorical stance on the subject of religious experience—stating that everything within this domain of sentimental apprehension meant nothing to him, that it was, quite literally, dead to him—has resolved the issue. However, if we here take our position regarding the letter as it is, this resolves nothing. For, as dead as that letter may be, it might still have been articulated—articulated clearly, at least in certain fields or domains, in precisely the way religious experience itself articulates it.

In other words, speaking before people presumably responding to the call of a Catholic university, who could not be expected to disassociate themselves from a certain message—at least insofar as it pertains to God the Father—I could confidently assert that, at the very least, with regard to what is articulated in this message, as it concerns the function of the father, and as this function lies at the heart of what defines religious experience, Freud, as I phrased it in a subtitle proposed for my lecture (though it caused some consternation), carries weight.

This is more than easy to demonstrate. You need only open the small book titled Moses and Monotheism, which Freud, after mulling it over for about ten years—ever since Totem and Taboo, his thoughts revolved almost exclusively around Moses and the religion of his forefathers—wrote to articulate his ideas on monotheism. For one must learn to read and understand what Freud is addressing in this book, which he completed toward the end of his life. Practically, were it not for the article on the splitting of the ego (Splitting in the Ego), one could say the pen fell from Freud’s hand with the conclusion of Moses and Monotheism.

Contrary to what seems to have been insinuated—if I can trust what I’ve been told over the past few weeks—about Freud’s intellectual output at the end of his life, I personally do not believe it was in decline. On the contrary, nothing seems to me more firmly articulated or more consistent with Freud’s earlier thought than Moses and Monotheism.

What is the question around Moses and Monotheism? Clearly and explicitly, it concerns the monotheistic message as such. That is what interests Freud. Moreover, this does not require him to address questions of value. For Freud, there is no doubt that the monotheistic message inherently carries an incontestable superiority over any other. The fact that Freud was an atheist changes nothing about this. For an atheist—Freud, at least, though not necessarily all atheists—this fundamental aspect of the monotheistic message remains decisive.

It can even be said that this message marks a dividing line. To its left lie things that are, from that point onward, surpassed and rendered obsolete, unable to persist beyond the manifestation of this message. To its right lies something else entirely. The matter is quite clear in Freud’s articulation. Outside of monotheism, Freud does not suggest there is nothing—not at all.

Freud alludes, though he does not provide a theory of gods, to the presence of a world often connoted as pagan. This term, as you know, is a late one, tied to the reduction of such beliefs to rural spheres. In the pagan atmosphere—when it was in full bloom and not yet labeled as such—the numen emerged at every step, at every crossroads, in every cave. The numen wove through human experience. Even today, traces of this mode of understanding persist in various aspects of human existence. This stands in stark contrast to the manifestation of monotheism. The numinous appears at every step, and each instance leaves a trace, creating, so to speak, a memorial.

It does not take much for a temple to rise, for a new cult to establish itself. The numinous proliferates, acting everywhere within human life, so abundantly that eventually something must manifest: the mastery of humanity, refusing to be overwhelmed. This proliferation also leads to degradation into myth—ancient myths rich in meaning, which we still enjoy and find difficult to reconcile with genuine faith in these gods. Whether these myths are heroic, epic, or vulgar, they are marked by a peculiar disorder, an intoxication, a divine anarchism, so to speak.

The laughter of the gods in the Iliad illustrates this sufficiently in the heroic register. There is much to be said about the laughter of the Olympians. Today, however, I want to linger on the phase to which the pagans themselves were sensitive. We see traces of this in the writings of philosophers, in their reflections on the ridicule or absurdity of the gods’ adventures—something we find difficult to conceive.

In contrast, what do we have? We have the monotheistic message, which is the focus of Freud’s analysis. How is this monotheistic message possible? How did it emerge? Freud’s articulation of this is crucial to understanding the level at which his thought operates. You know that everything rests on the notion of “Moses the Egyptian.”

I do not think, before an audience like this one, that I need to conduct a seminar analyzing Moses and Monotheism. For people like you, 80% of whom are psychoanalysts, you should know this book by heart.

Everything, then, hinges on the concept of Moses the Egyptian and Moses the Midianite. Moses the Egyptian is the Great Man, the Legislator, the Politician, the Rationalist. Freud claims to trace his path in the historical emergence, at a specific time—the 14th century BCE—of the religion of Akhenaton, attested by recent discoveries. This religion promotes the singular function, the unitarism of the energy symbolized by the solar organ, from which, as one might say, the organization of the world radiates.

The character of Moses the Egyptian, for Freud, represents something beyond the human remnants of that first attempt at a wholly scientific, rationalistic vision of the world. This vision is embodied in the unitarism—a unitarism of reality, a substantial unity of the world centered on the sun—that is proposed by this endeavor. And as you know, the history of Egypt demonstrates its failure. Barely had Akhenaton disappeared when the proliferation of religious themes, more abundant in Egypt than elsewhere—the pandemonium of gods—resurged, taking control and erasing entirely Akhenaton’s reform.

One man, however, carried forward the torch of this rationalist aspiration: Moses the Egyptian, who chose a small group of men to lead them through trials that would render them worthy of founding a community built upon these principles.

This is Freud’s narrative. In other words, someone attempting to create socialism in one country—except that, in this case, there wasn’t even a country, only a handful of men to carry it out. This is Freud’s conception of the true Moses: the Great Man, the one whose message we must still determine how it has been transmitted to us today.

Of course, you might say: after all, this Moses was somewhat of a magician. But that detail is of little importance. How Moses managed to suddenly summon locusts and frogs is his business. It’s not an essential concern from the perspective of his religious position, and we can set aside the use of magic. It never harmed Moses the Egyptian in the eyes of anyone, after all.

Then there is Moses the Midianite, the son-in-law of Jethro, whose figure Freud teaches us was conflated with that of the first Moses. This Moses, the Midianite—whom Freud also refers to as the one from Sinai, from Horeb—is indeed the key figure. It is he who hears the Word emerge from the burning bush. To my mind, this Word is utterly decisive and cannot be elided in this matter. Freud, however, does elide it. This fundamental statement is as follows: “I am…” not—as the entirety of Christian Gnosis has tried to interpret it, introducing endless difficulties about being that perhaps compromised said exegesis—“…the one who is,” but rather, “I am what I am.”

This is to say, a God who presents Himself as essentially hidden. This hidden God is a jealous God, and He seems inseparable from the one who, in the same fiery setting that renders Him inaccessible, is said—according to biblical tradition—to have delivered the famous commandments to the gathered people. These people were forbidden from approaching, from crossing a certain boundary.

From the moment these commandments prove themselves to us as imperishable laws—whether followed or not—we continue to hear them. I have emphasized to you their indestructible nature. From the moment these commandments reveal themselves as the very laws of speech itself, as I have tried to demonstrate to you, a problem undeniably arises. To put it plainly, Moses the Midianite seems to present his own unique question: in front of whom or what was he at Sinai and Horeb?

But, failing to sustain the brilliance of the face of the one who said, “I am what I am,” we are left to say that the burning bush was, in sum, Moses’s Thing, and to leave it where it is, with the option of speculating on the consequences of such revelations. Be that as it may, Freud resolves the problem of these consequences in another way. He resolves it as follows: it is because Moses the Egyptian was murdered by his own small people—a people less docile toward socialism in one country than ours—that they later dedicated themselves to God-knows-what paralyzing observances and certain troubling practices involving innumerable neighbors.

Let us not forget the actual history of the Jews. A brief rereading of those ancient books reveals that, in matters of imperialist colonialism in Canaan, they knew what they were doing. They even sometimes gently persuaded neighboring populations to circumcise themselves, then, taking advantage of the temporary incapacitation caused by this operation, proceeded to eliminate them efficiently. This is not meant as a grievance against a bygone period of religion. That said, Freud does not doubt for a moment that the primary interest of Jewish history lies elsewhere—and he is right. It resides in the unique way the message of the One God was conveyed.

Here, then, is where things stand.

We have here the dissociation between the rationalist Moses and the inspired Moses, who is barely mentioned—the obscurantist Moses. However, Freud, drawing on the traces of history, can find no path to justify or substantiate the message of the rationalist Moses except insofar as this message was transmitted through obscurity. It is precisely because this message was tied, in repression, to the murder of the Great Man that, according to Freud, it could be carried forward, preserved in a state of effectiveness that we can measure throughout history.

It is to the extent—and here I do not say that it is identical, but it is so strikingly close as to be impressive—that this primordial murder of the Great Man reemerges, as the Scriptures recount, in a second murder, which in some way echoes and brings the first into the light: the murder of Christ. It is through this second murder that the message reaches its fulfillment, and the secret curse of the murder of the Great Man—whose power derives solely from its inscription and resonance on the foundation of the primordial murder, the inaugural murder of humanity, the murder of the primal father—finally emerges into the open. It is then that what must be called, because it is Freud’s term, Christian redemption is realized. This tradition alone carries forward to its conclusion the work of revealing the essence of the primordial, inaugural crime and the foundational law.

How can one not, after this, at least recognize the originality of Freud’s position regarding the history of religions? The history of religions primarily seeks to uncover the common denominator of religiosity. It identifies a dimension of what is called Man—his religious faculty or “lobe”—and then observes the diversity of religious manifestations, attempting to encompass within this framework religions as different as those of Borneo, Confucianism, Taoism, and Christianity.

As you know, this approach is not without its difficulties. Yet, when typologies are pursued, it is inevitable to arrive at something—images, classifications of the imaginary. And it is precisely this classification of the imaginary that marks the origin of the monotheistic tradition, which integrates the primordial commandments as laws of speech: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, but to avoid even the risk of doing so, make no images at all.”

And since I have previously spoken to you about the architecture of primitive sublimation, I will say that we can truly question the characteristics of “this temple destroyed, of which no trace remains.” What precautions, what particular symbolism, and what exceptional measures might have been taken to eliminate, to the greatest extent possible, anything that, on the walls of this temple, might have evoked—and God knows how easily this can happen—the images of animals, plants, or other shapes that project themselves onto the walls of a cave? All to ensure that this temple was nothing more than the envelope of what lay at its heart: the Ark of the Covenant, the pure symbol, the symbol of the pact, the bond between the One who says:

“I am what I am, and I have given you these laws, these commandments, so that you may be marked, among all peoples, as the one who possesses wise and intelligent laws.”

What must this temple have been to avoid all the traps of art? This is not something that can be resolved for us through any document or tangible image. I leave this question open.

What concerns us here, and what Freud brings us to, is this: when Freud speaks in Moses and Monotheism of the moral law—because that is indeed what concerns him—he fully integrates it into an unfolding adventure that, as he explicitly writes, found its completion and full development only in history, within the Judeo-Christian framework. He writes that the other religions, which he vaguely calls “Oriental”—likely referencing the likes of Buddha, Lao-Tzu, and others—are all characterized, he says with audacious certainty, as nothing more than the cult of the Great Man.

I am far from endorsing this view. Freud simply asserts that these traditions remained incomplete, half-formed. What does the primordial murder of the Great Man mean? I believe Freud views these religions, such as Buddhism, in this way. And undoubtedly, in the history of Buddha’s avatars, one could find elements that fit Freud’s schema, whether legitimately or not. Freud suggests that it is because these religions did not push the development of their narrative to its ultimate conclusion—the endpoint of Christian redemption—that they remained where they are.

Needless to say, this peculiar Christocentrism is, to say the least, surprising in Freud’s writings. For him to slip into it almost without realizing it, there must be some deeper reason.

In any case, this brings us back to the path we must now follow. That path is this: for something within the order of law to be transmitted, it must pass through the route traced by the primordial drama, as articulated in Totem and Taboo—namely, the murder of the father and, as you know, its consequences. This murder, presented at the beginning, at the origin of culture, as being conditioned by figures for which nothing definitive can be said—figures that can only be described as both terrifying and revered, yet also dubious—the omnipotent figure of the primal horde, a character half-animal, killed by his sons.

Following this—something that is not often given the attention it deserves—there arises what we might call a sort of inaugural consent, an essential moment in the establishment of the law. Freud’s genius lies in linking this for us to the very murder of the father, identifying it with the ambivalence that, at this moment, defines the relationship between the son and the father. This ambivalence consists of the return of love after the act has been carried out, and it is here, precisely, that the mystery lies. It effectively obscures the fissure within this relationship, which is as follows: not only does the murder of the father fail to open the way to the enjoyment that the father’s presence was supposed to prohibit, but it actually reinforces the prohibition.

This is the crux of the matter. The paradox is clear: despite the removal of the obstacle through murder, enjoyment remains forbidden. More than that, as I have noted, this prohibition is intensified. This fissure of prohibition is thus, so to speak, supported, articulated, and rendered visible by the myth, even as it is deeply concealed by it. This is why the importance of Totem and Taboo lies in its status as a myth. It has often been said that it may be the only myth of which the modern era has been capable, and it was Freud who invented it.

What is crucial here is that we attend to the nature of this fissure: the fact that everything crossing or overcoming it is recorded as a debt in the Great Book of Debt. Every exercise of enjoyment entails something that is inscribed in this Book under the law. Furthermore, it is necessary that there be some paradox or point of imbalance within this regulation, for the reverse crossing of the fissure—the overcoming of the prohibition in the direction of enjoyment—is not equivalent.

Freud wrote Civilization and Its Discontents to tell us that everything redirected from enjoyment toward prohibition reinforces the prohibition ever more intensely. Anyone who submits to the moral law finds that the demands of the superego become increasingly detailed and cruel.

Why does the opposite not occur? It is a fact that it does not. Those who pursue unrestrained enjoyment, rejecting the moral law in any form, encounter obstacles that, as our experience shows us daily, are formidable in countless ways. Yet, these obstacles seem to trace back to something singular at their root.

This brings us to the conclusion that transgression is necessary to access enjoyment. Returning to Saint Paul, the law serves precisely this purpose: transgression in pursuit of enjoyment only occurs by relying on its opposite principle, the forms of the law. If the paths to enjoyment are inherently self-diminishing, tending toward impracticality, it is prohibition that functions, so to speak, as an all-terrain vehicle, a caterpillar track, allowing escape from the circular traps that continually lead humanity back to the rut of fleeting and frustrated satisfaction.

If we are guided by Freud’s articulation, this leads us to something rooted in our experience. Sin, Saint Paul says, required the law in order to become—not that it necessarily achieves this—but to glimpse the possibility of becoming exceedingly sinful. This is explicit in the text. For now, what we see tightly bound together is the knot of desire and law.

Freud’s ideal, then, is the tempered ideal of honesty, which might be described—taking the word in its idyllic sense—as patriarchal honesty. This ideal is embodied in the figure of the family patriarch, who may appear as lachrymose as you wish: the humanitarian ideal resonant in certain bourgeois plays by Diderot, or in the figures celebrated in 18th-century engravings. This patriarchal honesty offers the most measured path to moderated, normalized desires.

Thus, the novelty of Freud’s myth is not without precedent. Its necessity is not difficult to discern: if the myth of the origin of law is embodied in the murder of the father, it is from this act that the successive prototypes emerge—the totemic animal, then various gods of varying power and jealousy, and ultimately the singular God, God the Father. The myth of the father’s murder is, indeed, the myth of an era for whom “God is dead.”

But if God is dead for us, it is because He has always been dead. This is precisely what Freud tells us. God has only ever been “the father” in the mythology of the son—the mythology of a commandment to love Him, “the father,” and in the drama of the Passion, which shows us that there is a resurrection beyond death. That is to say, the man who incarnated the death of God remains present.

He remains present with the commandment to love God. This is precisely where Freud stops. And, as Freud articulates in Civilization and Its Discontents, this is also where he pauses before the notion of “love of neighbor.” The idea of loving one’s neighbor appears to us as insurmountable, even incomprehensible, and we will explore why next time.

What I wanted to emphasize today is that I am not the one who coined the phrase or made the observation that Christianity contains within itself an atheistic message. This was Hegel, as you know, in the sense that through Christianity, the destruction of the gods is completed.

Man survives the “death of God,” a death assumed by himself, but in doing so, he presents himself before us. Pagan legend tells us that over the Aegean Sea, at the moment when the temple veil was torn, a message rang out: “The great Pan is dead.” This brings us back to the relationship between the great Pan and death.

Even though Freud moralizes in Civilization and Its Discontents and pauses before the commandment to “love thy neighbor,” it is nevertheless to the heart of this problem that his entire theory of the meaning of tendencies brings us. The relationship between the great Pan and death is where the psychologism of his contemporary disciples falters.

This is why I centered my second lecture in Brussels on the theme of “love thy neighbor.” You see, this was once again a point of connection with my audience.

As for what I actually encountered there, I will give you the opportunity to judge for yourselves next time.