Stasiology (Rothaug, Peterson, Schmitt, Gregory of Nazianzus)

Beginning with a curious invocation of our line from Homer by one of the defendants at the so-called “Justices Trial” at Nuremberg, the chapter analyses the famous exchange over “political theology” between Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson. The inconsistencies of Peterson’s argument are brought out, and attention is drawn to the importance of the use he makes in establishing the supposed impossiblity of a Christian political theology of a quotation about the Trinity from Gregory of Nazianzus. Schmitt’s own claim as to a “stasiology” at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity, that would support the thought of a political theology of Christianity, is shown to rely on an egregious misreading of Gregory’s text, but doubt is nonetheless cast on the ability of that doctrine successfully to solve the problems associated with the self-destructive properties of the One, as more clearly brought out by Derrida.