Tradition and Modernity 17production, now wield a moral power over the ruling class, based on a compe-
tence to formulate general paths of virtuous life conducive to human welfare
both in this world and in the hereafter. This specifi c type of power also became
binding for the rulers. The proclamation of the hereafter and of related paths
to salvation was necessary to impose a generalisation of human value, via the
injunctions for ego to connect to the human alter and to behave well and fairly to
him or her.
The axial separation of functions between rulers and clerics was nonetheless a
tumultuous process. Most notably, the transformative character of the prophetic
discourse that triggered off the differentiation in the Hebrew case – starting
from Moses and the Exodus of the Hebrews from the tyranny of the Pharaoh in
Egypt – lies in a continual reformation of the double idea of order as simultane-
ously mundane and ultramundane. This permanent instability was facilitated
by the prophets’ stubborn warnings that pushed forward the boundary between
the two levels. The mundane shape of the order is here permanently subject to
refl ection, critique and reform as a consequence of the fact that it is always an
imperfect match to the transcendent, more comprehensive order. While Isaiah
was one major hero of the Axial Age, along with Zarathustra and Socrates, in
the wider West, Siddhartha Gautama (Shakyamuni), Laotzi and Confucius
were the leading personalities in the East.
While the original body of scholarship on the Axial Age fi xes the period of
the breakthrough around the middle of the fi rst millennium BCE, later revisions
suggest an ongoing process of axial transformations encompassing subsequent
breakthroughs (Arnason 2005). The relationship between the mundane and
the ultramundane orders was further redefi ned in the post-prophetic era that
characterises each of the two major religious traditions of the Western area of
the Afro-Eurasian landmass that was invested by axial transformations. With
Christianity, the process of creating a new orthodoxy revolved around the
fi rst coming of the Messiah, who became the person of the Son in a trinitarian
scheme of the Godhead. In Islam, the messianic impulse was strong at its incep-
tion but was effectively tamed within the emerging Sunni orthodoxy; the era
of crystallisation of doctrine started right after the Quranic revelation given to
Muhammad, the seal of all prophetic chains.
The axial framework helps avoiding the anachronism of dealing with ‘religion’
as a given sphere, fi eld or system within society. With the help of this approach,
we no longer need to presuppose the existence of specifi cally religious forms of
social action, to be contrasted with those based on a civic or secular understand-
ing of social and political life. At stake is rather the ongoing dialectic between
the strength of cultural orientations – to which the idea of transcendence gave
an unprecedented impulse – and institutional crystallisations. The specifi cally
religious factor, rooted in the way it concurs to reforming the social bond, is then
subsumed under the more general cultural impetus that moulds institutions.