The axial age: the emergence of transcendental visions and the rise of clerics

Abstract

Inthe first millennium before the Christian era a revolution took place in the realm of ideas and their institutional base which had irreversible effects on several major civilizations and on human history in general. The revolution or series of revolutions, which are related to Karl Jaspers' ‘Axial Age’, have to do with the emergence, conceptualization and institutionalization of a basic tension between the transcendental and mundane orders. This revolutionary process took place in several major civilizations including Ancient Israel, Ancient Greece, early Christianity, Zoroastrian Iran, early Imperial China and in the Hindu and Buddhist civilizations. Although beyond the axial age proper, it also took place in Islam.