The Time Has Grown Short

The protagonist of Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost Time observes with wonder the comings and goings of the crows that roost in the belfry of the village church in Combray, his childhood home. For Ren Girard, one of Prousts great interpreters, their mysterious flight, first departing from and then returning to the vertical axis of the steeple, suggests the movement of modern historythe crisis of aristocratic models, the growing servitude of individuals possessed by mimetic desire, and the final irruption of authentic transcendence. In this rich exploration of Girards insights, his French editor and longtime collaborator Benot Chantre brings Saint Pauls Letter to the Romans into dialogue with both Proust and Girard in order to push to its logical endpoint the idea of a back-and-forth movement from chaos to order. History, Chantre argues, has been driven mad by the revelation of its sacrificial engine. The only way out lies in a transformation internal to the crisis itselfonly that faith which is capable of hearing the One who speaks in the Law makes it possible to avoid the perpetual ups and downs of rivalry. Acting and revealing Himself at the heart of history, an intimate model hidden since the foundation of the world deals a fatal blow to the circle of sin. Authentic transcendence coincides with the eschaton, the moment whenaccording to Saint Paulhistorical time implodes into eternity.