FROM CULT TO CULTURE
395
and men is established the covenant of the cult comes into being.
The covenant
is
an entirely unmetaphorical symbol. The "symbol"
is
the contract, the union between two partners. The symbol
is
a sign
of the covenant, by which the gods manifest themselves
in
the com–
munity of men.
The reciprocal covenant between gods and peoples
aims
to rule
the forces of matter. The people wants to emancipate itself from
the chains of necessity of the laws of nature. The gods, on the other
hand, need a mechanism to break through the wall of nature's
"iron law." Gods and peoples are united against a common enemy:
the natural nexus of the universe. The natural
rocher de bronze
cannot be overcome without specific action and effort. What con–
tradicts the laws of nature
is
the "miracle" which Goldberg takes as a
concrete "biological-metaphysical" phenomenon and not simply as a
figure of speech. The miracle
is
a "political action" of transcendent
powers manifesting themselves in the community of men. The pow–
ers manifested are the gods.
In the cultic communion the union between the pantheon of
the gods and the community of men
is
perpetuated. As long as "the
way up and down is one and the same" the mythical era is real.
It
rests on the idea of reciprocity between the gods and the mortals.
Men ascend to heaven and gods come down to earth. Such an era
has no idea of destiny, because the relation between gods and men
is still personal.
As
soon as the idea of destiny rises the twilight of
the gods
is
near. Man is cut off from the cultic communion with the
gods and left to himself. The idea of destiny comes to the fore when a
mythical age is drawing to its end and the reciprocity of the cultic
covenant interrupted. From the experience of destiny the way is
open for the idea of causality ruling in the realm of man as in the
realm of nature. Greek tragedy presents this very drama of the
gradual eclipse of the gods.
The way from cult to culture leads through the period of
fixation in which the relation between a people and its god becomes
paralyzed. The "powers" interested in perpetuating and stabilizing
the universal rule of natural law tend to outlaw all "miracles," all
possible breakthroughs into the realm of nature, cutting off the
communion between the people and its biological center, the gods.
This process of fixation leads in the end to the dissolution of the
people as a biological unit.
