The number of the slain
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 7, 2025
Again, and always, we should meditate on the passage from the Apocalypse (6, 9–11) which reads: “And when (the lamb) had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?’. And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants and also their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”.
History will not end and the final judgment will not be pronounced until the number of the righteous killed is fulfilled. Is this perhaps what is happening around us? And how many more righteous people will have to be killed, so as we see them dying every day? To be sure, history is story of wars, deaths and killings. But the meaning of the opening of the fifth seal is not that, in the time we are living in, we have to wait inertly for the number of the killed to be fulfilled. Even if the newspapers do nothing but count them every day, we do not know what the number is, just as we do not know when the judgment will take place and if it will ever take place. We live in an intermediate time and, like those who were slaughtered, we must testify to what we see and what we believe. Before the number of the slain is fulfilled, this and nothing else is our task.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 7, 2025
Again, and always, we should meditate on the passage from the Apocalypse (6, 9–11) which reads: “And when (the lamb) had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?’. And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants and also their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled”.
History will not end and the final judgment will not be pronounced until the number of the righteous killed is fulfilled. Is this perhaps what is happening around us? And how many more righteous people will have to be killed, so as we see them dying every day? To be sure, history is story of wars, deaths and killings. But the meaning of the opening of the fifth seal is not that, in the time we are living in, we have to wait inertly for the number of the killed to be fulfilled. Even if the newspapers do nothing but count them every day, we do not know what the number is, just as we do not know when the judgment will take place and if it will ever take place. We live in an intermediate time and, like those who were slaughtered, we must testify to what we see and what we believe. Before the number of the slain is fulfilled, this and nothing else is our task.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Enrico Baj, Vieni qua biondina, 1959. Courtesy of Artuu.
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