The Roots of an Evil Regime

Periodically over the last few months I've been dipping into a most fascinating historical exploration. I am in no hurry to finish it, which is why I am only on page 231 of William Shirer's massive 1200+ page Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Despite my slowness, it is an intriguing read.

Here I learned of the almost comic “Beer Hall Putsch” where a young and fiery Hitler burst onto the view of Germany brandishing a pistol at a large beer hall and calling for a revolution in Germany. Bluffing that three government leaders he held hostage were in support of his putsch, Hitler garnered enough public support to throw the city of Munich into confusion. The next morning Hitler—still brandishing his pistol—marched through the streets of Munich with three thousand followers at his back.

But this revolution of November 1923 fell into the cracks of the pavement after a firefight with the police. Hitler fled as the rest of his Nazi cohorts scattered across the countryside and across Europe to avoid arrest. Most of them, including Hitler, were unable to avoid arrest, but Hitler turned even this dismal turn of events into a speaking platform for his movement. And after nine months in prison he was back on the street, feverishly polishing off the tarnish from his image.

While Hitler gave up his revolutionary aspirations after his arrest and imprisonment, his rise to absolute power was not entirely legal, and certainly not peaceful, although it was done with the consent of the German people. Hitler realized he must overthrow the German Republic from within so he began winning over the voting populace to the Nazi party. It was a long and seemingly impossible road for the once ridiculed Austrian Vagabond; yet ultimately, the blame for Hitler's rise to power rests with the German people. Even a year and a half after his appointment as Chancellor, when Hitler illegally combined the office of Chancellor and President into one Fuehrer, the German people were given one last chance to remove someone whose words and actions had clearly been leading the nation towards totalitarianism. William Shirer writes of Hitler's final grab for power:

“That the 'law' was illegal also made little difference in a Germany where the former Austrian corporal had now become the law itself. That it was illegal was obvious... But what mattered the law now? ...And the German people? On August 19 [1934], some 95 per cent of those who had registered went to the polls, and 90 per cent, more than thirty-eight million of them, voted approval of Hitlers usurpation of complete power” (229-230).

Shirer goes on in astonishment to note:

“the overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their culture had been destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work had become regimented to a degree never before experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal of regimentation... a newly arrived observer was somewhat surprised to see that the people of this country did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous and brutal dictatorship. On the contrary, they supported it with genuine enthusiasm. Somehow it imbued them with a new hope and a new confidence and an astonishing faith in the future of their country” (231).

And what were the origins of this new “hope” and “faith in the future?” Much of it came from the writings of a neurotic Englishman named Houston Chamberlain, also known as “the father of Nazism.” Chamberlain, made no secret that he believed his once influential writings and thoughts were inspired from outside of himself by demons. Chamberlain looked on his writings with admiration, sometimes “unable to recognize them as his own work, because they surpassed his expectations” (105). Shirer writes:

“Once, in 1896, when he was returning from Italy, the presence of a demon became so forceful that he got off the train at Gardone, shut himself up in a hotel room for eight days and, abandoning some work on music that he had contemplated, wrote feverishly on a biological thesis until he had the germ of the theme that would dominate all of his later works: race and history” (105).

Needless to say, Chamberlain's views about the Aryans were not just racist, but also “shoddy” and preposterous (105-107); nevertheless, the early Nazi press heralded his writings as the “gospel of the Nazi movement” (109).

Seeing the outcome of such a hate-filled and racist “gospel” at the foundation of a government should make us thankful that the “gospel” at the foundation of the American government was, believe it or not, the Gospel; the good news of Jesus coming to reconcile man with God, and man with man. (For example, the most cited author of the American Founders was the apostle Paul.) As can be seen, an era so dark in the world's history, as the Nazi era was, did not come about through benign neighborly love. Its roots were demonic and its trunk a rejection of Jesus' command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York, Simon and Schuster. 1960

Education Servilus and Education Liberalis

“Ancient education was divided into two categories: (1) education for slaves (education servilus), which was restricted to teaching the slaves to do a particular job, to contribute to the economic system, and to conform to the demands of the society that enslaved them; and (2) education for the free (education liberalis), which equipped students of the Greek democracy and the Roman Republic to be free citizens who could come up with the ideas, knowledge, creativity, leadership, and virtues necessary for self-governance and the pursuit of excellence.

Today’s dominant approaches to education, both in the public schools and in the universities, are essentially a revival of the education for slaves. To be sure, those with 'successful careers' may be well-paid, but they still think and act like slaves.” --Gene Edward Veith

In a society so enthralled by the economy and making money we should not be surprised by this. Echoing our preoccupation in his inaugural address, President Obama affirmed, "we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age." A new age of slavery.

HT: Redeemedreader.com

Textual Evidence that the Gospels are Reliable History

The video below shows what careful readers like C.S. Lewis have known all along: that the Gospels are eyewitness accounts of real events. In essays like "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" Lewis shows that the literary technique of the Gospels is not like that of ancient myths; that in fact it is not a "literary technique" at all, simply "reportage." Episodes such as Jesus writing in the dust while talking to a woman, or the man who escapes the guards by squirming out of his tunic at the Garden of Gethsemane, are either true events "or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative" (Lewis).

Dr. Peter Williams in the video below makes a similar case, arguing that the occurrence of names, places, and geography in the canonical Gospels is strong evidence of their authenticity.

HT: First Things

Lord and Thane

The relationship of the Christian to Christ is often portrayed as that of a servant to a master. The parallel is good and true, but for those who find the metaphor of slaves either stale or repellent, consider this description of old Germanic kings and their followers taken from The Norton Anthology of English Literature:

When a warrior vowed loyalty to his lord, he became not so much his servant as his voluntary companion, one who would take pride in defending him and fighting in his wars. In return, the lord was expected to take care of his thanes and to reward them richly for their valor; a good king, one like Hrothgar or Beowulf, is referred to by such poetic epithets as “ring-giver” and as the “helmet” and “shield” of his people (25).

Abrams, M.H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors 7th. ed. W.W.Norton and Co. 2001

Making Light of Oppression

Taking a cue from President Barack Obama, who encourages those who watch Glenn Beck and Fox News to vary their diet with the views of “the other side,” I decided to read a news blog that one of Obama's own advisors on religion and politics maintains. Rev. Jim Wallis's blog is called Sojourners: Faith, Politics, Culture. A large number of contributors write on it, including some Emerging Church familiars, most notably, Brian MacLaren. So perhaps this can hardly be called “the other side.”

If I must take a side, however, it would be strongly against a certain contributor's post entitled: Pedagogy of the Oppressor: Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban. The author, Cezar Baldelomar, first points out that the US forcibly took the land that comprises California, Arizona, and Texas, and therefore illegal immigrants have a right to be there. In his words, “current immigrants... were once the rightful owners of the very territory they are now trying to enter.” But the focus of his article and the focus of my disagreement is not over this somewhat angry side note. The decline of “ethnic studies” in Arizona is what elicits his strongest barbs because Arizona is trying to make light (pun intended) of its “oppression” towards minorities. He quotes the Arizona Schools Superintendent Tom Horne as saying: “We should be teaching these kids that this is the land of opportunity. If they work hard, then they can achieve their dreams. And not teach them that they are oppressed.” But in Baldelomar's view they are “oppressed” and need to be reminded that they are. I believe our President also said he would welcome more “oppression studies.”

It is hard for someone like me who is rediscovering western classical education to be enamored of “ethnic oppression studies.” No pun intended this time, but the idea is foreign to me. Nor can I understand why Mr. Baldelomar (who is a graduate student at the prestigious Harvard Divinity School) thinks he is oppressed. Identifying with his fellow sufferers he exclaims that oppression “is our reality!” Is it really a reality or just an overactive imagination? I can think of one good reason to eliminate “ethnic studies” from schools and it doesn't even have to do with improving grades in important subjects. It is to erase the lingering thought that, “ethnic studies... confirm for minority students what we have been feeling all along, namely, that we were, are, and will be victims of oppression.” Prophesy is a dangerous business because sometimes the prophesy is self-fulfilling. Mr. Baldelomar believes he always will be a victim; maybe he is right... but he should give others a chance to think more highly of themselves. I hope this blog post is not mistaken for a form of oppression against a poor, suffering Harvard student.

The Revelation of King Arthur

The allure of Arthurian stories has held people spellbound since before the time of the printing press. Thomas Malory brought King Arthur and the Round Table to English readers in the 15^th century with his famous Le Morte D' Arthur, but the stories are much older than he and known in many other lands and languages. Today, the list of stories and poems that have taken King Arthur and his knights as their subject is inexhaustible. The fascination has led Robert Bruce Fruehling to write a book that equates the enduring appeal of the “once and future king” with the appeal that the Antichrist will have in the future. Fruehling's book, The Revelation of King Arthur: Deceit, Intrigue, and the Guards' Account explores the possibility of the future Antichrist aligning himself in the popular imagination with the messianic King Arthur.

The Revelation of King Arthur opens by explaining the innate need of humanity for a hero-king to look up to and follow. This need historically has led entire nations to be deceived into following men who claim to be the hero and national leader the people are looking for. Adolf Hitler in Germany is an example of someone able to deceive “even the elect.”

But the great deception of the Antichrist during the end-times and how this deception will be accomplished is the focus of the book. A principle part of the deception, according to Fruehling, is to de-legitimize the messiah-ship of Jesus and his status as the hero who has come to save us. If Christ is not our savior then we still need “another Christ,” the Antichrist, to save us. One popular heresy that is seeing a reemergence today is that Jesus did not die on the cross but instead married Mary Magdalene and fled Judea. In this heresy Jesus himself becomes unimportant and instead the “Holy Grail” takes on significance. Those familiar with The Da Vinci Code know that in this heresy, “the 'Grail' became a code word for the womb of Mary Magdalene, who carried the 'holy child of Christ.' The quest itself was the search for the holy bloodline” (60). What better leader to elevate to the status of Antichrist than one who claims to be a living descendant of Jesus?

The real meat of the book starts on page 51 when Fruehling describes this heresy and traces some of the subsequent stories about where the supposed descendants and relatives of Jesus settled. According to one of these legends, Mary Magdalene traveled to France where the Merovingian line of Frankish kings were descended from her. In true Da Vinci Code style, Fruehling includes photos of religious artwork depicting Mary with the Fleur-de-lys—the French emblem of the royal line—on them. Laugh if you will, but the point is that even the most ludicrous deceptions are believed by some.

Where does King Arthur fit into all this? Robert Fruehling quotes a published genealogist of Scottish royalty, Laurence Gardner. Writing about the house of Steward, Gardner makes the incredible claim: “this senior Steward descent goes all the way back to King Arthur's father, King Aedan of the Scots (notice not Uther Pendragon of England or Wales), on the one hand and to Prince Nascien of the Septimanian Midi on the other... The Midi succession stems from the Merovingians' male ancestral line through the Fisher Kings to Jesus and Mary Magdalene (104). Fruehling explains what this means: “amazing as it sounds, the whole legend of King Arthur and the Holy Grail refers to Arthur himself! He is in the Grail lineage, as we will see, and is known as the Grail King... the story of the Holy Grail connects the bloodline of Jesus to King Arthur and on through Arthur's descendants” (103). It is important to remember that the author does not believe any of these heresies about descendants of Jesus, he is merely warning that people are being deceived by heresies such as this one about the descent of Arthur and the related one in The Da Vinci Code.

What Fruehling does believe is that the prophesies about “the once and future king” Arthur are disturbingly similar to the prophesies about the Antichrist in the book of Revelation. Anyone familiar with their Malory knows that Arthur's last wound is a wound to the head. Compare to Rev. 13:3, 12, 13. The “red dragon” of Rev 12: 3 was embossed on King Arthur's standard as it still is on the flag of Wales today. When Arthur was born the midwife exclaimed: “Here is a Dragon!” Fruehling notes: “Coupled with the surname 'Pendragon' or 'Chief dragon' the prophetic significance will become apparent” (98). “He once was, now is not, and yet will come.” Rev. 17:8 “The once and future king.” Coincidence? Maybe. If you ask Fruehling, the similarity is more than coincidence (127-128).

When I received my copy of the book from WinePress Publishing, I was overjoyed to see—tucked away near the end of the book—a chapter on two of my favorite authors: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Not surprisingly in a book that equates Arthurian myth with the end-times and Antichrist, the treatment of Lewis and Tolkien is not as blindly enthusiastic as most Christian readers. Fruehling examines their interest in the Arthurian legends in light of their friendship with the heterodox authors Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. Charles Williams, whose supernatural thrillers have a small but ardent readership, had an unhealthy interest in the occult. The influence of these men—particularly on Lewis—is a little mentioned fact and I was pleased to see it addressed in the book.

Fruehling explores what he finds to be a disturbing openness to the pagan elements of the Arthurian legends on the part of Christians. Christians are proud to heap accolades on C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Steven R. Lawhead for their novels and poems in the Arthurian genre; however, Fruehling warns that these “Christian” authors veer dangerously into the pagan and occult in their writings on the theme. Speaking of Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength, which tells of a reincarnated Arthur and a magical Merlin in twentieth century England who save the world from a diabolical evil, he states his opinion that, “combining Christianity with esoteric thought and myth destroys the message rather than makes it easier to take” (145). Such a view about myth and story is completely opposite to that of Lewis himself who thought that myths could be used to convey valuable truths.

Fruehling accurately pegs the important contribution of That Hideous Strength to the corpus of Arthuriana and raises a valid argument about the use of pagan elements in a “Christian” book, but why he includes The Lord of the Rings in that corpus is not clear. To classify it as Arthurian literature is a stretch, although it would be hard for any fantasy writer to entirely escape the shadow of the Round Table. There are bound to be superficial similarities and Fruehling gives but three. Perhaps strongest of the three is the mentor/apprentice relationship of Gandalf and Aragorn compared to Merlin and Arthur (147). What Mr. Fruehling fails to mention, however, is that the motif of a mentor guiding a hero is common throughout heroic literature and could be equally applied to many works in the genre. Theorist Joseph Campbell points this out as one of the defining features of mythic quest stories.

Anyone interested in Arthuriana or the end-times will find The Revelation of King Arthur very interesting. At only 164 pages it is a quick read but the 8 pages of endnotes makes it feel like a full meal rather than an appetizer. Not all of Fruehling's points convinced me, but the mystery around King Arthur has always intrigued me and he offers a thought provoking scenario to tie up the mysteriously open-ended story of King Arthur.

Robert Bruce Fruehling, The Revelation of King Arthur: Deceit, Intrigue and the Guard's Account. WinePress Publishing, 2009.

"Sorry, We're Closing"

As readers of this blog know, I occasionally venture to read something of a higher intellectual calibre than trashy 19th century novels. When this happens I am often pleasantly satisfied with how I have used my reading hours. When I bought The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom for 20 cents and began reading it I had this pleasant feeling. The Closing of the American Mind gives an overview of the philosophies and ideas that have influenced modern American intellectual life. Such influences as Marxism, Freudianism, egalitarianism, and democracy, among others, are all mentioned for their role in shaping education and the current thought processes in academia.

From the very beginning my pencil was streaking across the pages, trying to preserve in this way all the best thoughts and ideas. Looking back, I see that my system of underlining has a serious problem: too much of the book has been underlined for any sort of quick reference to be effective. Nevertheless I scanned back through the first 80 pages and saw a host of excellent quotes, just a few of which I couldn't resist copying here. The next 300 pages will have to wait for another time.

“History and the study of cultures do not teach or prove that values or cultures are relative” (39).

“To deny the possibility of knowing good and bad is to suppress true openness” (40).

“No longer is there a hope that there are great wise men in other places and times who can reveal the truth about life.... The point is to propagandize acceptance of different ways, and indifference to their real content is as good a means as any. It was not necessarily the best of times in America when Catholics and Protestant were suspicious of and hated one another; but at least they were taking their beliefs seriously” (34-35).

The dreariness of the family's spiritual landscape passes belief... The delicate fabric of the civilization into which the successive generations are woven has unraveled, and children are raised, not educated... The parents must have knowledge of what has happened in the past, and the prescriptions for what ought to be, in order to resist the philistinism or the wickedness of the present. Ritual and ceremony are now often said to be necessary for the family, and they are now lacking. The family, however, has to be a sacred unity believing in the permanence of what it teaches, if its ritual and ceremony are to express and transmit the wonder of the moral law” (57).

“The moral education that is today supposed to be the great responsibility of the family cannot exist if it cannot present to the imagination of the young a vision of a moral cosmos and of the rewards and punishments for good and evil, sublime speeches that accompany and interpret deeds, protagonists and antagonists in the drama of moral choice” (60).

“What poor substitutes for real diversity are the rainbows of dyed hair and other external differences that tell the observer nothing about what is inside” (64).

"Lack of education simply results in students' seeking for enlightenment wherever it is readily available, without being able to distinguish between the sublime and trash, insight and propaganda” (64).

“The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency—the belief that the here and now is all there is” (64).

“Students have powerful images of what a perfect body is and pursue it incessantly. But deprived of literary guidance, they no longer have any image of a perfect soul, and hence do not long to have one. They do not even imagine that there is such a thing” (67).

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, New York. A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster inc. 1988

The Spread of the Early Church

Like an unwatched fire creeping through the leaves before setting the forest on fire, the early Christian church, from unpretentious beginnings, began to threaten even the mighty Roman Empire. It began in a far-away insignificant corner of the Empire. The arsonist: a gentle man of whom it was said: “a bruised reed he would not break.” This man claimed he was God; an idea so ludicrous to the authorities of the time that they crucified him. They wrote off the lunatic without even considering the possibility that he might really be Lord. He said that his kingdom was not of this world, and by the way his first subjects acted, it would appear that he was right. His high ranking officials were fishermen and other unpretentious poor people of no account. His subjects spanned broad demographic lines, scattered across the known world. We will examine the rapid spread of Christianity in the first century A.D and some of the unsuccessful efforts by the Romans to stop the fire from spreading.

The impetus behind the spread of Christianity in the First Century was Jesus' command to his fellow Jewish followers to, “go make disciples of all nations.”1 Quickly spreading from the Middle-eastern Judea, Christianity was soon known in much of the Roman Empire. Jerusalem started out as the major center of Christianity. It was here that Jesus was crucified and here that his few disciples remained and began preaching the Gospel. The primary documents from the period show that in the days after the death of Jesus there were about a hundred and twenty Christians in Jerusalem.2 This number quickly grew till there were some five thousand Christians in Jerusalem soon after Jesus' death.3 The number continued to increase until the Jewish authorities in power became jealous of the rapidly increasing influence of this new religion.

Persecution against Christians began with the imprisonment of leading believers, called apostles. When, in rebellion to the temporal authorities, these men refused to give up their freedom of speech and instead continued to speak to others about their faith, the punishment grew more violent. Flogging and stoning along with imprisonment became common. A first century writer states that: “a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”4

The persecution in Jerusalem had this unforeseen and ironic effect: it caused fleeing Christians to rapidly disperse over a wide area, thereby disseminating their beliefs in areas not previously acquainted with Christianity. Because of the unique message of Christianity being a fulfillment of the Jewish law and prophesies, Jews in Israel were particularly receptive to it. As Christianity continued to spread it followed the footsteps of Jews sojourning in other parts of the Roman Empire. This large and scattered diaspora of Jews—by some estimates as many Jews lived abroad as lived in Palestine5--had established synagogues in the cities and towns where they had taken up residence. Such an arrangement made it easy for Jewish Christians fleeing the persecutions in Jerusalem and other areas of the Jewish province to resettle with members of their own culture in what were considered “Gentile” cities. Christians fleeing to other parts of the Roman Empire were, therefore, missionaries from necessity as well as conviction.

Using synagogues as pulpits in many cases and reasoning from Jewish scripture that the claims of Christianity were true was an effective way to spread Christianity. To the Jews, that is. Soon though, Christianity began reaching non-Jews also. As one of the earliest examples of this, a first century history explains: “Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Antioch, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus.”6 The missionary activity of Paul also had a great deal to do with the expansion of Christianity beyond Jews only.

Paul must figure large in any examination of the growth and spread of Christianity. A Roman citizen but also a Jew, he had a Greek education as well as a Hebrew training. He was an apt man to persuasively bring Christianity to the attention of Jews, Greeks, and Romans. He established churches across the Mediterranean region and had a lasting influence. Yet it is an error to think that he single-handedly took Christianity across the Roman Empire. Churches in many major cities, including Rome, were already established before Paul visited, showing just how quickly Christianity spread. Indeed, “by the end of Paul's life, outposts of the new faith were flourishing from the Holy Land north to Syria and across the northern rim of the Mediterranean through Asia minor and Greece and Rome.”7

The end of Paul's life brings to mind the new trouble facing Christians about three decades after the death and resurrection of Christ. Emperor Nero in 64 A.D began a bloody persecution of the Christians living in Rome that also extended to other parts of the Empire. According to tradition, Paul was beheaded by Nero in Rome. Before this time Christians had largely escaped the notice of the Roman government. The official cause of this persecution was the fire that destroyed much of Rome. Blaming Christians was a convenient way to get rid of what was thought to be a disruptive segment of society. Christians by this time had become a nuisance to the government for their refusal to worship the Emperor; for their condemnation of Roman vice; and for considering themselves citizens of heaven first and citizens of the Roman Empire second.8 Their religion made them outsiders and potential dissidents of the state. Christians were sometimes called atheists because, “for the Romans, religion was first and foremost a social activity that promoted unity and loyalty to the state--a religious attitude the Romans called pietas, or piety.”9 By rejecting the Roman paganism, Christians were thought to be disrupting the unity of society. So while Nero was a more likely arson suspect in the burning of Rome, Christians were the perfect scapegoat.

In the first century, Christians were still very much a minority despite their explosive growth. While estimates vary, historian Edward Gibbon suggests that before the conversion of Constantine in 312, only about one in twenty Roman subjects professed Christianity. Those living in Rome at the time of Nero's persecution “did not exceed seven thousand.”10 Nevertheless, “by the year 100, it is estimated that there were already upward of 300,000 believers throughout the empire—an eight fold increase in 30 years--and of these some 80,000 were concentrated in Asia Minor.”11 Dr. Everett Ferguson reveals that the main centers of Christianity were, not surprisingly, in the main cities of the Empire: Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. Further he says, “At the end of the first century Ephesus and the Roman province of Asia were the center of the numerical strength of the church.”12

The demographics of Christians in the first century covered a broad spectrum. Pliny the Younger reported to Emperor Trajan that Christians composed “persons of all ages and classes and of both sexes... The contagion of this superstition has spread not only in the cites but in the villages and rural districts as well.”13 Christianity was not just a religion of the poor and downtrodden, but proportionally there have always been a greater number of disadvantaged. Edward Gibbon points out that

the Christian religion,which addresses itself to the whole human race, must consequently collect a far greater number of proselytes from the lower than from the superior ranks of life. This innocent and natural circumstance has been improved [to falsely show]... that the new sect of Christians was almost entirely composed of the dregs of the populace.”14

What Gibbon and Pliny are trying to say is what Christian belief does say. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”15

Maybe it was ideas like these that gave Christianity part of its appeal. The unity and largeness of it transcended class and nationality. Everyone could become a Christian and feel they had a place. This unity was also perhaps what earned it the hatred of the established authorities. For Christians said that there was another king in another sphere, in which the Roman and Jewish rulers had no authority. No wonder it spread like wildfire and could not be contained by the Jews or Romans. When Nero set the Christians on fire to light his garden at night, he mockingly said: “now you are the light of the world,”16 not knowing that the fires he was lighting would be swallowed up in a greater spiritual fire that that would in turn swallow up the Roman Empire.

1. Matthew 28:19

2. Acts 1:15

3. Acts 4:4

4. Acts 8:1

5. Joseph L. Gardner, editor. Atlas of the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land. Reader's Digest Association, Inc. 1983, second edition. 205.

6. Acts 11:19-20

7. Joseph L. Gardner, editor. Atlas of the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land. Reader's Digest Association, Inc. 1983, second edition. 204.

8. Boise State University. “Disasters: An Ancient Persecution”. http://www.boisestate.edu/history/ncasner/hy210/nero.htm

9. Religion Facts. “Persecution in the Early Church.” http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/history/persecution.htm

10. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited and abridged by D. M. Low. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1960. pg.184, 187.

11. Joseph L. Gardner, editor. Atlas of the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land. Reader's Digest Association, Inc. 1983, second edition. 205.

12. Everett Ferguson. Early Christians Speak: Faith and Life in the First Three Centuries. A.C.U. Press, Abilene, Texas, 1999, third edition. 11.

13. Henry Bettenson, editor. Documents of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press, New York, 1960, eighth printing. 7.

14. Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited and abridged by D.M.Low. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1960. 187.

15. Galatians 3:28

16. Boise State University. “Disasters: An Ancient Persecution”. http://www.boisestate.edu/history/ncasner/hy210/nero.htm

Literature in the High Middle Ages

This post and the last one are parts of a paper on the intellectual and artistic achievements of the High Middle Ages I worked on in my Western civ. class. I included the missing footnotes in my last post in case anyone cares. This fragment ends somewhat abruptly because it was part of a longer essay I worked on. You'll just have to use your imagination to envision a nice concluding paragraph that wraps the topic up.

The High Middle Ages also placed great importance on books. Medieval historian C. S. Lewis shows that culture in, “the Middle Ages depended primarily on books. Though literacy was of course far rarer then than now, reading was in one way a more important ingredient of the total culture.”1 Literature from the past—particularly Greek and Latin—was looked upon reverently by the authors of the Middle Ages. Consequently, they modeled much their own work on previously written manuscripts. They embellished familiar stories, expanded on old subjects, and wrote down the legends of their fore bearers. To lend credence to their writing, authors from the Middle Ages would often claim they got their subject from an “auctour”--an author from Greek or Roman antiquity.2

The greatest work of literature from the High Middle Ages shows this tendency. The Divine Comedy of Dante not only borrows from earlier authors but goes to the extreme of actually including the Roman poet Virgil as one of the Characters who inhabit the Inferno. All the other characters Dante meets on his dream journey are also from history or legend. There is ample space in this huge poem about the after-life to retell the well-known stories of the people he meets.

One of the most easily recognized types of literature from the High Middle Ages is the epic romance. The tales of King Arthur and the Round Table are the most famous of these. Again, the earliest authors of these stories, such as the Frenchman Christien De Troyes, did not try to claim credit for inventing the tales but tried to show that they were ancient histories with just a little embellishment. The Arthurian stories were picked up by numerous authors in the middle ages. Intellectual property rights were not what they are today nor was this "plagiarism" seen as anything but flattery. Besides the “Matter of Britain” dealing with King Arthur, numerous other romances of chivalry were written. The “Matter of France” is another cycle of stories dealing with another king; this time the French Charlemagne. Called “chanson de geste,” these epic poems written by mostly unknown authors extolled the mythical exploits of Charlemagne against the Muslim invaders of Europe in the Early Middle Ages. The Song of Roland written around 1100 3 retells the simi-historical ambush on Charlemagne's rear-guard in the pass of Rounceval.

In Northern Europe a similar body of national epic literature was being developed during the same period. The German Nibelungenlied has been compared to The Song of Roland or even the Greek Iliad.4 The tragic death of Sigfried and the terrible revenge of his wife Kriemhild set among the forests and mead-halls of Germany has been the inspiration for stories and operas even into recent times. This corpus of German literature borrows from the same legends as the thirteenth century Eddas and tales of Scandinavia.

An important development in literature during the High Middle Ages came with the troubadour poets. The troubadours wrote and performed lyrical songs--often about love. Practicing a form of oral literature, delivered much like the famous bards of antiquity, troubadours usually had a rich patron who payed a troubadour to entertain his guests although some troubadours were nobles themselves. An important aspect of troubadour poetry that is characteristic of the literature of the High Middle Ages was “courtly love.” This term is both a literary and a real life characteristic of the period. The literary meaning is a lyrical poem written to an idealized lady whom the poet loves. But C. S. Lewis points out that this poet, “is no light-hearted gallant: his love is represented as a despairing and tragical emotion.” (sic)5

1. C. S. Lewis. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. (Canto Books, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995). 5

2. Ibid. 5

3. Jackson J. Spielvogel. Western Civilization: A Brief History, 3rd. ed. (Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005). 166

4. Arthur Thomas Hatto, editor. The Nibelungenlied. (Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, 1669). 8

5. C. S. Lewis. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. (Oxford University Press, 1968). 3

Philosophy in the High Middle Ages

The philosophy of the High Middle Ages was a mix of Aristotle and Christianity. While the Early Middle Ages were dominated by platonic thought, Aristotle's philosophical system had a resurgence in the writings of such celebrated philosophers and university teachers from the High Middle Ages as Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. According to Paul Vincent Spade: “This 'recovery' of Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was a momentous event in the history of medieval philosophy.”1

To understand why a Greek philosopher who died some fifteen hundred years before should have such a great influence on the philosophy of the High Middle Ages it is necessary to understand the attitude of the period to the past. Previous philosophers and writers were looked upon with near reverence. Greek and Latin authors in particular were treasured by the philosophers of Western Europe.2 These previous writers were “authorities,” whether on history, literature, science or philosophy. Albert Ascoli explains the unchallenged influence the past had on medieval intellectuals: “In the Middle Ages an “author” (Latin auctor and autor; Italian autore) was not any old writer of literature, but was instead, and against the modern definition, a person who possessed auctoritas [authority], and who might also have produced texts that were known as auctoritates.”3 He explains further that they are almost exempt from challenge and believed to have a corner on the truth.4

Unfortunately, since they considered a wide range of authors to all be right they ran into a problem. C.S. Lewis explains: “they find it hard to believe that anything an old auctor has said is simply untrue. And they inherit a very heterogeneous collection of books; Judaic, pagan, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoical, Primitive Christian, Patristic... Obviously their auctors will contradict one another.”5 Trying to remedy the blatant contradictions between the pagan philosophers and the Christian Patriarchs became the overarching goal of the philosophers in the High Middle Ages. This attempt came to be called scholasticism.

Scholasticism was not so much a philosophy itself as a framework in which to look at and compare different philosophies. The medieval mind loved to organize things so when the jumbled mass of Greek and Roman philosophy tumbled into the Christian edifice, the scholastics picked up the pieces and constructed a new building that recycled elements from both. On the one hand, points out Paul Vincent Spade, classical pagan philosophy—particularly Aristotle—was “crucial for the development of medieval philosophy.” On the other hand, Spade reveals that the early Christian philosopher Augustine from the fifth century who had such a crucial role in orthodox church doctrine was “an authority who simply had to be accommodated. He shaped medieval thought as no one else did.”6 The self-appointed task of the scholastics was to synthesize these two philosophical systems.

At this point it should be clear that philosophy during the middle ages cannot be separated from theology. The philosophers of that time were theologians and vise versa. St. Thomas Aquinas is indisputably the greatest of these philosopher churchmen. He called philosophy the handmaiden of theology. His book written in Latin called the Summa Theologiae was “the first completed attempt to establish Christian theology as a scientific discipline.”7 Aquinas's life and work was the high point of philosophy in the High Middle Ages. He embodied the thinking of the scholastics when he wrote: “it is impossible that those things which are of philosophy can be contrary to those things which are of faith.”8

Some other distinctive philosophical questions from the High Middle Ages include the problem of evil and the possibility of freewill. In addition, the High Middle Ages were famous for the development of logic that took place at this time. I. M. Bocheński, in his study on the history of logic classified this period as one of the three greatest periods in the development of logic throughout history.9

The philosophical contribution of the High Middle Ages should not be underestimated. It was one of the most sophisticated mental climates in history. Thomas Aquinas, the leading philosopher of the period, is considered one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Gorge Gracia asserts that, “In intensity, sophistication, and achievement, the philosophical flowering in the thirteenth century could be rightly said to rival the golden age of Greek philosophy in the fourth century B.C.”10

1. Paul Vincent Spade: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Medieval Philosophy.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-philosophy/

2. Jackson J. Spielvogel Western Civilization: A Brief History, 3^rd ed. (Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005). 164

3. Albert Russel Ascoli. Dante and the Making of a Modern Author. http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780511380464&ss=exc

4. Ibid.

5. C. S. Lewis. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. (Canto Books, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995). 11

6. Paul Vincent Spade: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Medieval Philosophy.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-philosophy/

7. Thomas Gilby, editor. Summa Theologiae, Volume 1: The Existence of God. (Image Books, Doubleday and Company, 1969). 12

8. As quoted in Jackson J. Spielvogel. Western Civilization: A Brief History, 3^rd ed. (Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005) 166

9. As cited in Paul Vincent Spade: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Medieval Philosophy.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-philosophy/).

10. Gorge Gracia and T.B. Noone. A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, London 2003 pg. 1

The Aura Around Marcus Aurelius

An emperor, a general, a philosopher; someone who has been described as “modest, unselfish, high-minded, and with the highest sense of duty.”1 Not many people fit this description. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius may be the only one. Born in A.D. 121, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was adopted by Emperor Antoninus so that he could succeed him as ruler of the Roman Empire. He was called one of “the good emperors.” The reason for this epithet can be seen in his philosophical memoir, Meditations.

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations were written, in a way, for himself. He addresses himself and gives himself encouragement and advice. The Meditations are “the private thoughts of a man communing with his own soul.”2 These private thoughts, however, are far from the sappy or sentimental ramblings of a diary. They are instead filled with calm reflections on man's place in the universe and how to live a virtuous, serene life. In consequence, the Meditations would appeal to any civic-minded Roman.

The document would also appeal to any Stoic. Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous and oft quoted Stoic philosophers. The Meditations are a philosophical exploration of the principles of Stoicism. The topics covered are varied and are not really organized in any particular order. Some general categories covered are: living in harmony with nature, reason, duty, morality, and patience. For a Stoic, everything in nature is interconnected so it is important to live in harmony with it. Nature for Marcus Aurelius has a larger meaning than just physical things, it includes: “one universe made up of all things, one god who pervades all things, one substance, one law, one reason common to all intelligent beings, and one truth.”3

This interconnected order is the sum total of the universe for a Stoic. For them, and for Marcus Aurelius, the universe operates smoothly like a vast machine. All things go as planned. There are no accidents. “Everything which happens has been apportioned and spun out to you.”4 Because they believe reason is universal in humans and that there is “one law” and “one truth,” Stoics believe in certain norms of behavior from humans. While evil, too, has been fated to exist, the best way to live is according to “reason and Justice”5 Reason makes it clear what a person should, and should not, do.

The emphasis on moral laws was characteristic of Stoics in the Roman Empire. Marcus Aurelius places the foundation of a moral law on reason. This “natural law” is common to all people because—as Marcus Aurelius explains it--“If our intellectual part is common, the reason also, because of which we are rational beings, is common: if this is so, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is so, there is a common law also.”6 This “common law” was important for a Roman because they had a high regard for law and order in society. People are social beings but when they live together they need some form of governance. If universal laws could be arrived at then all people in the world could live together in peace. Under a common law, “we are fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so, the world is in a manner a state. For of what other common political community will any one say that the whole human race are members?”7 The Roman Empire that spanned much of the known world in the time of Marcus Aurelius was the outgrowth of this philosophy put into practice.

Within Roman society--with its firm insistence on law and order--was the complementary emphasis on duty. Marcus Aurelius admonishes to, “every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what you have in hand with perfect and simple dignity.”8 He goes on to say that “if you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you... if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.”9 In fact, this quote embodies the core of Stoicism; the idea that if a person does his or her duty, nothing should disturb or cause unhappiness.

Marcus Aurelius would have much to say about the hectic American lifestyle if he were alive today. Living a simple life of duty is his ideal. The easiest way to achieve tranquility is to keep a free schedule10 “For the greater part of what we say and do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on every occasion a man should ask himself, is this one of the unnecessary things?”11

Although Marcus Aurelius was a hardened soldier inured to brutality and also known for persecuting Christians, this aspect of his life is not shown in the Meditations. For a pagan without divine revelation, he has a sharp perception of reality. From reading his Meditations alone it is very easy to see why he was called a “good emperor.” The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are filled with commonsense advice. His commonsense came from exercising his reason. With a right reason, he believed, would come happiness and the ability to cope with anything life threw in his way. He gives this challenge: “have you reason? I have.--Why then not use it?12

Notes

1. Donald S. Gochberg. Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World. (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Fourth ed. 1988) 511

2. Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts. Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World. Ed Donald S. Gochberg. (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Fourth ed. 1988) 510

3. Ibid. 511

4. Ibid. 516

5. Ibid. 516

6. Ibid. 512

7. Ibid. 512

8. Ibid. 513

9. Ibid. 514

10. Ibid. 515

11. Ibid. 515

12. Ibid. 513

The Life of Lucretius and His Lawless Outlook

Lucretius was a philosopher and poet from the first century B.C. He died around 55 B.C. still in his 40's—some say through suicide. He was a writer who, contrary to the custom of the time, withdrew from public life in Roman society and instead devoted himself to a pastoral pursuit of philosophy. Lucretius modeled much of his own philosophy on the Epicurean philosophical system. Its founder, Epicurus, was a Greek philosopher from the third century B.C. who posited that pleasure and the absence of pain are the highest good.

Lucretius was in a minority of Romans who held this view. His writings had an uphill battle to convince people that a life away from public service and any other thing that could cause worry leading to pain was to be avoided. His book De Rerum Natura (On The Nature of Things), therefore, was an apology or defense of his views to a largely skeptical audience of first century B.C. Romans. Yet the quest for happiness, so important to the Greeks and Romans, was reason enough to propel Lucretius to write. He believed that Epicureanism had a corner on happiness and he wished to proclaim this to the world. In fact, “Lucretius gave himself with missionary fervor to proclaiming Epicurus' 'liberating' gospel.”1

The mode of writing that Lucretius used to present his materialist “gospel” in the De Rerum Natura, was a long poem. It seems a strange vehicle to discuss deep matters of philosophy, but the Romans liked poetry. Just as their liberal arts schooling demanded that young Romans learn rhetoric to speak with eloquence, so they expected writers to argue eloquently and persuasively. The way it was said was just as important as what was said. This long treatise poem set forth Lucretius's views on, among other things, the physical universe, the soul, and death.

Perhaps most interesting to many today are his views on the natural world. He believed that all things were made up of tiny particles called “atoms.” The size, order, and arrangement of these atoms determined the shape and properties of all visible things. Water for instance is formed:

Of tiny round motes, adaptable
Most easily for rolling. Honey, though,
Is more cohesive, less disposed to flow,
More sluggish, for its whole supply of matter
Is more condensed; its motes are not as smooth,
As round, as delicate.2

Empty spaces or “voids” between atoms account for differences in weight and texture. His views on the elemental properties of objects, although imprecise and simplistic, do resemble modern discoveries in Chemistry in some ways.

The insights into society raised by Lucretius are not unique to Roman society in the first century B.C. Religion was a big part of their culture as it has been in all cultures. Lucretius tries to use Dawkinesque examples of how, “religion mothers crime and wickedness”3 to prove that religion is bad. He also admits that all people, “seem to feel some burden on their souls, some heavy weariness.”4 The insights into Roman society are interesting because of the insights they give us into our own society and human society in general. It is man's preoccupation with God and immortality; his attempts through studying the visible universe to explain (or explain away) the invisible parts like the soul, or God. Lucretius tries to show that humanity's inner restlessness that leaves “each one ignorant of what he wants, except a change, some other place to lay his burden down...hat[ing] himself because he does not know the reason for his sickness,” is a foolish waste of time because the sickness is imaginary and the soul will not live on after death.5 An opposing view on humanity's restlessness presented 400 years later by Augustine is that the soul is an immortal creation of God seeking its meaning from that Creator. Augustine cries out: “you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in you.”6

What makes Lucretius so relevant today is his early advocacy of Darwinian evolution 1900 years before Darwin. His position is essentially that of evolutionary atheists like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. He imagines a world that came about purely by chance. If it is by chance then there is no need for an intelligent designer, who might go about by the name “God.” Without a god there could be no immortality of the soul, an idea that was fundamental to both previous Greco/Roman philosophy and most religions. With no immortality of the soul, upon death the particles of the body separated and that was indeed the end. This left Lucretius free of worry about what was “beyond.” There was nothing beyond. Therefore life on earth had no meaning and the best one could do was avoid pain and enjoy pleasure during the short time one was alive. One did not have to be constrained by a platonic doctrine of immortality whereby, “as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another... [and] when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from our earthly professors of justice, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there.”7 Without the fear of judgment after death restraining his actions as it did in part for Plato, Lucretius could do away with the idea of morality. Virtue, instead of being a universal reality that transcended nature, as it was for Plato, became merely whatever brought pleasure and safety to the temporary swarm of atoms called Lucretius. In other words: “since the universe is ultimately material, Lucretius believed, pleasure and pain are the only real guides of conduct.”8

While in naiveté one could fail to see a problem with this, a closer inspection will show that the whole basis of law, an essential component of civil society, is compromised. Criminal law could no longer be universally applied. One's actions could always be defended on the principle that “it brought me pleasure:” “Stealing brought me pleasure;” or “murdering brought me pleasure.” Further, to abandon one's duty at the first hint of pain or danger, could not be reprimanded, because that too is perfectly natural and acceptable. In a civil society, however, it is necessary to think of others. One person's pleasure may be in the way of another person's; by Darwinian standards one will eliminate the other in a process of “survival of the fittest.” Without an objective law code outside of nature, such as Plato and other philosophers of the Western tradition have recognized, society will crumble into chaos and arbitrary force.

Endnotes

1. Donald S. Gochberg. Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World. (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Fourth ed. 1988) 450

2. Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World. ed. Donald S. Gochberg (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Fourth ed. 1988) 463

3. Ibid. 452

4. Ibid. 465

5. Ibid 465-6

6. Augustine. The Confessions of St. Augustine. (Garden City, New York. Doubleday and Company, Image books, 1960) Book 1, ch. 1. pg. 43

7. Plato. Apology. Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World. ed. Donald S. Gochberg (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Fourth ed. 1988) 312

8. Donald S. Gochberg. Classics of Western Thought: The Ancient World. (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Fourth ed. 1988) 451

The Day Philosophy Died?

The comment below is taken from an online encyclopedia I was reading during research for an essay on the artistic and intellectual achievements of the High Middle Ages. It is unrelated to my essay but I thought it was interesting. What good is a subject that only a select few can even understand?

“Prior to Abelard, philosophy in the Middle Ages had not been an exclusively academic affair. It had been addressed for the most part to any well educated reader interested in the topics being discussed. Boethius's Consolation, for instance, or almost any of Augustine's or Anselm's writings, could profitably be read by any literate person. Soon, however, this all changes. Philosophy becomes an increasingly specialized discipline, pursued by and for those whose livelihood is found only in educational institutions.”

Paul Vincent Spade. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Medieval Philosophy.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-philosophy/)

Jan. 22

Jan. 22 is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade I was reminded while perusing some blogs. On Geneveith.com I found this quote from Mother Teresa.

“America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.”

I just read a short biography on Thomas Jefferson, so I see the irony particularly strong of a nation that presumably holds to the self-evident truth that all have the inalienable right to LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today it would seem that the liberty and happiness of some is more important than the life of others.

Who Killed Homer?

"Until the fog of classicism has lifted, the greater classics are invisible.”--C.S.Lewis (28).

Occasionally (translate, once in a great while) I will read a book with a more substantive content than my usual fair of “fluff in fiction.” When this does happen I am often surprised both by the inscrutable, unfathomable content and by how much I enjoy it. The latest instance of this is Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath’s inquiry into Who Killed Homer. To be honest, I didn’t actually read it (that would be impressive!); I listened to it, so it may have gone in one ear and out the other.

If you haven’t heard of Victor Davis Hanson yet--you have now. A good way to meet him is through his blog, Works and Days, that right now is devoted to national politics. That he could be one of the best political commentators as well as one of the best Greek historians and educators is strong testimony to his intellect.

Who Killed Homer seeks to do three primary things: (1.) discover why the Iliad and Odyssey and other Greek and Latin classics are so little studied, (2.) Shame classics professors into actually teaching their students instead of seeking tenure and grants to spend on “esoteric” research projects, and (3.) Warn that Western culture will be lost if we forget “the Greek way of thinking.”

A number of factors have contributed to “the demise of classical education” (that happens to be part of the subtitle). A proliferation of degrees in fields such as “gender studies,” psychology, and so on, have sapped students and resources from classics departments. Students are too lazy to devote their time to learning Latin and Greek when easier courses are available (I don’t blame them, I’m unilingual too). These and other factors, Hanson and Heath argue, have made it so that today most colleges do not even have a classics department and those that do…. Well, this calls for a new paragraph on the second point listed above.

Classics professors often do not teach their students the foundations of Greek language, literature, and history. In their place classes that make the student feel good, or that do not require the teacher to prepare, or, just as bad, classes on esoteric topics are substituted. Hanson and Heath seem to take great relish in lampooning the titles of “esoteric” (seemingly one of Hanson’s favorite words) papers and theses written by less than admired colleagues. “Feminism in Greek Culture” takes precedence over actually teaching about Greek culture and “Homosexuality and Gender Issues in Such and Such an Author” trumps teaching what that author actually wrote. Hanson and Heath feel so strongly about poor teaching quality that they advocate abolishing the tenure system, cutting grants for research projects, and increasing teaching loads across the country.

So far I have been summarizing some pretty specialized topics in Who Killed Homer, those not interested in the decline of education standards over the past few decades and who have no power to change it anyway, may ask the not unimportant question: “what’s in it for me?” Hanson and Heath point out that Western culture is directly descended from the Greeks and Romans. All our most important institutions and ideals—Western culture itself—are from that ancient world. Individual freedom, constitutional government, free speech, you name it, were all patronized and defended by the Greeks. Hanson and Heath claim that never has a country been so influenced by the Greeks and yet (increasingly) so ignorant of them. They warn that if “the Greek way of thinking” is lost, Western culture, as we know it, will disappear. So there’s your answer, if you live in America or any country that still claims to be part of the ideological “West.”

The concluding half of Who Killed Homer’s subtitle is: The Recovery of Greek Wisdom. Hanson and Heath argue that “the Greek way of thinking” must be encouraged through teaching people the basics of Classical history and thought. More than just a few musty old professors and irritatingly brilliant students need to know about the principles of Greek culture to be able to recover its wisdom. Every citizen of the Polis should “think like a Greek.”

For a sample chapter modified into an essay by the authors click here.

C.S.Lewis, English Literature in the 16th Century, Oxford Univ. Press, 1954.

Unhappy Weakness For Russian Literature

He would sit like a post for six hours at a stretch, perspiring and straining his utmost to keep awake and smile. On reaching home he would groan…over their benefactor’s unhappy weakness for Russian literature (370-71).

Usually in our world things come to nothing, but this will end in something; it’s bound to, it’s bound to! (219).

The subject…who could make it out? It was a sort of description of certain impressions and reminiscences. But of what? And about what? Though the leading intellectuals of the province did their utmost during the first half of the reading, they could make nothing of it, and they listened to the second part simply out of politeness (486).

Maybe you can see where this is leading…. C.S.Lewis remarked that the plots of some stories in abstract “would be completely worthless—not only worthless as a representation of the book in question, but worthless in itself; dull beyond bearing; unreadable” (Lewis 41). Very likely someone will add that some stories themselves are dull beyond bearing. Though I want to agree, something makes me hesitantly demur in the case of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed. Although the 700 hundred pages seem to go (in the words of one song) “on and on, forever,” there are occasional passages of gripping intensity.

But the merit of Dostoevsky's book would be small indeed if plot and narrative were the only criteria to judge it by. No, if it has merit it lies in other areas, particularly in its prophetic analysis of Communism and Nihilism. I am no philosopher so probably much of Dostoevsky’s exploration of the rising ideological trends in Russia at the end of the 19^th century passed well above my head. Yet even admitting this there were some passages so plain they could not be missed.

Communism is scoffed at today and terms like McCarthyism applied to the occasional warning against it, yet Communism was (and still is) a huge disaster for humanity. Being already a fan of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and through him knowing the inhuman practical reality of that ideology, I was fascinated to discover Dostoevsky, almost 50 years before the revolution in Russia, wrote a novel with the aim of exposing Communism in its infancy.

In the person of Pyotr Stepanovitch all the revolting aspects of nihilistic Communism are embodied. In a frantic, feverish speech (why do all Dostoevsky characters make long feverish speeches?) Pyotr Stepanovitch outlines his goals:

Everyone belongs to all and all to everyone. All are slaves and equal in their slavery…to begin with, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of education and science is only possible for great intellects and they are not wanted. The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. Great intellects cannot help being despots and they’ve always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned—that’s Shigalovism. Slaves are bound to be equal. There has never been either freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd there is bound to be equality, and that’s Shigalovism! Ha ha ha! Do you think it strange? (424-25).

With a shockingly modern parallel in American society’s moral uncertainty and upheaval, one of Pyotr Stepanovitch’s co-conspirators confesses at the end of the book that,

it was with the idea of systematically destroying society and all principles; with the idea of nonplussing everyone…and then, when society was tottering, sick and out of joint, cynical and skeptical, though filled with an intense eagerness for self-preservation and for some guiding idea, suddenly to seize it in their hands, raising the standard of revolt (680).

With profound insight Dostoevsky has the social engineer Shigalov declare:

I am perplexed by my own data and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I started. Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism (409).

Dostoevsky, Feodor. The Possessed. The Modern Library Inc. Random House, 1963.

Lewis, C.S. An Experiment In Criticism. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. Canto ed. 2006.

Hawthorne As History

The pre-Civil War period in America was rife with new theories and movements. Transcendentalism, feminism, and socialism were some of the ideas being developed and tested. As my history teacher briefly described these “isms” and their principle advocates, she mentioned Nathaniel Hawthorne and his connection to Brook Farm. His involvement in this socialist experiment was the seed for his novel called The Blithedale Romance. As I thought back to this book I realized that all of the movements my teacher mentioned are touched on directly or indirectly in Hawthorne’s book. The relation between history and literature was magnified as I considered that probably I was the only one in that class who had read a writer from that period dealing directly with the issues our teacher was discussing.

With an eye to this historical aspect of Hawthorne, I dug up an old (well, o.k. a year or two old) review I wrote on The Blithedale Romance. While it is embarrassingly unpublishable in its entirety, I present the undeleted portion of an often wandering, sometimes incoherent sketch (But really, my readers should be used to a generous dose of bibble-babble by now).

* * *

Was Hawthorne's seeming praise of communes real? He seemed to like them at least in theory, yet while praising them he did reveal their flaws (at least some of them). The members and visitors envisioned an agrarian community in which the arts would flourish, instead they found themselves too tired at the end of the day to do ought but eat and sleep. A situation I can sympathize with. Also, some members were just not cut out for certain tasks. For instance, Zenobia cannot cook. The individual is made an individual for a purpose.

Zenobia is the most absorbing character, a passionate, strong-willed, feminist. In many ways we want to say with Miles Coverdale (the poetic and sensitive bachelor from whose observant viewpoint the story is told) that here indeed is a woman. Yet in reality she is unfulfilled, isolated, and angry. The real tragedy is not that she dies but why and how she dies. Suicide is a selfish, prideful way to die. Rather than do what good she could do with her talents, she quite literally buried them in the ground.

Hollingsworth is impressively sketched and blamed for a bit too much if a purely realistic novel was the aim. I’m not sure it was. It is said that Dickens’s characters are sketched larger than life with certain traits exaggerated. Whether this is true or not of Dickens’s characters it is certainly true of Zenobia and Hollingsworth. He does repent in the end and Coverdale’s mockingly Caustic question on his dreamed reform of criminals is answered in a touching scene:

'Not one,' said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the ground.
'Ever since we parted, I have been busy with a single murderer!'
Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave him.

Despite its seeming gloom, The Blithedale Romance is a brighter book than the other Hawthorne novels I have read. Though the presentation of socialism and feminism in a 19^th Century book may raise some eyebrows it was better than most books of a less controversial class. I have not brought myself to spoil this feeling by reading the introduction, written, I am informed on the cover, by a “distinguished” professor and recipient of the “Florence Howe Award for Feminist Literary Criticism.” I am old enough (not!) and wise enough (kidding again!) by this time (it took long enough) to not read everything that is written, or at the very least not to believe it

A good quote: “It is because the spirit is inestimable, that the lifeless body is so little valued.”

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For an equally short but more informative sketch of The Blithedale Romance try Wikipedia.