Reviewed by Evelyn Hartogh

Jean-Luc Nancy's title Noli Me Tangere is a Latin phrase that means, "Do not touch me". The phrase is from the New Testament, and was translated into Latin from the Greek "me mou haptou", which means more precisely "do not hold me back" and "do not wish to touch me". It is a phrase that is attributed to Jesus as he rose from his tomb three days after his death. He spoke this phrase to Mary Magdalene, and Jean-Luc Nancy explores the meaning of this phrase and the act of pushing away, both through Biblical texts and through examining the many works of religious art that depict this moment and these words.

Noli Me Tangere: On the Raising of the Body looks at the literal and figurative meaning associated with Jesus’ words.  Nancy suggests that his request of “noli me tangere” suggests that as a figure who is dead and just arisen he is unable to be touched, unwilling to be touched, and unable to bear the pain of being touched.  The wounds of Jesus are still apparent on his body and his body is not of this world, he has already departed, already left, and is not a ghost but a raised body that is returning to his father.  Christ’s resurrection is here neither a transformation nor a metamorphosis; it is instead an emphasis on death and on departure.

Along with his discussion of the art and writings of the raising of the body, Nancy also includes a transcript of a speech about heaven and earth that he gave to a group of children.  This speech is made in plain, non-discursive language, and explains in a simple, but not simplistic, fashion the concepts of heaven and the concept of god and nothingness.  Even more delightful are the transcripts of the children’s questions and Nancy’s answers, which follow the speech.  Nancy’s speech, appearing last in this collection, offers the younger reader a wonderful introduction to Nancy’s key concepts, and keen analysis of monotheism.

While in Nancy’s book Dis-Enclosure: the Deconstruction of Christianity he is direct in his critique of monotheism’s failure to offer any sense to the modern world, in Noli Me Tangere: On the Raising of the Body he is more subtle as he unravels the meanings of Christ’s resurrection and the emptying of the tomb.  The emptiness or “kenosis” as it is in the Greek, refers to how Christ is the embodiment of God’s emptying of himself into the world.  The empty tomb is also not a place that can be filled; the emptiness makes possible light to flood into the space but “hollows it out even more” (26).  Kenosis, the emptiness, also refers to self-sacrifice, to give of oneself, to give to another with no thought of anything returning other than the grace of god.  Grace and faith come along with emptiness and nothingness because both these concepts rely on their being no way of knowing in all certainty that one’s fidelity will be returned.  Love between people is of this order because it is a giving of the self in trust, and in the knowledge that the person will inevitably depart.

Nancy extrapolates the meaning of these concepts by paraphrasing Christ’s actions as saying:

You hold nothing; you are unable to hold or retain anything, and that is precisely what you must love and know.  That is what there is of knowledge and love.  Love what escapes you.  Love the one who goes.  Love that he goes.” (37). 

The absence, the empty tomb, the opening that Jesus’ death allows, is an emptying and an opening of possibility.  The ending of his life is not a closure, nor is it finality; it is instead a beginning of a new world.  The return of Christ is not an appearance that signifies his staying, but a glimpse of the unknown existing and the beginning of his absence.  The empty tomb brings with it the knowledge of the openness of the universe.

The paintings and engravings that Nancy looks at include the work of Rembrandt, Durer, Pontormo, Cano, and Titian.  Each artist depicts the moment of Mary recognizing Christ, and reaching out for him, to only be held at arm’s length.  She has found an empty tomb, but Jesus has not emerged from his tomb, he emerges from the light, he is already resurrected, but he has not returned to life, there is no return, because he has already gone from this world; Mary cannot touch him or hold him back because he has already left.  In painted images, this interaction is often depicted as Christ touching Mary as a way of saying she may not touch him because it is he who touches her, to hold her at a distance.  The raising, or lifting of the body of Jesus, is an act which distances Mary from him, rather than returns him to her, his appearance denotes his disappearance, the glory of his light can only be seen by Mary who is able to open her eyes in the darkness and be “overwhelmed by it … sensing … the insensible and being seized by it” (42).

In Nancy’s speech to children, he explains the character given to God by the three monotheistic religions.  The god of the Jews, he says, is considered just, the god of the Christians is a god of love, and the god of Islam is a merciful god.  These three qualities, justice, love and mercy, define the concept of God, and are brought into existence by faith.  Since God is also defined as existing in a way that we cannot understand, see or prove, then to say God does not exist is the same as saying he does exist because both statements are, “saying that he does not exist like someone or something that would be comparable to everything else that exists” (94).

Noli Me Tangere: On the Raising of the Body manages to showcase the diversity of Nancy’s writing because it contains not only his deconstruction of art and gospel, but also a semi-fictional chapter on the life of Mary Magdalene that displays the lyrical beauty at the heart of his philosophical writings.  Nancy is a writer whose works can be difficult to penetrate at first, but, with patience, his concepts slowly will make sense to the reader as one attunes to the rhythm of his style.  For first-time readers of Nancy, or first-time readers of the literary, word-obsessed genre of Continental philosophy, it would be best to begin this book with its final chapter for children.  This transcribed speech lays the foundation for Nancy’s understanding of religious thought and explores Nancy’s interest in how our concept of heaven is a concept of openness and infinity and possibility.  This chapter also shows that even the most complex philosophical concepts begin with the knowledge we already have and can be explained even to those without any background reading.

Noli Me Tangere: On the Raising of the Body
(2008)

by Jean-Luc Nancy, Translated by Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas
Fordham Press
ISBN: 9780823228904
128pp US$20.00