128 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
formal projection even for this.” Whether one thinks there is one god or many
does not determine how one seeks to fulfill one’s obligations in relationship to
that god. Divisions within “so-called monotheism” can be far more important
than the boundary separating all monotheism from all polytheism.^16
To substantiate this point, Buber argues that “The universal sun-god of the
imperialist [imperialistischen, האימפריאליסטי] ‘Monotheism’ of Amenhotep IV is
incomparably more close to the national sun-god of the ancient Egyptian Pan-
theon than to the God of early Israel, which some have endeavored to derive
f rom him.”^17 Buber’s use of the term “imperialist” in the description of Akhenat-
en’s religion points to the first element of the Israel-Egypt contrast, the political.
Assmann, summarizing the work of the pioneering Egyptologist James Henry
Breasted, notes that “the concept of a universal god as the religious counterpart of
political imperialism originated in Heliopolis... while the Egyptian armies were
conquering the world, the Heliopolitan priests were drawing the concomitant
theological conclusions.”^18 Eventually, Akhenaten radicalized the Heliopolitan
concept of a universal god, “giving it the character of an intolerant monotheism.”
The intolerance of this monotheism is manifest for Assmann in what he calls
its “untranslatability”: the name of the monotheist god cannot be exchanged for
the names of the most-high gods of neighbor nations. But cosmotheism, which
he seems to prefer, is itself rooted in a cosmopolitan-cum-imperialist political
project. Assmann’s ancient gods may be translatable as part of a general cultural
background shared by different peoples, but their human political masters, kings
and emperors, are not. They demand exclusive allegiance from their subjects.^19
For Israel, by contrast, it is political allegiance that is exclusively and directly
owed to the invisible king. All the political leaders of the nations round about
are insignificant; it is they who are interchangeable—translatable.^20 It is telling
that Assmann argues that “Breasted’s correlation of monotheism and imperial-
ism echoes the political theology of Eusebius of Caesarea, who pointed out to
Constantine the correspondence between terrestrial and celestial monarchy, that
is, the Roman Empire and Christian monotheism.”^21 In addition to ignoring the
many centuries in which the Roman Empire conquered without being Christian,
while Christians did little conquering, this leap from Akhenaten to Eusebius dis-
regards the life of Moses himself, and the contrast that might be drawn along po-
litical lines between Egypt and Moses’ vision for Israel. This is precisely Buber’s
focus, and he too marshals Breasted to his cause.
In a chapter called “Israel in Egypt,” Buber correlates the agricultural and
architectural innovations that made Egypt “the starting point of what we call
civilization.” The comprehensive system of dams and dykes that enabled the
Egyptians to harness the power of the Nile, a massive effort to regulate nature for
human ends, familiarized human beings “with the character of a perfectly orga-
nized duty of collective work, which ascribed no greater value to the foot of the