»Every State Becomes a Theocracy«: Hermann Cohen on the Israelites under Divine Rule

According to Hermann Cohen, the Jewish people serves the goal of a united humanity under the auspices of the one God, through its diasporic existence. If this is so, what meaning does he attach to the theocratic governance of ancient Israel, and what role does he assign to that particular case of theocracy, within his broader vision of the unification of humanity under monotheism? For Cohen theocracy is a linchpin, linking the Israelite state – and perhaps any particular state – both backwards to the unified origins of humanity in a covenant with the providential Creator, first formulated in the Noahide laws, and forward to the messianic Kingdom of God, a realm of morality in which humanity attains a unity analogous to the unity of God.