' _ HISIQRV ACCORDING Io THE GREEK FATHERS} PER! OIKONOMIA THEOU THE MEANING OF A Dissertation for the Degree of Ph D MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY IAIHEH MICHAEL AZKOUL A ' 1968 LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the thesis entitled Peri?) Oikonomia Theou: The Meaning of History According to The Greek Fathers presented bg Father Michae 1 Azkoul has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in HiStm i924 535%.. I Major professor Date June 13, 1968 0-169 w ABSTRACT PERI OIKONOMIAS THEOU: THE MEANING OF HISTORY ACCORDING TO THE GREEK FATHERS by Father Michael Azkoul The "philosophy of history" according to the Greek Fathers has suffered in two ways: it has fallen into the shadow of Saint Augustine and whenever investigated by modern scholarship it has been viewed as both a Christian version of Greek philosophy and a preamble to Scholasticism. In both instances, the teachings, didascalia, of the Fathers has been approached with modern western presuppositions which themselves are biased and without antecedent demon— stration. It is ludicrous, therefore, that modern his- torians should make such categoric declarations about the Greek Datres when the foundations of modern thought are so profoundly uncertain. Modernity has not only arbitrarily driven theology from history, but insists that all thought evolves quite naturally as a continuous whole while ad- mitting no "supernatural interruptions". Modern intel- lectualism will recognize nothing unique in history, nothing beyond reason and the instruments of reason. On the other hand, the Fathers nowhere claim to have produced a "philosophy of history". They refer to them— selves only as believers, witnesses to Christ or, more broadly, the Christian economy, the acts of God in history which have culminated in the Incarnation and the redemptive deeds of Christ. Their witness, moreover, declares that Father Michael Azkoul all history in the warfare between God and Satan, between the forces of good and evil, eternal life and eternal death. Thus, the story of man is a cosmic drama: the destiny of the children of God and the children of Adam. The end of the former is deification, theosis, and the end of the latter is everlasting death with Satan and his angels. These have already been routed by Christ at Calvary and His Resurrection. This "victory of Christ" has inaugurated "the age to come", “the Eighth Day", the "Day" or "Age" after "the seven ages" of the world as it is, history as we know it. The "age to come" is the time when God will have banished sin, corruption and death. This is "the new creation" of which Christ is the earnest. History is being moved to its end by a theandric process. History possesses a divine and human aspect both of which are united to each other even as the two natures of Christ are united in one Person. But Christ has taken human sin unto Himself in order to destroy it; thus, history is a dialectical process of purification, a pro— cess of preparation for eternity. In other terms, modern scholarship is wrong to look for "dualism" in the Fathers akin to Platonism. Time and eternity are merged chris— tologically and the only "dualism” they recognize is that which exists between the Church and the world. Nowhere in the Greek Fathers do we find anything not consistent with the traditional christologico~ecclesiologico—eschatologico- Soteriology of the Christian Faith. The : Hsofound human ente mterprete Htion has toChristi Heful in culture, < ath HMM Christian PUrpose. which ex: N0 para Necessar CiPles 0 Hi ESchato] PIESent Paganis, Church 1 the Hun Eighth initiat fl must outside end of Father Michael Azkoul The soteriological attitude of the Greek Fathers is also found in their teachings concerning the two primary human enterprises, culture and the state. These are interpreted christologically: secular culture as edu- cation has no value as such, but is positively inimical to Christians; yet, it contains some truth and can prove useful in the salvation of the believer. Christian culture, on the other hand, is the handmaid of theology and is connected to it as the humanity of Christ is related to His divinity. The secular state is antithetical to Christianity, but the Christian state has an evangelical purpose. Its relationship to the Church is like that Which exists between the human and the divine in Christ. No particular form of the state or culture appears to be necessary; nevertheless, they must illustrate the prin— ciples of the Christian understanding of history. History is salvation. Salvation is eschatological. Eschatology means that the future is present. It was present in Old Israel in the forms of “types" and in paganism as "anti-types". The future is present in the Church as the Eucharist; indeed, the Church is created by the Eucharist. The Church, then, is the beginning of "the Eighth Age", the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, the initiation of deification. What the Church does not sancti— fy must fall into perdition. This history of the world outside the Church is the history of decay and death, the: end of that history is utter alienation from God. The dichotomy between ‘ of redemption and not mean, however, world, for He has enlighten every me made every effort bl means 0f catas calculated, k_air_o_ ity' Min: noneth 0f the Creator . Father Michael Azkoul dichotomy between the Church and the world is the history of redemption and the history of decadence. This does not mean, however, that God has simply abandoned the world, for He has instituted government and has sought to enlighten every man that comes into the world. He has made every effort to convert the unbeliever to Christ even by means of catastrophe. Everything in history has been calculated, kairos, to bring the whole cosmos to the Trin- ity. Man, nonetheless, is free and may oppose the Will of the Creator. PERI HISTO in part 6 5300? ///5/0‘) PERI OIKONOMIA THEOU: THE MEANING OF HISTORY ACCORDING TO THE GREEK FATHERS By ,2}??? 6/ / n // Father Michael Azkoul A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History 1968 It is hardl to write a few wo made whatever 1 course of study possible but mea my major profess history, I owe a his direction an Huzar, professor for her discipli and to Miss Marj History, I am 01 cannot be separz dramatic and ex indebtedness to University and their profound State and Herve Youngstown , 0h IiPril, 1968 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is hardly an adequate expression of gratitude to write a few words of acknowledgment to those who have made whatever I have been able to accomplish during my course of study at Michigan State University not only possible but meaningful. To Doctor Richard E. Sullivan, my major professor and now head of the department of history, I owe an irredeemable debt for his patience, his direction and his sense of history. To Mrs. Eleanor Huzar, professor of Ancient History, I am ever grateful for her discipline and demand for historical breadth; and to Miss Marjorie Gesner, professor of Medieval English History, I am obligated for the knowledge that history cannot be separated from the humanity of which it is a dramatic and exciting record. Neither should I forget my indebtedness to Doctor Constantine Cavarnos of Boston University and Father Georges Florovsky of Princeton for their profound suggestions. To the libraries of Michigan State and Harvard, I also extend my deepest appreciation. M. S. Azkoul Youngstown, Ohio April, 1968 ii Chapter I. Introduc II. The Surd III. The Econ IV. Time and V- Christ a V1. The Chu Salvatic VII. The Chur Theology VIII. Christ 2 111- Conclus. Bibliographica 1 Bibliography . Chapter I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Surd of Modern Historical Inquiry. . . The Economy of God: A Definition. . . . . Time and Eternity: The Cosmic Setting . . Christ and Adam: The History of Man . . . The Church and the Cosmos: The History of salvation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Church and the State: The Political Theology of History. . . . . . . . . . . . Christ and Culture: Reason in History . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliographical Essay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 .72 .82 164 188 230 266 279 313 For too lo identified with is something iro he was a relativ influence1 on ot lTor exam gained very few count only Sts. Aries (470-453) of De Vocatione bishops of Rome (seventh century the council of 1 failed to defini of Riez (d. 485 (390-463) would Gregory the (ire as divine forek lagrange can fi John Chrysoston lquinas, misint Writings of Thc 1945, q. xxiii, intil Anselm (1 West use 1935, p. 39-4! Augustine becal ham-none gal reputation, be Official pane tnian. In h nth the bish Interested in Pelagius (Cod tally condemn has totally 11 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION For too long the Christian vision of history has been identified with Saint Augustine's conception of it. There is something ironical in this fact, because, in his own day, he was a relatively unknown African bishop who exerted little 1 influence on other thinkers, while the Greek Fathers, whose 1For example, Augustine's teaching on predestination gained very few adherents. Father Garrigou—Lagrange can count only Sts. Prosper of Aquitaine (39-463), Caesrius of Arles (470—453), Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-533), the author of De Vocatione omnium gentium in the sixth century, a few bishops of Rome and probably, St. Isidore of Seville (seventh century). See Sent. II, 6 PL 83 606BC. Although the council of Orange (529) condemned semi-Pelegianism, it failed to define predestination. In addition, St. Faustus of Riez (d. 485), Vicent of Lerins (c. 450) and John Cassian (390—463) would not receive Augustine's doctrine. St. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) spoke of predestination merely as divine foreknowledge (e.g., Moralia XXXIII, 21 PL 75 1135B). Lagrange can find no Greek Fathers with the exception of Sts. John Chrysostom and John of Damascus (whom he, like Thomas Aquinas, misinterprets. See Summ. Theol. (vol. I of The Writings of Themes Aquinas. edited by A.C. Pegis). New York, 1945, q. xxiii, a. 1—8) who advocated predestination. Not until Anselm (1033-1109) does the idea become common in the West (Predestination, trans. by Dom Rose Bede. St. Louis, 1935, pp. 39—45). Of the theological controversies in which Augustine became involved——Donatist, Manichaean and Pele— gian——none gained him universal recognition. He did win some reputation, however, because he was invited to deliver the official panegyric in praise of Bauto and the Emperor Valen— tinian. In his Bibliotheca, St. Photius confused Augustine With the bishop of Carthage and appears only to have been interested in the council of Diosopolis (415) which tried Pelagius (Cod. 54 PG 103 96C). That Pelagianism was event— ually condemned by the ecumenical council of Ephesus (431) was totally unrelated to the opinions of Augustine; it was a l witness was felt responsible for t stood even today neath the shadow possessed."3 Thi curious (if not certainly was as early Church4 an heresy associate of Sts. Hillary greater and univ gradually began oassiodorus‘ (47 education found century, Augusti the West, espec' The Political A Glouster (Mass.) 2Thus, Cy: of "Eastern that history, and it: istic elements 5 death“ (Christoi Library of Chri: and Sister Hildi 0f grace a majo Fathers. The “‘ she writes, “he been propounded Greek ascetical osophy, and tha school was not on Divine grace (in Graef's int Of St. Gregory XVIII, Westmin these remarks 3d. Tixe homers. St. 46cc J. in York, 1955 2 witness was felt throughout the Empire and who were chiefly responsible for the definitions of faith, are not well under" stood even today in the West,2 seeming always to fall be— neath the shadow of “the greatest genius the Church has ever possessed."3 This usual estimate of Augustine is even more curious (if not dubious) when one considers that Origen (who certainly was as voluminous) was more influential during the early Church4 and that Augustine, like Origen, often, as the heresy associated with Nestorianism. Again, the reputations of Sts. Hillary of Poitier, Ambrose and Jerome were far greater and universally acclaimed. Augustine's influence only gradually began to spread and earned cultural importance with Cassiodorus' (477—570) adoption of his scheme for Christian education found in De Doctrina Christianum. By the ninth century, Augustine's teachings almost dominated theology in the West, especially his political theory. See J. N. Figgis, The Politigal Aspects of St. quustine's 'Citv of ggg'. Glouster (Mass.), 1963, p. 93f. 2Thus, Cyril Richardson can write that the "weakness“ of "Eastern theology" is "its failure to grasp the meaning of history, and its difficulty in freeing itself from Hellen- istic elements in its approach to creation, sexuality and death" (Christology of the Later Fathers wol. VIII of The Library of Christian Classics; Philadelphia, 1954, p. 250); and Sister Hilda Graef considers the absence of a doctrine 0f grace a major defect in the "theology“ of the Greek Fathers. The "question of grace" never arose in the East, she writes, "because no particular heresy on this matter had been propounded there. Moreover, it is undeniable that Greek ascetical teaching was greatly indebted to Stoic phil- osophy, and that the emphasis on human effort learned in this school was not always balanced by the corresponding stress on Divine grace that should have been learned from St. Paul" (in Graef's introduction to her translation of the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa, in Ancient Christian Writers. vol. XVIII, Westminister (Md.), 1954, p. 19). The absurdity of these remarks will be shown later. 3J. Tixeront, A Handbook of Petrology, trans. by S. A. Raemers. St. Louis, 1951, p. 260. A 4See J. Daniélou, Origen, trans. by Walter Mitchell. New York, 1955, vii. result of unusual alnays express his It was, perhaps, that he contempla‘ that he elaborate light of future in the Rastern Churc by it.5 It is not of “the philosop an alternate Chr sent the broader limited, as his show clearly ho religious beliei rationalism, jog guilt and his d: Peculiar and son tude of Saint A surprised how u teachings real] Point of view a history cosmol 5It is n itgustine had that Augustine docian fathers tith then in 1t and the G 3 result of unusual tolerance towards Hellenism, did not always express himself in terms of unquestionable orthodoxy. It was, perhaps, Augustine's isolation——a1though it is said that he contemplated attending the council of Ephesus (431)—— that he elaborated those theological ideas which, in the light of future historical developments, alienated him from the Eastern Church and to this day has left him uncanonized by it.5 It is not our intention here to undertake a critique of "the philosophy of Saint Augustine", nor even to offer i an alternate Christian "philosophy of history", but to pre— sent the broader vision of the Greek Fathers, a vision not limited, as his was, by personal experiences. The Confessions show clearly how Augustine‘s philosophical speculations and religious beliefs, his thoughts, his feelings, mysticism, rationalism, joy and suffering——his exaggerated sense of guilt and his dark and atrabilious moods-contributed to his peculiar and sometimes heterodox doctrines. Yet, the atti- tude of Saint Augustine towards history-—and one might be surprised how unlike the subsequent interpretations his teachings really are--is basically correct from the anthropic point of View even if he does not, as the Greek Fathers, give history cosmological magnitude. The difference between them 5It is noteworthy, nevertheless, how much in common Augustine had with the Greek Fathers. Werner Jaeger concedes that Augustine, who lived only a generation after the Cappa— docian fathers, "had so many characteristic features in common with them in a way that is still unexplained“ (Early Christian- ity and the Greek Paideia. Cambridge (Mass.), 1961, p. 101). can be explained of their thought Unfortunate have been obfus c2 prise of which i. suppositions and methods. The er the Greek Father Middle Ages whe lations of thei during the Refo Fathers, used t were lost in tin verse. It was Catholic and Pr ation, the sear ---—_....._———- 6For exam ithanasius unt: tione Verbi De: fifteenth centr read during tho Renaissance tht letters and po was no trustwo 3. ll. Hardy an later Fathers, Chrysostom, D Damascus seem during the La the knowledge fist always go .llth century. 4 can be explained by historical circumstance and the unity of their thought by the Christian tradition. Unfortunately, the categories of the patristic mind have been obfuscated by modern researchers, the very enter— prise of which is vitiated ab initio by undemonstrated pre- suppositions and crippled further by arbitrary aims and methods. The erroneous attitudes, especially concerning the Greek Fathers, were probably established during the Latin Middle Ages when the paucity of manuscripts and poor trans— lations of their writings,6 along with the Scholastic com— promise with Aristotle and neo—Platonism, more than obscured their didascalia; and, too, later in the sixteenth century, during the Reformation and Counter—Reformation, the Greek Fathers, used to corroborate conflicting Augustinianisms, were lost in the polemical warfare of misused texts and verse. It was not until after the hostilities between Roman Catholic and Protestant had abated that the work of reclam— ation, the search for Christian origins began--usually by 6For example, there was little knowledge of St. Athanasius until the Renaissance and his Oratio de Incarna- tione Verbi Dei was not translated from the Greek until the fifteenth century. Although St. Gregory Nazianzus was much read during the Greek Middle Ages, it was not until the Renaissance that a full edition of the Orationes, with some letters and poems, appeared. Of St. Gregory of Nyssa, there was no trustworthy edition of his works until 1615. See E. R. Hardy and C. C. Richardson, The Christoloqv of the Later Fathers, pp. 49-51, 120-121, 251—253. Sts. Basil, Chrysostom, Dionysius, Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus seem to have been the most popular Greek Fathers during the Latin Middle Ages, but the manuscripts were few, the knowledge of the Greek language poor and the translations not always good. See C. H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the 12th Century. New YOrk, 1955, pp. 278—302. members of relig that an understa not possible wit mess of the Path answered about t doctrine could i It was as] isa "father of found already in \ 71D the s was begun by M3 9V°1vme Biblio Waning more gas. He Perfe Erasmus, etc.; first of its ki Bihliot e a Vet was improved b) ' B‘ cotelier the. OratOrian wthh appears’,l 379 V01ume Pat] lh two Sari; Pontificate of Ah<>stolic t‘ 5 members of religious orders7-—that the West became aware that an understanding of Christian history and doctrine was not possible without seriously taking into account the wit— ness of the Fathers and that certain questions needed to be answered about them before the nature of that history and doctrine could be ascertained. It was asked (as some are still asking), what or who is a "father of the Church"? The title "father" is to be found already in the Old Testament, where it was applied to 7In the sixteenth century, the task of bibliography was begun by Marguerin de la Bigne, canon of Bayeux, in his 9 volume Bibliothega Sangtorum Patrum (Paris, 1575-1579) containing more than 200 writers of the early and Middle Ages. He perfected the work initiated by Estienne, Froben, Erasmus, etc.; nevertheless, La Bigne's collection was the first of its kind. His collection developed into the Maxima Bibliothega Veterum Patrum in 27 volumes (Lyons, 1677). This was improved by the Benedictine fathers, Combefis (1648—1672), J. B. Cotelier (1677—1686), Bernard de Montfaucon (1706) and the Oratorian, Andres Gallandi (1765—1681). The collection which appears to have superseded them all is J. P. Migne's 379 volume Patrologiae Cursus Completus (Paris, 1857—1866) in two series: the Latin Fathers from the beginning to the pontificate of Innocent III; and the Greek Fathers from sub- Apostolic times to the council of Florence (1439). These two series, used in our study, will be referred to as PL (=patrologia latina) and PG (=patrologia graeca) as is cus— tomary. Migne's petrology reproduces many excellent texts “avec negligence et avec de nombreuses fautes", observes E. Amann, and has no sharply defined plan of order and some— times wrongly attributes works (e.g., Hippolytus' Philoso— phoumena to Origen) and sometimes there are omissions and doublets. Nevertheless, Migne's collection is an enormous contribution to religious science (Dictionaire de Theologie Catholigue, vol. X, Paris, 1929, 1739—1740). There are other translations and collections which have been or are being published, intended to correct and complete Migne's work. See Bibliographia Patristica (Berlin, 1956-1963); and 6.9., in the bibliographies in B. Altaner‘s Patrolo , trans. by H. C. Graef, Freiburg, 1960; and J. Tixeront, A Handbook of Patrology: references are found in their introductions and throughout the text. patriarchs (Gen. priests (Judg. xx 12; vi, 21; xiii, xliv, 1). In Ral more learned of ‘ handed down for ‘ Our Lord, the so his vehement dis Paul and John re (1 Cor. iv, 14f; When Saint Polyc Pagan crowd shot °f the Christian °f 0“! gods, wh wOrship."8 In were Sometimes CYPrian of Cart wh° Sat in the known as "the , fathers" of Co] wrote, "we hav, th 8Mart s a , . mugs)? rugk , BPS 26 mg? EI::T___________________________________———i “‘-.-==: 6 patriarchs (Gen. i, 24; Exod. iii, 13-15; Deut. i, 8), priests (Judg. xvii, 10; xviii, 19), prophets (II Kings ii, 12; vi, 21; xiii, 4) and distinguished ancestors (Ecclus., xliv, 1). In Rabbinic literature "the fathers" were the more learned of the earlier rabbis whose sayings were handed down for the “guidance of posterity". In the time of Our Lord, the scribes arrogantly claimed the title and gained His vehement disapproval (Matt. xxiii, 9). Saints Peter and Paul and John refer to their converts as spiritual children (I Cor. iv, 14f; Gal. iv, 19; I Pet. v, 13; I John ii, 12). When Saint Polycarp of Smyrna was martyred (155 A. D.), the pagan crowd shouted, "This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians (ho patér tan Christianon), the destrOyer of our gods, who teaches neither to offer sacrifices nor to worship."8 In the third century, members of the magisterium were sometimes addressed as "father“; for instance, Saint Cyprian of Carthage was styled, Cypriano papae.9 The bishops who sat in the ecumenical councils of the fourth century were known as "the 318 fathers" of Nicea (325) and ”the 150 fathers" of Constantinople (381). Again, Saint Athanasius wrote, "We have the witness of the fathers (for the use of the word homoousios) . . ."10 8Martyr. Polyc. (vol. II of The Apostolic Fathers, trans. by K. Lake). London, 1930, xii, 2. 9&3. xxx, 1 PL 4 311A. Cf. St. Hippolytus, Philoso~ phoumena V, 8 PG 16 3146B. - ~ / loék Pateron gchontes ten martyrlan (Ep. ad Afros, 6 PG 26 10403). Cf. St. Basil, de 8 irit. Sanct., 79 PG 32 209A. Thus, Henri Church" as "thos< iivvity" Wh° wer' and sanctity 0f of appeal for th the list of "fat the writers of t neat) and ending ally later than the periodizati< Campenhausen in: with Saint Cyri Biblical and sy becomes "schola the old Church thee and respor \ 11v 7 Thus, Henry Barclay Swete defined “the fathers of the Church" as "those great bishops and eminent teachers of an— tiquity" who were conspicuous for ”soundness of judgment and sanctity of life and whose writings remained as a court of appeal for their successors."11 Following this principle, the list of "fathers" meant an enumeration commencing with the writers of the first century (excluding the New Testa— ment) and ending sometimes before, often within, occasion— ally later than the eighth century, but always, it appears, the periodization is set arbitrarily.12 For example, Campenhausen insists that "the:Greekipatristic age" closed with Saint Cyril of Alexandria, because "the freedom of Biblical and systematic research" ends and "theology" becomes "scholastic" in the sense that “the authority of the old Church Fathers overshadowed more and more the influ— ence and responsibility of the contemporary teacher."l3 ll"The Fathers of the Church, " The Encyclopedia Britannica, (vol. X) New York, 1911, 200. 12In the West, says Fr. Florovsky, “the Patristic Age" has been fixed, because it is believed that this age has been "succeeded and, indeed, superseded by the 'Age of the School— men', which is essentially a step forward. Since the rise of Scholasticism "Patristic theology' has been antiquated . . . ." Accordingly, we are now faced with the choices, he continues, either to "regret the 'backwardness' of the East which never developed any "Scholasticism of its;own" or to become theo— logical archeologists, living in the past. This choice poses false alternatives, because that to which the Fathers testified has not ceased, neither must we declare the "age of the Fathers" terminated. To it "there should be no re— striction" ("Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers" Greek Orthodox Theological Review. V, 2 (1959— 1960), 123- 124. ) l3The Fathers of the Greek Church, trans. by S. Good— win. New YOrk, 1959, p. 6. Apparently not e Tixeront says t Greek Fathers w' (c. 749)" and t Gregory the Gre (636). He offe former, but for century "was th barbarians, beg iatin genius. “1 of the Fathers to do with "th Another cussion, is th any given peri Migne, followir indiscriminate gians within t inscribed on i "doctors," anc‘ .Bibliotheca U1 mica Omium S F0! the conpr tillers II, he Mn is iitian, m I 8 Apparently not everyone agrees with Campenhausen, because Tixeront says that most patrologies close the age of the Greek Fathers with "the death of Saint John of Damascus (c. 749)" and the Latin Fathers with the death of Saint Gregory the Great (604) or even Saint Isidore of Seville (636). He offers no reason for the periodization of the former, but for the latter he suggests that the seventh century "was the time when new elements, borrowed from the barbarians, began considerably to modify the purity of the Latin genius."l4 It is difficult to see what the witness of the Fathers to the truth of the Christian religion has to do with "the purity of the Latin genius". Another problem, not unrelated to our previous dis— cussion, is the matter of whether all Christian writers of any given period are to be included among the "fathers". Migne, following the example of anterior bibliothecae patroruml indiscriminately collected the writings of all the theolo- gians within the scope of his work, but, nevertheless, inscribed on its title page "ecclesiastical writersgg "doctors," and "fathers"--Patrolociae cursus completus seu Bibliotheca Universglis. Integra. Uniformis Comoda, Oecono- mica Omnium SS Patrum, Doctorum Scriptorungue Ecclesiasticorum. For the comprehensive use of the expression "ecclesiastical writers", he had the authority of Saint Jerome's De Viris illustribus which listed such heresiarchs or schizmatics —-—————____ as Tatian, Novatus, Donatus, Photinus and Eunomius. Clearly, 14Handbook of Patroloqv. P- 1- Jerome was not a cannot be accept Aside from the marks of a _v_i.t_a,e_, anti uit however, are 5 not explain the the nillenianis obstinate and i “antiquity" as by the fourth, "ecclesiastica such as Saint . We must i definition of ' presume to off whose life and tent, express must display 1 0f the Christ V 15See A , lite an important que it 13 import: he (vol-d, wt, C. 9 Jerome was not an uncritical patrologist and his testimony cannot be accepted as final or definitive. Aside from the volume of Jerome, a list of Christian authors is to be found in the so—called Gelasian Decretum fie libris recipiengis et non recipigggig which enumerates the marks of a "father” as doctrina orthodoxa, sanctitas vitae. antiquitas and approbatio eCClesiae.15 These “marks", however, are somewhat misleading: by the first, we could not explain the apocatastasis of Saint Gregory of Nyssa or the millenianism of Saint Irenaeus; by the second, the an"..- ._ obstinate and irascible Jerome could not be a "father”; "antiquity" as a ”mark" has already been dismissed; and by the fourth, innumerable “fathers" who have never received "ecclesiastical approbation" would be removed from the list, such as Saint Theodore of Tarsus or Saint Mark of Ephesus. We must admit that no source has given us an adequate definition of the title "father". Nevertheless, we must presume to offer our own: a "father“ is any Christian author whose life and literature, in their spirit and general con- tent, express the faith and piety of the Church. His thought must display no fundamental disparity with the continuity Of the Christian tradition16 and his life any opposition to l5See Altaner, p. 14; and Tixeront, p. 2. 16We are aware that this definition raises various important questions which we are unable to discuss here. It is important, however, that we have some understanding of the word, "tradition". It is not "old customs" transmitted from one generation of Christians to another, for these may have been initially false, inveterate prejudice. Neither is it merely a "continuity of human memory, or a permanence of the corporate pi title “father" a distinguished . important names Clement of Alex tullian, Faustu their charge do eminently ortho writings, to th right, however, were condemned Origen), some i Saint Photius ' 385A], and son Tertullian). endar of the Ea has no meaning in the West to venture on the M rites and habi With the full: for the suprat ness and the < ltan Seraphim TEdition is ' lIvered to th, the Church an i her ninist " ' Irenaeus t raditi ,tthIr Florow lahhl “In 10 ‘ the corporate piety of the Church. In our study, then, the title "father" and "ecclesiastical writer" will be sharply distinguished. There will be, consequently, excluded such important names from the list of the Fathers as Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Origen, Ter— tullian, Faustus of Riez. To be sure, the errors laid to their charge do not simply erase that in which they were eminently orthodox and we shall not fail to allude to their writings, to their corroborative authority. We have no right, however, to call them ”fathers,” because some of them y were condemned as heretics by ecumenical councils (e.g., Origen), some informally (e.g., Clement of Alexandria by Saint Photius in his Bibliotheca, Cod. 109—111 PG 103 384D- 385A), and some even left the Church (e.g., Tatian and Tertullian). None of them is found on the liturgical cal— endar of the Eastern Church. Moreover, the title "doctor" has no meaning for us, because it was only given much later in the West to such theological writers as Aquinas and Bona— ventura on the assumption that "the Patristic age“ had ended rites and habits,“ but something living: "the living unity with the fullness of Christian experience . . . the reverence for the supratemporal unity of history as the God—man pro— cess and the devoted esteem for the entire past" (Metropol— itan Seraphim, Die Ostkirche. Stuttgart, 1950, pp. 32— 33). Tradition is the depositum juvenescens, the faith once de— livered to the Apostles by Christ, placed in the custody of the Church and delivered to every generation of Christians by her ministry under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (See St. Irenaeus, Contra Haer. III, 2 PG 7 847A). Tradition is "only tradition of truth, traditio veritatis" exclaims Father Florovsky, "a continuity of Divine guidance and illum— ination ("Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers, " Greek Orthodox Theological Review, V, 2 (1959— 1960), . 120) and a new distin The Father faith. It would some of the the netaphysicians cate philosophi place them " in It is equally w Earnack, as son the christian f The process of Apologists and, It is apparent form of the pa 17a. A. 1 vol. I. Camhr 18w lichen Kreisen die roenisch-g "veil sie das seinen ueberli 1hn etwas Reai tpochenachendr In der Tatsacl Evangelina in' den common se Zeltalters en inertiven Stc mitenngeschlc bisher nit he effing dieser 1gelnrbuch de: 09, p. 498 deditated to fliwaehliche In; 11 and a new distinction was needed to identify a new situation. The Fathers, however, are witnesses to the Christian faith. It would be unfair to believe that they were, like some of the theological writers of Christian history, metaphysicians speculating on doctrine and weaving intri— cate philosophical systems which demand that the historian place them "in the mainstream of the development of ideas".17 It is equally wrong to View their labors, as does Adolph von Harnack, as something Greek in spirit, that is, to transform the Christian faith into dogma, into something rational. The process of Hellenization, he insists, was begun by the Apologists and, naturally, continued by their successors.18 It is apparent to Harnack cum sui that not only the historic form of the patristic witness is "hellenistic" but the content 17H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophv of the Church Fathers, vol. I. Cambridge, (Mass. ), 1956, vi. 18" . die Thesen der Apologeten haben in den kirch— lichen Kreisen schliesslich alle Bedenken Ueberwunden und die roemisch-griechische Welt gewonnen, " Harnack states, "weil sie das Christenthum rational gemacht haben, ohne seinen ueberlieferten historischen Stoff anzutasten oder ihm etwas Realistisches hinzusufuegen. Des Geheimniss des epochemachenden Erfolges der apologetischen Theologie liegt in der Tatsache, dass diese christlichen Philosophen das Evangelium inhaltlichen auf eine Formel gebracht haben, die dem common sense aller ernst Denkenden und Vernuenftigen des Zeitalters entgegenkam, waehrend sie den ueberlieferten positiven Stoff, die Geschichte und die Verehrung Christi miteingeschlossen, hauptsaechlich fuer die noch fehlende und bisher mit heissem Bemuehen gesuchte Beglaubigung und versich- erung dieser verununftigen Religion zu benutzen verstanden“ (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, bd. I, viert. aufl. Tuebingen, 1909, p. 498. Part one of the second book of volume I is dedicated to the demonstration of this idea—~"Fixirung und allmaehliche Hellenisirung des Christentums als Glaubenslehre" (pp. 496—796) . of it, He woul "the Fathers di learned these t with love taugh grace of the Ho In this study, Christian faith divinely guided the historian themselves and reality, sonnet causality even never consider some possible more than a wi ness was as oi Yet, most mode philosophy of Synthesis of ‘ Hellenism and Judaism and i hit with equi ““06 accou: “lion was 0 EI::T________________________________——__i 12 of it, He would simply reject Saint Maximus' remark that "the Fathers did not draw frOm their own resources, but learned these things about Christ from the Scriptures and with love taught us. For it is not they who speak, but the grace of the Holy Spirit which entirely permeated them.“19 In this study, however, the claim of the Fathers that the Christian faith is divinely revealed and their witness is divinely guided will not be questioned. It is the task of the historian to understand the Fathers as they understood themselves and not to recast them in some system of his own liking. The Fathers believed that Christianity was a unique reality, something essentially undetermined by historical causality even though, in some respects, part of it. They never considered themselves as lonely thinkers in quest of some possible way to truth. Indeed,their ideas were nothing more than a witness, mart ria, to the truth; and their wit— ness was as objective as the Christian faith was unique. Yet, most modern historians generally refuse to take "the philosophy of the Church Fathers" as anything more than a synthesis of human ideas with purely human sources, that is, Hellenism and Judaism. Undoubtedly, the Fathers agreed that Judaism and Hellenism prepared for the advent of Christianity, but with equal conviction they did not allow that any human source accounted for the origin of Christianity. Their re— ligion was older than the world and, therefore, preceded the 19Discip. c. Pyrrho, PG 91 320D. truths of all re the Greeks gave but its origin v Itself a human : historical char: ians have habit' (and Christiani (and the Church neans--philosop lreligion, etc. Almost as (lation, they d] the mid. Ag; inexplicable m: Athanasius CO, Prophecy, "Wh foretell of Hi one in the Scr the 1,0908 of ( issued from tl it is Whose f alone derived Virgin alone, Judaism Was a the authOIity 20 ”a m I ~ 13 truths of all religions and philosophies. The Jews and the Greeks gave Christianity historical form and language, but its origin was beyond history. The Church was not in Itself a human institution although not without human and historical character. Ignoring this claim, modern histor— ians have habitually examined the patristic didascalia (and Christianity) with the undisputed assumption that it (and the Church) could be understood by purely natural means——philosophy, philology, anthropology, comparative religion, etc. Almost as if the Fathers had anticipated this alle- gation, they drew a line sharply between Christianity and the world. Against Judaism and Hellenism, they set the inexplicable mystery of the Incarnation. Thus, Saint Athanasius confuted the Jews with an appeal to Biblical prophecy. "Who is there so great that even the Prophets foretell of Him such mighty works? There is, indeed, no one in the Scriptures save the common Savior of mankind, the Logos of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. He it is that issued from the Virgin and appeared on earth as man. He it is whose fleshly lineage cannot be traced, because He alone derived His body from no human father, but from the Virgin alone."20 Of course, Athanasius recognized that Judaism was a "revealed religion"——for which reason he used the authority of the prophets-—but its purpose was now 200ra. de Incarn. Verbi Dei, 33 PG 25 153A. consimated and In the sa Creator-~60d be principle of co book of his 992 found "in certa the same purpos and the Word era 'that he came 11 but as many as the sons of God did not read tt flesh, and dwel the Jews nor tl of ultimacy--Yi believed the 11 transcedence a For the its historical their witness Cyril of Alex W 2lnleme nation (and i priori categ< theology" @ and Gustave and Christie threw Histoire. i 225ai Pusey. Nev l4 consumated and now it stood in opposition to God. In the same position, the Fathers placed the personal Creator—~God became incarnate to the impersonal pagan principle of cosmic intelligibility.21 In the seventh book of his Confessions, Saint Augustine remarks that he found "in certain books of the Platonists" the words "to the same purpose . . . that 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God . . . ' But 'that he came unto his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, as many as believed in his name'; this I did not read there . . . neither that 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us', I did not read there."22 Neither the Jews nor the Greeks could tolerate that the principle of ultimacy——Yahweh and Logos--could become man. The Jews believed the Incarnation to be irreconcilable with God's transcedence and the Greeks had no idea of divine personality. For the Fathers, however, the Incarnation with all its historical and ontological consequences was central to their witness. The "enfleshment of the Logos“, as Saint Cyril of Alexandria liked to refer to it, was the most 21Werner Jaeger confirms that the idea of the Incar— nation (and the suffering God) "conflicted with the a priori categories of the theory of the Divine in Greek theology" (Earl Christianit and the Greek Paideia, p. 128); and Gustave Thils says that the Incarnation is for Hellenism and Christianity “un difference radicale et unsurmontable" (Théblogie des Realites Terrestres, vol. 2: Theologie.de,] Histoire. Bruges, 1949, p. 16). 22Saint Augustine, The Confessions, trans. by E. F. Pusey. New York, 1949, pp. 130—131. significant and tore, eras the §. conception of ti physical, altho in the garments ogy was precise of Chalcedon (4 principle of hi As we shall as assumption bet not only belii sacraments, 13 It was to Che must look to: W 23in J sima collect detio V, vii 240m Danielou, 5 Meaning ,0? 1958, pP' 15 significant and critical fact of all existence and, there— fore, was the sine gua non of their ”philosophy“. Their conception of the Incarnation, moreover, was not meta— physical, although, at times, their language was dressed in the garments of pagan Greek philosophy. Their christol- ogy was precisely the christology formulated by the council of Chalcedon (451), the very formula which gave them the principle of historical understanding. It states: . . . one and the same Christ, Son Lord, only—begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being annulled by the union, but rather the characteristic of each being preserved and forming one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only— begotten God the Logos, our Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from the earliest times spoke and our Lord Jesus Christ taught us Himself.23 , As we shall see, the definition, Eggs, of Chalcedon was the assumption behind all Greek patristic teaching, underlying not only beliefs concerning Christ, but the Church, the sacraments, political theolOgy, culture, in a word, history. It was to Chalcedon to which the historian of the Fathers must look for their ontology not Hellenism.24 _ 23In J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova at am lis~ Slma collectio (venice, 1759). Council of Chalcedon, Actio V, vii, 116F. 24On christology, ontology and the Fathers, see J. Danielou, The Lord of History: _§§f1ections on the Inner Meaning of History, trans. by Nigel Abercrombie. London, 1958, pp. 183-202. The Chalc be taken as dei it refers. It: only because tl ing to the form on the Christie osophy, on the There is no qua or philosophies immanent critei tense and expel thoughts which ience of it an moments culled The formula of something the ceptualizatior rational cater Most nor contempt or a nations-«accc prejudgment-- those result: entire chap’c historiogral torical the at least RE 16 The Chalcedonian formula, incidentally, is not to be taken as defining or comprehending the reality to which it refers. Its language smacks of pagan metaphysics, but only because that vehicle was available and useful. Accord- ing to the formula itself, however, the truth of it depends on the Christian tradition and not, as in the case of phil- osophy, on the relation of subject to its predicates. There is no question in the formula regarding the scientific or philosophical ideas of “evidence”, self—consistency of immanent criterion. Religious truth is a matter of exper— ience and experience in relation to that which words and thoughts which seek to verbalize that truth and the exper- ience of it are but intellectual petrifications, separate moments culled from the reality they inadequately express. The formula of Chalcedon is only a logical projection of something the Fathers knew to be supralogical, the con- ceptualization of what in fact cannot be placed in the rational categories within which reason naturally acts. Most modern historians may consider such ideas with contempt or as incompatible with the results of their investi— gations--accomplished by scientific procedure and with no Prejudgment——but, nevertheless, they have no right to view those results as conclusive or even as most probable. An entire chapter will be devoted to a critique of modern historiography which will center upon the question of his~ torical knowledge. Such a chapter is important, for it will 3 at least neutralize that analysis of the Church Fathers which refuses 1 and thereby in! solely as part < chapter, too, 5 ment of "theolr dentally, the I "theology" and criticism of mm vindicate our 1 of this study. The folli theme, the sub application of issues which 9 sequent to the fact introduce Greek Fathers. God's plan of other than th in the succes of this word might be con providence. the area 01‘- That describes ‘ 17 which refuses them the courtesy of speaking for themselves and thereby insists that their didascalia must be accepted ecleLyas part of the evolution of human ideas. Such a chapter, too, should argue persuasively for the reinstate— ment of "theology" as a category of history which, inci- dentally, the Fathers must be misinterpreted. They found "theology" and “history" inseparable. In other words, a criticism of modern methods and attitudes is essential to vindicate our handling of the sources and the conclusions of this study. The following chapters will reveal a single persistent theme, the substratum of every chapter-—the patristic application of the christology of Chalcedon to all the issues which governed their attention. The chapter sub— sequent to the criticism of modern historiography will in fact introduce the "philosophy of history" according to the Greek Fathers. This brief chapter will concern the word, a oikonomia, a word first employed by Saint Paul to describe God's plan of salvation. The oikonomia theofi'is nothing other than the Christian "philosophy of history" delineated in the successive chapters of this work. An examination of this word will distinguish it from others with which it might be confused, yig., theolo i2, theology, and pronoia, providence. Such distinctions will give greater clarity to the area of major concern. The third chapter, on time and eternity, not only describes the idea of creation and its relation to the Inew creationll ontology became lution" wrought palpably, if t' but united as institutions an abolished) in < history. Again divine can bec "real" and the time, another not between ti rather between Lagging and ti those in “the 18, between t between Chris 18 "new creation" in Christ, but discusses why the Christian ontology became the occasion for "the intellectual revo— lution" wrought by the Church in the Roman Empire. For, palpably, if time and eternity were not utterly disparate—— but united as the two natures of Christ-—then, all existing institutions and ideas must be radically altered (if not abolished) in order to accommodate the Christian vision of history. Again, if eternity has broken into time, the divine can become human, the human divine, because the “real" and the "ideal" are not antithetical. At the same time, another dualism entered the course of history, but not between time and eternity, as the ancients believed: rather between belief and unbelief, between the civitas terrena and the civitas dei, between those in Christ and those in "the order of things" separated from Christ, that is, between the Church and the world, between God and Satan, between Christ and Adam, regenerate and fallen mankind. When the Logos became incarnate, in other words, He opened eternity to mankind. Thus, the import of the following chapter: unity in Christ, the new humanity, and the dis— unity of man which characterizes the history of Adam. Christ was both God and man. He was "the last man", the man who made "the last things", 0! eschatoi, present: judgment, victory over death, the kingdom of heaven are already offered to man in Him. He is the conqueror of death, sin and corruption, an achievement proper only to the end of the current flow of history. The "age" after history is aiunbrated in to Him now part Those in Adam, quence of the F sway over the c "the coincidenc impulse towards damnation, and future. _The__c,¢ the “church of ”church of sai church without the "real" and In other “sinful" . l9 adumbrated in Christ and those who have united themselves to Him now participate in the life eternal promised by God. Those in Adam, on the contrary, remain subject to the se— quence of the Fall: the slaves of Satan who holds temporary sway over the cosmos. Thus, history may be described as “the coincidence of opposites", the coexistence of the impulse towards sanctification and the impulse towards damnation, and the dialectic between the present and the future. The concidentia o ositorum, also, explains how the “church of sinners", the church militant, and the "church of saints" the church triumphant, can be one , church without being confused. They intersect in Christ, the "real" and "ideal" Man. In other words, the "sons of God" on earth, the "sinful" humanity of Christ, are united to Him without ab- sorption or loss of identity. They are becoming what they are, the Body of Christ. The principle of coincidentia oppositorum is, therefore, the term used to explain the process of spiritual growth, the mystical entelechy of divine—human correspondence. Thus, we learn in the fourth chapter that the church is the anticipated realization of the Kingdom of God. The sinner is initiated into the "new life“ by his Baptism and is united to his Lord "ahead of time" in the Eucharist. This is possible because the church is human and divine, temporal and eternal, possessing the attributes of the present and the future and sharing in the "ages" of the now passing course of history and the one unending “age" and the cosmos tion and death unrepentent an finds itself in with the provi and culture. the secular st said, and has It is essentia can promise m of just laws 5 Yet, when the 20 unending "age" of eternity. When Christ returns, the church and the cosmos will be prepared for Him while sin, corrup— tion and death are abolished. The "sons of wrath", the unrepentent and unregenerate servants of Satan will be cast away with their master. During the course of history, however, the church finds itself in diverse and sometimes complex situations with the provisional features of history, that is, the state and culture. These are treated in chapters seven and eight. The secular state belongs to the fallen world, the Fathers said, and has no purpose except to insure justice and order. It is essentially antithetical to the church and Christians can promise no allegiance to the state save the obedience of just laws and the payment of its material assessments. Yet, when the state is Christian, some explanation is neces— sary to justify the premises of that relationship. The Church Fathers, who accepted the new alliance between Rome and Jerusalem, gave such an explanation during the "christol- ogical controversies" of the fourth and fifth centuries. Likewise, the confrontation with secular culture resulted in the church's clarification of its attitude towards the achievements of human reason. The place of reason in his— ) \ a tory was settled in terms of the Christian oikonomia theou. The idea of salvation, according to the Greek Fathers, exhausts the entire meaning of "the Christian philosophy of history“——or as they called it, "the economy of history". It is with "the divine economy" that this study is concerned and not with pa Fathers wrote 1 Interest will 1 the patristic 2 torical events too, care will incidental to Greek Fathers, 0:” history, T ifY the patris reality of the marking the di Wk's content scholarship S, hismry" from must be attem deprived of i It will to the Witnes argue a Secta Work is a def is much mOre Scientiric me philOSOPhicai Puses that ht whose °rigin Var‘ . lfled, bu 21 and not with patristic historiography-—none of the Greek Fathers wrote historical narratives in the familiar sense. Interest will be focussed on those principles which comprise the patristic attitude towards history and by which his— torical events must be interpreted. Throughout the study, too, care will be taken to distinguish—-and not as something incidental to this study's aims—~the difference between the Greek Fathers, the pagan, Scholastic and modern conceptions of history. These differences will not only tend to clar~ ify the patristic position, but, also, to support the reality of the uniqueness of its witness; and, finally, marking the differences should greatly contribute to this work's contention that the self-assurance with which modern scholarship seeks to derive the patristic "philosophy of history" from purely historical, natural and human sources must be attenuated and the principles of its research deprived of its customary credibility. It will not be denied that this study is sympathetic to the witness of the Greek Fathers. Yet, it does not argue a sectarian point of View; rather the burden of the work is a defense of that truth which declares that the world is much more than matter in motion, always subject to the scientific method and never impervious to the scientific and philosophical imagination. In other words, this work pro- poses that human life is open to knowledge and experience whose origin cannot be rationally discerned or empirically verified, but can only be sought, discovered and confirmed by the human SI because the pot given, revealev Reality which 22 by the human spirit; and that the enterprise is feasible because the possibility, merit and rewards of it have been given, revealed, disclosed by the living and personal Reality which is the true end of man. TH] Someone I ness-~the viti. cal inquiry is Patristic "phi have any direc it help US to Greek Fathers disciplines w: fall, approach the Fathers w: dollinion, Rev judgment fixe which We cann reject any me with accepted Cmettion of of that tho“ approach to 1 Thus, most h; were alone a] these alone , CHAPTER II THE SURD OF MODERN HISTORICAL INQUIRY Someone may ask whether a chapter on the major weak— ness-—the vitiating irrational quality——of modern histori- cal inquiry is necessary for an understanding of the Greek patristic ”philosophy of history". Does such a chapter have any direct bearing on the integrity of our work? Will it help us to comprehend the spirit and doctrine of the Greek Fathers better? Yes, because those historical disciplines within whose field of competence the Fathers fall, approach that period of Western civilization as if the Fathers were subject to its intellectual and spiritual dominion. Research is done with principles of method and judgment fixed to elicit conclusions about the Fathers with Which we cannot concur. But the vast majority of historians reject any method or conclusions which would not harmonize With accepted procedures of inquiry; that is, the "objective" collection of "facts" and their interpretation on the basis of what those "facts" yield of themselves. Any other approach to the "evidence" is condemned as unscientific. Thus, most historians proceed as if their methods and aims Were alone applicable to the object of inquiry and as if these alone will produce the desired result, truth. Alter- nate or opposing methods of investigating history have 23 little reputati received by moc‘ Thus, re: of dogma", the some Christian fic explanatio: of course, for metahistorical as data. Cons are traced to has persistent 0f ancient 1'11 that it is um bemistaken i: hiStOTiCO-emp‘ and consisten concerning th literature mu is, Subject t In this discipline ar method, We CE suppositions ‘ the confidem shall not tr. as if they C With- 11] "a ra 24 little reputation, for the historico—empirical method is received by modern scholarship as fait accompli. Thus, research into "Christian origins", "the history of dogma", the history of philosophy, has always--save with some Christian historians——found purely natural and scienti- fic explanations for the existence of Christianity; and, of course, for the didascalia of the Fathers. Supranatural, netahistorical "sources“ have been preempetorily excluded as data. Consequently, all the teachings of the Fathers are traced to Hellenic (and/or oriental) sources. Modernity has persistently examined every patristic utterance in terms of ancient life and thought. This practice is so common that it is unquestioned and any suggestion that it could be mistaken is quickly dismissed. Repeated use of the historico—empirical method resulting in generally logical and consistent conclusion has increasingly removed any doubt concerning that method. Quite naturally, then, patristic literature must be treated like any other literature, that is, subject to the canons of "evidence". In this work, however, while utilizing the technical discipline and profound insights of the historico-empirical method, we cannot adhere either to its philosophical pre- suppositions, or its spirit and aim. We cannot give to it the confidence which most historians claim to do; hence, we shall not treat the Fathers, nor the "source" of their faith 9 as if they could be explained, classified, and interpreted Within "a rational system of observations". We acknowledge areferent to ' "known" throug challenge that throws the Fat Under these cc foundations of such an eva lua the Fathers wz‘ In order sary to under atins and meth 0f course, is 11901) the area Suffice, fOr the Possibili context of t} modern histoe and an exP05: will make ev; to the Chum meaninSlful. deny the ve, of the Fathe The, We are conventiona] is tenable : entifiC met] FI—f 25 a referent to their "faith", as they did, which is ultimately "known” through something beyond the act of recognition. We challenge that procedure of moderns which prefunctorily throws the Fathers into the historical stockpile of ideas. Under these conditions, therefore, a chapter evaluating the foundations of modern historiography is urgent. Without such an evaluation, we do not believe that our approach to the Fathers will prove either enlightening or convincing. In order to justify our "method", then, it is neces— sary to undertake a critique of modern historiographical aims and methods. Any detailed and comprehensive analysis, of course, is neither possible nor mandatory. An attack upon the area of greatest vulnerability, epistemology, will suffice, for modern historiography stands or falls with the possibility of historical knowledge. Placed within the context of the history of Western philosophy, the surd of modern historiography will be in historical perspective; and an exposition of the latter's epistemological principles will make evident that the uncompromising secular approach to the Church Fathers is neither indisputable nor the most meaningful. In short, since we will nowhere in this work deny the verity of the patristic witness, nor trace the "faith" of the Fathers to ancient thought, but divine revelation. Thus, we are compelled to justify our departure from the conventional norms of historical investigation. Our approach is tenable if not more fruitful than the way of the "sci— entific method“ of modern secular historians. In order rest of it wil count the deve to Nietzsche a second part, a by historians other words, ; reason; and pg the one presu; mutually eneri remain therea; sacrosanct, } at bottom, thy t0 their limi SeFuence of t abilities and The der the entire h: be regarded a down of the 1 most powerfu Dr W \ l 26 In order to achieve the purpose of this chapter, the rest of it will be sub-divided. The first part will re— count the development of modern epistemology from Descartes to Nietzsche and will provide the background for the second part, an examination of the various positions taken by historians on the possibility of historical knowledge. In other words, part one will show what history has said about reason; and part two, what reason says about history. That the one presupposes the other is undeniable; that they are mutually enervating is likewise irrefutable. No doubt should remain thereafter that the popular historical method is not sacrosanct. Moreover, this chapter should make it clear that, at bottom, the tenacity with which modern historians cling to their limiting method can be explained on as the con— sequence of their "faith", a "secular faith" in human abilities and achievements. This "faith“ is palpably hostile to the "religious faith” which is the dynamic of our work. 1. The denial of any transempirical entities is part of the entire history of ideas in the modern age which ”may be regarded as, in part, a history of the progressive break— down of the medieval Christian synthesis which had been most powerfully articulated in the Summas of Thomas Aquinas and most movingly and persuasively expressed in Dante‘s Divine Comedy."1 That "breakdown" had been undertaken by 1Henry D. Aiken, The Ageiof Ideology. New York, 1956, P. 25. those means and deliberately ex tory, especial] and seventeenth principles and the intense wo life and thoug is to say, non by the ninetee was displaced science and 3 art or discipl associated wil lems and atti‘ other activit‘ its independe free to pure possible int history. 27 ) those means and premises——with that consciousness——that deliberately excludes the religious interpretation of his— tory, especially the Christian vision of it. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cleared away the old Christian principles and values while the eighteenth century began the intense work of reconstituting the ideals of Western life and thought on "radically secular and humanistic, that is to say, non*Christian basis”? a task finally accomplished by the nineteenth century. Now the medieval Weltanschauung was displaced. There was no place for God in an era of v science and secular political and social institutions. The art or discipline or science of history, of course, was associated with the new secularism and involved in the prob— lems and attitudes native to this new milieu. Like every other activity of Western man, the study of history declared its independence from any transcedent power, feeling itself free to pursue its interest without any concern for the possible interference from God——"theology" was ejected from history. The process of liberation was initiated by philoso— phers (who were often scientists and mathematicians), that is, it was they who sought the theoretical justification for the modern enterprise; it was they who gave the histor- ians the presuppositions for their craft. The philosophers 0f the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Provided the historian with his epistemological grund. 2Aiken, pp. 25—26 Even though his adopted one epi pressed for a t have been force resevoir of the not been able 1 the convention; difficult to i as we shall se their narrativ out of which t The firs indebted is Re ahistorian an sions to that on the French even Bousset, His relevance as great for "maker of the °S°Phy“, the contributions set the prob invuirv, the bi Which to criterion . as true whie 28 Even though historians may have not always intentionally adopted one epistemology as over against another, whenever pressed for a theoretical vindication of their labors they have been forced to resort invariably to the philosophical resevoir of the Western intellectual tradition. They have not been able to argue outside the categories intrinsic to the conventional theories of knowledge. Thus, it is not difficult to identify historians and historical schools, as we shall see, according to the epistemological positions their narratives presuppose and, indeed, by the metaphysics out of which that epistemology must necessarily issue. The first philosopher to which modern historians are indebted is RenerDescartes (1596-1650). Descartes was not a historian and his works reveal little but vagrant allu- sions to that art. His philosophy had a direct influence on the French historians, Voltaire, Bayle, Montesquieu, even Bousset, but Descartes had no philosophy of history. His relevance for modern historiography, nevertheless, was as great for history as it was for philosophy. He is a "maker of the modern mind", "the father of modern phil- osophy", the great architect of the modern spirit. The contributions of Descartes to modernity are twofold; he set the problem of knowledge and the base of scientific inquiry, that is, the determination of truth and the means by which to attain it without reference to any suptarational criterion. In other terms, no knowledge may be certified as true which does not result from a method which itself complete break the scholastic matter and mot came into bein transient acti permanence. B notion did not ingenerable an only through t manner, it prc Descartes, the inert, that it sPace which i assigned the zation of all as subordinat f0rner is di are replaced 29 has been ascertained to be certain. The occasion for Descartes philosophy was the revo— lutionary teaching regarding the nature of motion announced by Galileo (1564-1642). His conclusions necessitated a complete break with the medieval conception of nature, i.e., the scholastic understanding of the relationship between matter and motion. According to the medieval view, motion came into being, exhausted itself and vanished; it was a transient activity in which only materia and gggma had any permanence. But Galileo's experiments demonstrated that motion did not pass from potentia to actua, but was both ingenerable and indestructable. We know motion, he said, only through the effect which, in some incomprehensible manner, it produced on the bodies which it penetrated. Descartes, then, argued that matter must be passive and inert, that it must in no sense be distinguished from the space which it fills and, therefore, to motion must be assigned the responsibility for the animation and organi— zation of all phenomena, that is, matter must be conceived as subordinate to motion as the instrument by which the former is directed and shaped. Potentiality and actuality are replaced by the concept that matter is simply moved from one space to another while in itself remaining essential— ly unchanged. It follows that if matter is always material and motion the only organizing power, there can be no con— nection between the body and mind. Thus, arose in modern philosophy the yet unresolved problems of "perception" and 'judgment" . Desca sensation should a tered in the brain from any cerebreal relation, if any, since Descartes, s which “has proved Again, the in the treatment pelled him to pee "representative p “mediately”, thro object remains un be inferred only From these sensat which it can neve constructions of is in fact isolat is not actually ; Descartes' episte theory of "preser ledge of things 1 “0t account for 4 \ of 3Norman Ke‘ W. . 30 "judgment". Descartes never answered the question why a sensation should appear when a particular motion is regis- tered in the brain or how a mental action should follow from any cerebreal condition. The seemingly inapprehensible relation, if any, between body and mind has evoked, ever since Descartes, speculations concerning them, a perplexity which "has proved to be the surd of every philosophy."3 Again, the Cartesian dualism revealed a major defect in the treatment of sense—perception. His "physics“ com— pelled him to postulate the epistemological doctrine of "representative perception."4 If objects can be known only “mediately”, through the medium of concepts, then, the object remains unknown in itself. The “external world" may be inferred only through the sensations which it exudes. From these sensations, the mind must construct a "world" which it can never hope to know, that is, it is only mental constructions of things that we apprehend while the mind is in fact isolated from the world "out there". The object is not actually perceived, but hypothetically inferred. Descartes' epistemology avoided the fault of the opposing theory of "presentative perception" (i.e., the direct know- ledge of things without the medium of concepts) which could not account for error, but his theory could not account for 3Norman Kemp Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critigue of Pure Reason'. New York, 1950, p. 585. 4Smith, loc. cit. We have, of course, somewhat over- simplified the enormity of the epistemolOgical problems raised by Descartes philosophy. For a detailed statement of them, see Appendix B of Smith's work, pp. 583—592. truth, because the: objects they repre: offer solutions to urated modern philr lead or chose some either the same fa perplexity. Along with t Descartes endowed criterion of all b any, 'e ense done is immense: sinc wmich b omnibus dubitandur subject), Descart< universe.6 Here secularity--man, The consequence o Sible for certitu N.— 5Rene Descs mm cambridge (Mass .] 6See , Br: J lectual Tr . . . 9.224s adltlo' z ' 1952: % n—: 31 truth, because there was no way to confirm concepts by the objects they represent. His successors have all tried to offer solutions to the problems with which Descartes inaug— urated modern philosophy, but whether they followed his lead or chose some alternate course the results have been either the same failure or even greater epistemological perplexity. Along with the epistemological turmoil, however, Descartes endowed modernity with a new faith: the new criterion of all human inquiry-—his famous, co ito er 0 gym, 'e ense donc 'e sui.5 The significance of this formula is immense: since the cogito follows from his dubito ergp sum (which brought him to the conclusion that gg omnibus dubitandum which cannot possibly include the doubting subject), Descartes posited the self at the center of the universe.6 Here is manifested the guintessence of modern secularity--man, not God, is the axis of life and thought.7 The consequence of making the ego (rather than God) respon— sible for certitude has, as we know from the history of 5Rene Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy, in Modern Classical Philosophers, edited by B. Rand. Cambridge (Mass.), 1936, pp. 123—124. 6See J. Bronowski and B. Mazlish, The Western Intel— lectual Tradition: From Leonardo to Hegel. New York, 1960, p. 224f. 7It is interesting to note that the cogito ergo sum has been anticipated by Saint Augustine‘s Si fallor sum (De Vera Religions, LXXIII) and that much of Descartes system is dependent upon medieval thought. See A. G. A. $312, Descartes and the Modern Mind. New Haven (Conn.), 52. fl Western thought, ha services altogethei Descartes has prev: the flow of events discover it; and, - undertaken without doubt will produce In general, 1 of knowledge, his tricism has remain thought to the pre were happy with t Geulincx (1625-16 made a serious att ical dualism by t1 said that "wheneve cause a bodily mos . - . 0f the move] GOG. Mind and ma ‘ . , in either that se 1 really caused by hranche was not a who saw in Descaa affairs and three IIIIIIIIIIIlIIIIII:::T_________________——fi 32 Western thought, had the effect of dispensing with His services altogether. For history, too, the spirit of Descartes has prevailed: if any meaning is to be found in the flow of events, human reason or reason's creatures must discover it; and, too, the narration of events must be undertaken without religious faith, with the assumption that doubt will produce objectivity and truth. In general, modernity has welcomed Descartes analysis of knowledge, his “methodical doubt", and his anthropocen— tricism has remained the unchallenged assumption of western thought to the present. Yet, not all his contemporaries were happy with the implications of the cogito. Arnold Geulincx (1625—1669) and Nicholas Malbranche (1638—1715) made a serious attempt to overcome the Cartesian epistemolog- ical dualism by their philosophy of Occasionalism. They said that "whenever a volition of the mind seems to us to cause a bodily movement, our volition is only the occasion . . . of the movement, while the real, efficient cause is God. Mind and matter never directly interact; the changes in either that seems to us to be caused by the other is really caused by God."8 The interest of Geulincx and Mal- branche was not academic, because both were Catholic priests who saw in Descartes' system the expulsion of God from human affairs and threatened to drive the Christian tradition from 8See the uncomplicated explanation of Occasionalism in William Kelley Wright's A History of Modern Philosoghy. New York, 1948, p. 87f. i _ European civilizat Occasionalism was 3 only coverted God His existence), bu for cauSality or t dualism, far from by the interventic Deity into nature did not improve hr The philosop of res extensa am the seventeenth c to the problem. (1632-1677) respo Cartesian philoso and idealism—wit things to God, fl and matter were I In other words, i field of epistemv His doctrine did Cartesian dualis, human nature, hi 1‘“th in the Wes 0f the Christiay G°ttfried Spinozys phil 0 IIIIIIZI “"'I!!E=! 33 European civilization. Unfortunately, the weakness of Occasionalism was palpable to almost everyone: it not only coverted God into a deus ex machina (without proving His existence), but also gave no scientific explanation for causality or the nature of perception. The Cartesian dualism, far from being reconciled, was made more complex by the intervention of God; and the ad hoc intrusion of Deity into nature made it increasingly apparent that He did not improve human understanding of the world. u. The philosophers, faced with the continuing problem of res extensa and res co itans, were, in the course of the seventeenth century, offering their peculiar solutions to the problem. In his Ethics, Benedict de Spinoza (1632—1677) responded to the inherent contradiction in the Cartesian philosophy—~the alternation between mechanism and idealism—-with Acosmic Pantheism, the reduction of all things to God, Substantia, and the declaration that mind and matter were nothing more than modifications of Him. In other words, Spinoza lifted the controversy out of the field of epistemology and into the area of metaphysics. His doctrine did not resolve the problems instituted by the Cartesian dualism, but Spinozism did mean the abrogation of human nature, history and destiny as they were hitherto known in the west; to be sure, Spinozism implied the end of the Christian dispensation. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646—1716), on hearing Spinoza's philosophy, was as much interested in opposing it as he was in reply, thing in it) he sa mathematical plan; is an isolated and "windowless". The between them, he a the providence by harm‘mY", he wrote natural methods " , 0f the universe" a the Spirits."9 Ti and Spinoza's moni ism which SOUght 1 mind and matter, < suffocating, dehu: affrimation of thv of his philosophy tivism and Suhjec Leibnitz haVe had fluence has reach example, Herder, to , Philog LGih we edi °n sel A: nLeibnj (Engw) Centur RE! 195 Pp. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEIII37___________________———fi “"'!= 34 as he was in replying to Descartes. The world, (and every- thing in it) he said, were created by God according to a mathematical plan; each individual substance or “monad” is an isolated and impenetrable reality, complete and "windowless“. The unity, the possibility of communication between them, he attributed to a "preestablished harmony", the providence by which God governed the creation. "This harmony", he wrote, "makes all things conduce to grace by natural methods", for God is “the architect of the mechanism , of the universe" and "the monarch of the divine City of L the Spirits.”9 Thus, Leibnitz answered Descartes dualism and Spinoza's monism with a spiritual pluralism, a plural— ism which sought to overcome the insuperable schism between mind and matter, on the one hand, and, on the other, the suffocating, dehumanizing, collectivism of pantheism by a re— affrimation of the Christian faith.10 Yet, the consequence of his philosophy was only to justify individualism, rela— tivism and subjectivism. Nevertheless, the ideas of Leibnitz have had a great impact on German thought. His in- fluence has reached well into the twentieth century. For example, Herder, Kant, Goethe, Meinecke and Mann are indebted to him. A knowledge of Leibnitz is essential to the under- 9G. W. Leibnitz, Monadolo , in Modern Classical Philoso hers, edited by B. Rand. Cambridge (Mass.), 1936, pp. 212-213. 10On Leibnitz's Christian apologetics and his dependence on St. Augustine, see R. W. Meyer, Leibnitz and the Seven- teenth Centur Revolution, trans. by J. P. Stern. Cambridge (Eng.), 1952, pp. Slff, l41ff. standing of histori But the react continental Europe ophy was no less e1 was aggravated by ' course, innatism wt although never mad 1704) was greatly Saw the new trend Scholasticism, a c at the famous Jesr into the Isles. 1 of scholastic leg; sisted that the in: something pass iVe But Locke, too, f, tion between the 1 Perfect Unity of for the duality o Lockean rePUdiati Passiv'lty and gau “News, The Anglice taking LOleIS p] perienee of a mat Know wed he st, 6 ' . W) exCept ‘ 35 standing of historicism. But the reaction to Descartes did not come from continental Europe alone. The opposition to his philos- ophy was no less emphatic in England. There the debate was aggravated by the Stoic notion of ”innate ideas". Of course, innatism was implied in the teachings of Descartes although never made explicit by him. John Locke (1632— 1704) was greatly alarmed by the British Cartesians. He saw the new trend in English philosophy as a revival of Scholasticism, a cryto-Catholicism--Descartes was educated at the famous Jesuit school of La Fléche--being imported into the Isles. Locke's attack began with a denunciation of scholastic logic and a denial of innate ideas. He in- sisted that the mind was tabula rasa, a "blank tablet", something passive upon which sense—experience was inscribed. But Locke, too, failed to establish any necessary connec- tion between the mind and "the external world". Truth-~the perfect unity of thought and being--was still not achieved, for the duality of subject and object persisted while the Lockean repudiation of innatism had condemned the mind to passivity and gave no explanation for the construction of concepts. The Anglican bishop, George Berkeley (1685—1753), taking Locke's premises, agreed that man had no direct ex— perience of a material world. In his Principles of Human Knowled e, he stated, "To be is to be perceived,“ esse est erci i exce t when "to be is to perceive " esse est 9 p I rename-11 In . material substrat is conceptual. A formation of empi 1777) used the th conclusions) to d precipice of see; although sensatic them was avail; Sh°u1d PrOduce a t° be SUIE, What any cause and it no sensation for not necessary co form no concepti events: the cor of events can ir causality. "From the "we cannot conjv were the POWer mind, We Gould and might, at f mere dint of th llln ca“‘bridee (131:: “We“, D Hum (Mass )Class £15m 36 percipere.ll In other words, we cannot demonstrate any material substratum for sensations; hence, all knowledge is conceptual. Although not accepting Berkeley‘s trans— formation of empiricism into idealism, David Hume (1711- 1777) used the thinking of the good bishop (without its conclusions) to drive Western philosophy to the very precipice of scepticism. Berkeley led him to believe that, although sensations were the condition of knowing, no theory was available to explain how one mental resolution should produce a corresponding movement in the body and, to be sure, what connection could be discovered between any cause and its purported effect. There is provided no sensation for causality. We observe only sequence and not necessary conjunction in things. Therefore, we can form no conception of a necessary relation in time between events: the consistent repetition of the same sequence of events can in no means be construed as evidence of causality. "From the first appearance of an object," Hume argued, "we cannot conjecture what effect will result from it. But were the power or energy of any cause discoverable by the mind, we could foresee the effect, even without experience; and might, at first, pronounce certainty concerning it, by mere dint of thought and reasoning.”12 With this proclama- llln Classical Modern Philgggphgrg, edited by B. Rand. Cambridge (Mass.), 1936, pp. 290ff. 12D. Hume, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in MOdern Classical Philoso hers, edited by B. Rand. cambridge (Mass.), 1936, p. 329. tion the entire mi sance had its dea and workable, the tigation would be be no prediction, universe, no cert no security in e) that Hume was me} tremeuas well as W11 causality. Butl doubt. Hume did Philosophy, but ‘ led“cried out 1 joimder. David HUme amused him from metaPhi/Sisal tre that alerted hin SCience and rel; reassess‘ment am Philosophical e: induction and d astroHOmEr, Phy Opher, Kant was 0 138ere H cheerhim Natt 37 tion the entire modern enterprise initiated by the Renais- sance had its death portended. Without Causality, known and workable, the physical sciences and historical inves— tigation would be abolished. Without causality, there can be no prediction, no universal and necessary laws of the universe, no certain analysis of phenomena and events, and no security in experimentation or observation. It is true that Hume was merely taking empiricism to its logical ex- treme——as well as ridding Western consciousness of thgg; logia naturalisl3 which also depended upon the fact of causality. But his epistemology put all human inquiry in doubt. Hume did not solve the problems of the Cartesian philosophy, but his rigid empiricism-—to which Cartesianism led—-cried out loudly for an immediate and convincing re- joinder. David Hume, Immanuel Kant (1724—1804) exclaimed, had aroused him from his "dogmatic slumbers" (i.e., the German metaphysical tradition); but it was this very same awakening that alerted him to the danger of Hume's thinking to both science and religion. Kant saw his task, therefore, as a reassessment and reconstitution of the entire modern Western philosophical enterprise: to reconcile dualism and monism, induction and deduction, faith and reason. As a theologian, astronomer, physicist, mathematician, historian and philos— Opher, Kant was well qualified. Of his many writings, the l3See H. D. Aiken‘s introduction to Hume's Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion. New York, 1948, xv-xvii. stew? elegy, is recogni This book has had that it has led II Kant "the centrai philosophy."14 7 which the historj Already in nature of Kant‘s with experience, "but although al not follow that In other words, the mind which c Space and time, After the conce} the Object in it and the Precept; The entire ment scendental Synt twith sense~da mind alone prod 7—7— 38 ,Kritik der Reinen vernunft, the chief source of his epistem— ology, is recognized as the realization of his ambition. This book has had such immense influence on Western thought that it has led many historians and philosophers to call Kant “the central figure in the entire history of modern philosophy.“14 The Kritik is one of those works without which the history of the West would be other than what it is. Already in the preface to the Kritik, we learn the nature of Kant's solution: "That all our knowledge begins with experience, there can be no doubt", Kant states, "but although all knowledge arises with experience, it does not follow that all our knowledge comes out of experience."15 In other words, “the external world" offers sensations to the mind which organizes them through its "innate forms“, space and time, and "the categories of the understanding". After the concepts have been formed, the mind identifies the object in its memory as identical with past experiences and the precepts are consequently compared and classified. The entire mental procedure is called by Kant, "the tran— scendental synthetic unity of apperception": that is, al- though sense-data stimulates the mind into activity, the mind alone produces knowledge (concepts); hence, this activity is called "pure", "transcendent“ (i.e., free of 14’W. K. Wright, A Histor of Modern Philoso h , p. 255_ l5"Dass alle unsere Erkenntnis mit der Erfahrung anfange, daran ist gar kein Zweifel . . . Wenn aber gleich alle unsere Erkenntnis MIT der Erfahrung anhebt, so ent- springt sie darum doch nicht eben alle AUS der Erfahrung“ (Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. second edition. Leipzig, 1920, _—3ST“"“‘"“"“""‘“"" p. o or above sensatic to set the machir. ledge is a "unity ing opposites, 56 If Kant is mind acting upon with no stimulat. and freedom are 1 tence of science understanding“ a and indgment. F no less than sul: and theology is that he did Prot which finds no I and history Were because causa1i1 °f a Posterior i mud" by the m 192 and the g; the resPonsibil understand in g. ., Am0119 an W as to prOVQ “K d P16NK( W) .p. 39 or above sensations). This process relies on perception to set the machinery of the mind in motion; hence, know— ledge is a “unity“ of action which is "synthetic", involv— ing opposites, sensations and mind. If Kant is right and all knowledge arises from the mind acting upon sensations, then, what provides the mind with no stimulation cannot be “known”. Thus, God, the soul and freedom are matters of faith, removed from the compe— tence of science and philosophy. These "ideals of the understanding" are not subject to the laws of perception and judgment. Faith and reason are irretrievably sundered, no less than subject and object, phenomenon and noumenon-— and theology is expunged from history. Yet, Kant believed that he did protect God, soul and freedom from the reason which finds no justification for them; and, too, science and history were safeguarded from the Humean criticism, because causality, far from being required to give evidence of a posteriori character, is imposed upon "the external world" by the mind. The relation obtaining between the egg and the Gegenstand, the subject and the predicate, is the responsibility of the untransgressable "laws of the understanding.”16 Among all the defects of Kant's epistemology none was to prove more fateful than his teaching that the das-an—sich, the noumenon, "the external world" was unknown. 16N. K. Smith, A Commentary to Kant's 'Critigue of Pure Reason p. 583. M, When Johann Gottl Reinen Vernunft, simply unnecessar is sufficient to of the machinery selves. In addiw to account not 0: justice. Fichte content to the I to consciousness them, is “fundam and humanity is but “1 "'mmOrtal Christian God b, cause his think: Infinite Ego to tion and his idi 1°n9 to Fichtei nature's eVOlut After Fic Wilhelm JOSeph mind and matte] tics3 came 11nd, who had revive. HeraclituS an d 17W p. 3041:. ‘ K- 40 When Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762—1814) read the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, he decided that "the external world" was simply unnecessary. All we know is the self, he said; it is sufficient to posit "the Ego" as the source not only of the machinery of knowledge, but also the sensations them- selves. In addition, he postulated an Infinite Ego, God, to account not only for order and life, but morality and justice. Fichte, unlike Kant, ascribed more definite content to the Infinite Ego, even suggesting "that God comes to consciousness of Himself in human minds." The world, then, is "fundamentally more and more spiritual in nature" and humanity is held to have had not only a divine origin but an "immortal destiny".l7 Fichte had not brought the Christian God back into nature and history, however, be— cause his thinking was more akin to pantheism. The Infinite Ego to which he refers is a philosophical abstrac— tion and his ideas about human “origin" and "destiny“ be— long to Fichte's conception of the immanent processes of nature's evolution. After Fichte, it was an easy step for Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) merely to fuse mind and matter. He, like Fichte and other German Roman— tiCS, came under the influence of the mystic, Jacob Boéhme, who had revived "the philosophy of becoming" stemming from Heraclitus and Plotinus. Therefore, Schelling asserted 17W. K. Wright, A History of Modern Philoso h P. 304f. 3 that history was participated in t God, llthe primal the world of par and incessantly Being. So, Sche Kantian epistemo and vitalism, s to Absolute Idea the way for the Georg Wilh contradictions a structed his own which passed thr coming to consci human reason has follows naturall 1°9ical justific theory of knowle of the das—an—si world of things would mean that stances, is rad side any concei ~———.—__—_ 3 n the 0 thought, see Ni trans. by R. M. 41 that history was simply the evolution of mind.18 The mind participated in the great cosmic drama of becoming in which God, "the primal Absolute Idenity", individuates Himself in the world of particular beings while, at the same time, and incessantly returning to the universality of its own Being. So, Schelling's philosophy, under the impetus of Kantian epistemology, the Fichtean revision, German mysticism and vitalism, swung full circle from Cartesian conceptualism to Absolute Idealism. More important, Schelling prepared the way for the colossal efforts of Hegel. Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770—1831), falling upon the contradictions and ambiguities of Schelling's system, con— structed his own Idealism, a vision of Mind or Spirit, which passed through stages of development in time while coming to consciousness in human reason. This being true, human reason has infinite potentialities. Such a conclusion follows naturally from Hegel's metaphysics, but the epistemo— logical justification for his belief derived from Kant's theory of knowledge or, more precisely, from the criticism of the das—an—sich. Kant had said that the das-an—sich (the world of things behind sensations) is unknowable, but this would mean that something, apart from all accidental circum- stances, is radically impervious to the mind, totally out— side any conceivable human awareness, something from which 180n the dialectic of the divine and human in German thought, see Nicholas Berdyaev, The Divine and the Human, trans. by R. M. French. London, 1949, pp. 22—48. of the thing and said, the das-an only possible to ledge beyond it. line has an end words, if knowle morant of it. mind cannot kn that "existence' human conscious does not exist. existence is kn unknowable. Ev could not know simply have no 1 When Sore understood "the he made his own superbia cognes undertook to $11 and to put forv personal God W] said human ream Yet, it is a 3 ~——____ 19w. '1'. 1955, p. 46. 42 the mind is constitutionally alienated—-"by the very nature of the thing and our mental proceSSes."19 Therefore, Hegel said, the das—an—sich is self—contradictory, for it is only possible to know that it is unknowable by some know— ledge beyond it. For example, to know that a straight line has an end is to know the end of the line. In other words, if knowledge has no absolute limit, we must be ig— norant of it. It follows, then, that there is nothing the mind cannot know. Admitting this, we must further concede that "existence" has no meaning outside its relation to human consciousness. If something cannot be conceived, it does not exist. All knowledge is purely conceptual. All existence is knowable. Something may be unknown, but never unknowable. Even if there were something unknowable, we could not know that it was and, consequently, it would simply have no use, no place in human life. When Soren Kierkegaard (1813—1855) read Hegel and understood "the monstrous implications“ of his Idealism, he made his own philosophy, in part, a reply to Hegel's superbia cognescendi. A good Protestant, Kierkegaard undertook to smash the threat of Hegelianism to Christianity and to put forward his own religious position. Without a personal God Who has revealed His Will to men, Kierkegaard said human reason becomes the sole arbiter of reality. Yet, it is a grundlos reason, a reason without criterion, 19w. T. Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel. New York, 1955, p. 46. without a base f premises. Reaso and is condemned presuppositions , elusively out of exclaimed, can p forkmowledge. The Dane, or not we canno allthings are the senses; and where thought e something “imme conclusions) ma "given", there lieve is anythi there is no rea logic or expera' arbitrary deter suspension of j pretation of t', to demonstrate 2°Lord e scepticism is ically impossj Sense of Life, 1954, p. 11.7. to "methodolos ledge itself. IIIIIIIIIIIIIf_____________________________i “"'llllll! 43 without a base from which to articulate in terms of secure premises. Reason is impotent without divine foundations and is condemned to reqressus in infinitum, groping for presuppositions, necessary and universal, which move elusively out of reason's grasp. Hegelianism, Kierkegaard exclaimed, can provide none of the legitimate conditions for knowledge. The Dane, nevertheless, did admit, whether ironically or not we cannot say, that nothing escapes the mind and all things are judged by it, including the testimony of the senses; and, in fact, there is no way to determine where thought ends and being begins. Reason must have something "immediate", "a given", before its premises (and conclusions) may be guaranteed. Failing to achieve this "given", there is no way to prove that what I feel or be- lieve is anything more than completely subjective; and there is no reason to believe that any attempt to prove by logic or experimentation is really anything more than my arbitrary determination of the matter. Negation, affirmation, suspension of judgment remains an act of my personal inter- pretation of the external world. Indeed, there is no way to demonstrate there is an "external world” or my "ego".20 20Lord Bertrand Russell makes the statement that scepticism is “logically impeccable" although "phycholog— ically impossible" (Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York, 1948, xi). Cf. Also, Miguel de Unamuno, Tra ic Sense of Life, trans. by J. E. Crawford Flitch. New York, 1954, p. 117. These philosophers, of course, refer not to "methodological doubt", but to doubt concerning know— ledge itself. Nothing ca order to establi to discover the "How can I put a reach the beginn remarkable prope it is infinite ' it cannot be st stop itself, if the same way th choose its own and thrives."21 something else, different from will. Only whe process of reflw nature that the tinned infinite without presupp by breaking off as to make a be made cannot be end the infinii something "imme incontestable , ——-_______ 21Cone luc' W York, 1946 , p . IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllll---—________t 44 Nothing can be proven without a criterion, but in order to establish one, Kierkegaardsaid, it is necessary to discover the "beginning" of thought. Thus, he asks, "How can I put an end to reflection which was set up to reach the beginning in question?" Reflection has the remarkable property of being infinite. "But to say that it is infinite is equivalent to saying, in any case, that it cannot be stopped by itself; because in attempting to stop itself, it must use itself, and is thus stopped in the same way that a disease is cured when it is allowed to choose its own treatment, which is to say that it waxes and thrives."21 iOnly when reflection comes to a halt by something else, and this something else is something quite different from the logical, being a resolution of the will. Only when the beginning, which puts an end to the process of reflection, is a radical breach of such a nature that the absolute beginning breaks through the con— tinued infinite reflection, then only is the beginning without presuppositions. But when the breach is effected by breaking off the process of reflection arbitrarily, so as to make a beginning possible, then, the beginning so made cannot be absolute." It is necessary, in order to end the infinite regress of presuppositions, to give reason something "immediate", a "beginning" which is absolute, incontestable, from which to ascend and descend in its 2lQoncludinq Unscientific Postscript, in A Kierke_ aard Antholo , trans. and edited by R. Bretall. New YOrk, 1946, p. 197. reflections, tha labyrinth of gro it obsessively t other than what / kind, metabasis According was made two tho ending circle of Kierkegaard is not break into ignorance. Con things permissa no criteriologi and Dostoyevsky because He alon piercing the shr The Actus Purus "the Absolute I not concerned w is as if these if they put law that they will no reason to be God is not a d: M 22Conclur 2350ren . An Kierkegaard IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlIllllll---::r—————_____l 45 reflections, that is, reason cannot be delivered from the labyrinth of groundless assumptions and categories which it obsessively turns over and over again unless it becomes other than what it is--reason must "change into another kind, metabasis eis gilgcqénog."22 According to Kierkegaard, "the absolute beginning" was made two thousand years ago.23 Christ broke the un— ending circle of reflection; He transformed reason. If Kierkegaard is not right, if God does not exist and did not break into time, then, man remains in bondage and ignorance. Consequently, all things are relative, all things permissable, as Dostoyevsky said, because there is no criteriological absolute. The God to which Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky refer, moreover, is the Christian God, because He alone, among all the gods, was incarnated, piercing the shell of the cosmos and the veil of knowledge. The Actus Purus of Aristotle, the §gbstantia of Spinoza, "the Absolute Idea" of Hegel will not do: these gods are not concerned with man, they have not spoken to him. It is as if these gods did not exist at all. We do not know if they put laws to nature or if they have given cosmic laws, that they will remain. Without the Incarnation, there is no reason to believe, as Bertrand Russell once said, that God is not a demon whose only desire is ultimately to cast 22Concludin Unscientific Postscri t, pp. 198-199. 23Soren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, in WELAntholoqv. pp. 387—393. mankind intoe carnation all ex perhaps, the cor Friedrich same conclusion- out upon the ea meant utter mad ciple of all th invented the n m A' c i d t c c d k n 3 46 mankind intoendguflfiflnperdition. In short, without the In- carnation all existence is the history of the absurd, or perhaps, the corridor to infinite terror. Friedrich Nietzsche (1840-1900) came to nearly the same conclusion-~while denying the Incarnation. He looked out upon the earth and found no God. To have lost God meant utter madness. He is the ineluctable first prin— ciple of all thought and life. But God is dead. Nietzsche invented the now famous parable of the Madman: "Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, 'I seek God: I seek God: As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked such laughter. Why, did he get lost? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emi— grated? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his glances. ‘Wither is God', he cried. 'I shall tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from the sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night and more night coming on all the while? . . . God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him . . . What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our off Nietzsche concl and courageous valuation of va his insanity, untenable. Th ideas. The Ma it is also a c is evidence fo ginning", knowl meaningless . of nihilism ha We have temology, trav Nietzsche, and ophy of the £1 how "doubt" hi of modern phi epistemologie W Psychologist 25See t chapter entit PP! 80—1000 47 knives. Who will wipe the blood off us? . . . t'Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. 'I come too early,‘ he said then; 'my time has not come yet. This tre— mendous event is still on its way . . ." Nietzsche concluded that now, since God was dead, a new and courageous affirmation of life was urgent, "a trans- valuation of values" was required; but his own tragic life, his insanity, must persuade us that his naturalism was untenable. There can be no presuppositionless system of ideas. The Madman, to be sure, is autobiographical, but it is also a commentary on Western civilization; and it is evidence for the truth that without an "absolute be- ginning", knowledge is impossible and history is bitterly meaningless. God is dead, Nietzsche said, and the age of nihilism has begun.25 We have now outlined the evolution of modern epis- temology, traversing the two centuries from Descartes to Nietzsche, and have shown the manner in which the philos— ophy of the former led quite naturally to the latter--and how "doubt" has led to doubt not to certainty. The history of modern philosophy discloses only a limited number of epistemologies. The alternatives are empiricism, idealism, 24Quoted in Walter Kaufman's Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psycholoqigtyand Aptichrist. New York, 1946, p. 81. 258ee the entire discussion in Kaufman, the third chapter entitled, "The Death of God and the Revaluation", pp. 80"100. or some variati begin with idea assumed by hist seen to be no 0 tion. Those th because they ar cause reason ca permits. When clear that mode knowledge of hi need not be int ship which deli from history, t accept that ana the teachings 0: Most histr idealists, posi‘ be predisposed ‘ know that Speng and Freeman are philosophical p The interest se 0f any given hi tion. But such tent. The mind historiography: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-lllll---——_______i 48 or some variation of them. In the next section—~which will begin with idealist historiography--the epistemologies assumed by historians and philosophers of history will be seen to be no other than those already reviewed in this sec— tion. Those theories of knowledge repeat themselves not only because they are part of a continuous tradition, but be~ cause reason can offer only those choices which its nature permits. When we have finished this chapter, it should be clear that modernity has not only failed to gain any certain knowledge of history and its meaning, but a fortiori we need not be intimidated, nor impressed, by the immense scholar— ship which deliberately excludes metaempirical realities from history, that is, we are not at all required to accept that analysis of the patristic witness which traces the teachings of the Church Fathers to natural sources. 2. Most historians do not usually call themselves idealists, positivists or realists, even though they may be predisposed to one school or another. Most scholars know that Spengler and Hegel are idealists, that Mommsen and Freeman are positivists, but they tend to ignore the philosophical presuppositions of a particular historian. The interest seems to be not in the speculative aspects of any given history, but in method, facts and interpreta- tion. But such an attitude is both delusive and inconsis- tent. The mind of the historian is the central data in historiography: the method is chosen and applied, the "facts" are cho None of this ca theory of knowl then, to this In in the writing It has al acknowledges n Thus, philosop which is life, is no historic opposed to min except as the of history is that is possib vanni Gentile, out of time an in order to trr to the concret thought, to wh self-conscious of a temporal as it were, it pended from be single event 1 can be evalua1 25"The l sophy and His edited by R. I ——7 49 "facts" are chosen and classified, the past is interpreted. None of this can be done without criterion, without a theory of knowledge, tacit or expressed. Let us turn, then, to this mattere~to the decisive issue of epistemology in the writing of history. We will begin with idealism. It has already been ascertained that idealism acknowledges no existence outside consciousness, thought. Thus, philosophy which is thought is equated with history which is life, existence. PhilOsophy is history. There is no historical "fact" which is examined as if it were opposed to mind, to consciousness. The past does not exist except as the thought of the past. The temporal character of history is unreal. To know the past "in the only way that is possible, is to make it live again," asserts Gio— vanni Gentile, "to actualize it; and that means to take it out of time and freeing it from its chronological character, in order to transfer it from the abstract world of facts to the concrete world of the act (the historian's act) of thought, to which all facts belong in the synthesis of self-consciousness."26 There can be no facts in the sense of a temporal sequence independent of the mind, a chain, as it were, in which it is imagined that events are sus— pended from beginning to end in some neutral ether. A single event reaches out in a myriad direction which never can be evaluated empirically and whose meaning can never be 26"The Transcending of Time in History", in Philo- sophy and History: EssaygyPresented to Ernst Cassirer, edited by R. Kilbansky. New York, 1963, p. 100. found by mere r in the eternity In other historical know truth", the "in thought and bei "the externalit and being.28 understood as to elict knowl to a system of “the categoric Idealists refu world“ of past cause historic: of events is f historian as t‘ Hegel, "Cognit the source and form, whose pr figuring mater which does n01 Thought 2'IGsnti 28w. K. 29The P Hegel, edited 50 found by mere research. "The past is time losing itself in the eternity of the thought which grasps it.“27 In other terms, idealism resolves the question of historical knowledge in terms of “the coherence theory of truth", the "internality of relations", the identity of thought and being as opposed to the empiricist idea of "the externality of relations", the duality of thought and being.28 History, the idealist argues, must not be understood as a mere conjunction of "facts" somehow arranged to elict knowledge, but all "evidence“ must be subordinate to a system of thought, the "facts" must be translated into "the categories of history" before they are meaningful. Idealists refuse to contemplate history as an "objective world" of past events to be analysed and classified, be: cause historical thinking is happening now and the world Of events is finally only the world of ideas with the historian as the constructive agent. In the words of Hegel, "Cognition, the thinking comprehension of being, is the source and birthplace of a new spiritual form, a higher form, whose principle is partly preserving, partly trans— figuring material. For thought is universal, the genus which does not die but preserves its identify."29 Thought examines events now, thought constructs them, 27Gentile, p. 105. 28w. K. Wright, A Histor of Modern Philoso h p. 320. 29The Philosophy of History, in The Philosophyo He e1, edited by Carl J. Friedrichs. New York, 1963, p. 40, thought passes could be neith events.30 Acc selves cannot expressed, giv judgment, beca deluding hims The historian of postulates' He must reme present is tal Because the tr to present ex; more than "to ideas.“ Trutl require nor re truth exists ‘ 30See M bridge (Eng.) Idea of Histo ~—-———_———— 31An In London, 1953, 320akes 33Oakes IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllll----—_______1 51 thought passes judgment on them. Without thought there could be neither the discovery nor the comprehension of events.30 According to W. H. Walsh, "Experiences in them- selves cannot be used to test theories, they have to be expressed, given conceptual form, raised to the level of judgment, because they can serve the purpose. But in the process of expression from which we set out the actual ex— perience is inevitably transformed. It is transformed by being interpreted . . . 931 He who believes that he plggg ggigen wie es eiggptlich gewesen, Oakeshott exclaims, is deluding himself; he cannot separate method and object. The historian always approaches the "facts" with "a system of postulates", for example, that the past is intelligible. He must remember that "the dependence of the past upon the present is taken to be the principle character of history."32 Because the truth belongs to a world of ideas, it belongs to present experience. Historical “fact" means nothing more than "to have found a necessary place in the world of ideas.“ Truth is a matter of coherence which can neither require nor recognize any external test or guarantee: truth exists within the whole.33 3OSee M. Oakeshott, Experience and Its Modes. Cam— bridge (Eng.), 1933, p. 94f; and R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History. New York, 1956, p. 215f. 31An Introduction to the Philgsophv of History. London, 1953, p. 75. 320akeshott, p. 109. 33Oakeshott, p. 111. For the ir‘ philosophy. It spite the trencl maintain it; be So long as the that by whic " must admit that a part of the " herence theory idealist epist laws of the un known only so other things, which all thin the totality 0 its powers to but, in the ve "Object" is de idealism says tion of the w] thinking nega' theory, since thought it is immediate 1y 1‘ 346, c; and Philosopl sented to Br: 1963, p. 42. ‘ W 52 For the idealist, then, history is another word for philosophy. It is an unfortunate position, because, de- spite the trenchancy of his argument, the idealist cannot maintain it; he cannot hold that thought absorbs “reality”. 80 long as the idealist considers thought itself to be that by which "reality" is discovered and defined, he must admit that thought itself is “part“ of “reality", a part of the "whole", and, thus, he has given the co- herence theory of truth a mortal blow. According to the idealist epistemology, thought itself must come under the laws of the understanding, that is, since anything is known only so far as it is limited or distinguished from other things, thought can never be "the absolute whole in which all things have their being.“34 No "object" can be the totality of reality. Therefore, the mind can apply its powers to the object as withdrawn from the whole; but, in the very act of abstraction, the limit of the "object" is defined and the whole is transcended, for idealism says that all knowledge is implicit in any por— tion of the whole. The thought which the mind is now thinking negates the universality and necessity of any theory, since it must always, one exception, viz., the thought it is now thinking. Again, nothing can be more immediately known to us as the knowing in which we are now 34G. Calogero, "On the So—Called Identity of History and Philosophy", in Philosophy and History: Essays Pre- sented to Ernst Cassirer. edited by R. Kilbansky, New York, 1963, p. 42. ‘ engaged "and the leads to an infi knowledge which and thought are or unchanging: ing way to isol: unchanging, the. of change. In contradictory . The ideal but it does mak escape philosop annal ever writ things and the: historian is n1 "facts"; and h covering them, opinions whate attitude we ho over, the hist pretations not raise them. i ahnys an impr to be more, "3l 35Calog r 36A. Si N 37"A De v—: _ 53 engaged "and the demand to know knowledge in any other way leads to an infinite regress by its requirement to know the knowledge which knows that knowledge."35 Finally, if being and thought are identical, then, either they are changing or unchanging: if they are changing, there is no convinc- ing way to isolate and grasp any object; and if they are unchanging, there is no way to account for the observation of change. In other words, idealist epistemology is self- contradictory. The idealist theory of knowledge may be untenable, but it does make the point well that the historian cannot escape philosophy. Indeed, every chronicle, narrative or annal ever written presupposes some View of the nature of things and their intelligibility. It may be that the historian is not usually concerned with anything but the "facts"; and he may not care about the possibility of dis— covering them, but he cannot escape the truth that "all opinions whatever are affected to some extent by the attitude we hold about the nature of knowledge."36 More— over, the historian must confess that his method and inter- pretations not only preSuppose philosophical questions but raise them. And if Johann Huizinga is right that history "is always an imposition of form upon the past, and cannot claim to be more,"37 then, surely the philosophical implications 35Calogero,p. 25. 36A. Sinclair, The Conditions of Knowing: An Essay Towards a Theory of Kpowledq_. London, 1951, p. 13. 37"A Definition of the Concept of History", in ‘ of historiograp] It may be their accounts some philosophi to all historic attempts to re] occur by accide wars, revoluti< economic, socii formation of SI ing philosophi tions, says Go a philosopher. rien, je ne sc simply cannot for he has n01 ence of the CI prevalent conr Again, he mus whether it is exists at all the world of M Philosophy ar iii-“£2, editel 38"Jed auch ein Ges V°n Geist is limbleme der 1“ Milan 1961, p' 141 54 of historiography are evident. It may be true that most historians do not offer their accounts of the past in order to construct or justify some philosophical theory, but such theory is inherent to all historical interpretation. The moment the historian attempts to relate events, when he inquires whether events occur by accident or necessity or explains the causes of wars, revolution or the decline of empires; or suggests the economic, social and religious factors centrifugal in the formation of some ancient era, then the historian is think— ing philosophically. The historian must ask these ques- tions, says Golo May, and when he does, he is thinking as a philosopher.38 The historian who says, "Je ne propose rien, je ne suppose rien, je n' impose rien . . . J' expose" simply cannot have a genuine understanding of his work, for he has not taken into serious consideration the influ— ence of the climate of opinion, method, language, the prevalent conception of evidence, or indeed, his inner self. Again, he must decide whether there is truth in history, whether it is different from other truths or whether truth exists at all. It is doubtful that the historian approaches the world of men and events without ideas and emotions, BhllQfiQBhy and History: Essays Presented to Ernst Cas— sirer, edited by R. Kilbansky. New York, 1963, p. 5. 38"Jeder Historiker ist, ob er es weiss oder nicht, auch ein Geschichtspilosoph, wenn er naeml1ch e1n Mann von Geist ist und seinen Geist gebraucht" ("Die Grund— probleme der Geschichtspilosophie von Plato bis Hegel",, in Der Sinn der Geschichte. Hrsg. von L. Reinisch, Mun1ch, 1961, p. 14) without any can available to h' Perhaps, history? It se that which one to define the I: having scrupulo risk of imposin it may not have with what voice To what does th inquiry possibl Can the histor‘ into the past ' historian, lik objects ('2) and is not the fie] sYmbtilic univer t11°11th moves : his data, the 1 he not in fact Past? Is not struction, not historical km; \ 39An Es e W “Cassi: 55 without any conviction that truth exists or that it may be available to him. Perhaps, the first question should be-—what is history? It seems logical to inquire about the nature of that which one is seeking to understand. But in trying to define the nature of history--or any subject-—before having scrupulously investigated it, do we not run the risk of imposing a definition and meaning which in fact it may not have? But if we allow history to speak to us with what voice does it speak and with what do we listen? To what does the historian direct his inquiry? Is any inquiry possible without some knowledge of the subject? Can the historian confront the events themselves or enter into the past in order to elicit what he must "know"? The historian, like the physicist, lives in a world of material ObjeCtS (?) and, although his "evidence" is physical (?), is not the field of investigation, as Cassirer says, "a SymbOIic universe-~a world of symbols"?39 Again, if our thought moves inductively, if the historian accumulates his data, the disjecta membra, and synthesizes them, does he not in fact impose order on the scattered limbs of the Past? Is not Cassirer right when he says, ”Ideal recon— struction, not empirical observation, is the first step in historical knowledge"?40 .___________________ 39An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy Of Human Culture. New York, 1953, p. 221. _____.___________ 40Cassirer, p. 221. Very much impasse’, logica made in the emu ation with seci histories" for approach of the "facts" and de governs them, historian with laws.“41 lines tistical analy puted social f filling "the i by means of ci history . . . legitimately i logical or met teleology, car of"cause", m: datum, then, ; within a syst Pirical verif handmaiden of 80ci010gy, f( M 413 y C: by D01191as A, collingWOQd, 42Croc 56 Very much aware and concerned about the historian's impasse: logical positivism imagines that progress will be made in the emulation of the physical sciences and collabor- ation with sociology. It eschews the writing of "universal histories" for monographic and national histories. The approach of the positivist is to collect and classify the ”facts" and determine the laws of mutual dependence which governs them, furnishing thereby the narrative of the historian with "the principles of explanation of these laws."41 These laws, moreover, are formed through sta- tistical analysis of interdependently, mathematically com- puted social factors which ostensibly produces a unity by filling "the interstices of the various special histories by means of civilization and culture, and so-called social history . . . .“42 Thus, history becomes a science and can legitimately ignore all notions of transcendency, theo- IOgical or metaphysical. And, too, the question of "end", teleology, can be replaced, as in science, with the idea of "cause", mechanistically conceived. A "fact" is simply datum, then, something mathematically ascertained and placed Within a system of hypothesis and justified wholly by em— Pirical verification. In this way, history is become the handmaiden of the higher sciences, standing in relation to SOciology, for example, as physiology to zoology. _____________________ 41By Croce, History: Its Theory and Practice, trans. by Douglas Ainsle. New York, 1923, p. 296. Cf. also R. C°llingWOOd, The Idea of Histor , pp. 126—133. 42Croce, p. 304. For all i logical positiV than the ideal: confine reason abstracting, b1 between known accepts modern matic theories of cognition i and unambiguou ever more per things.“43 his entire at tation is upo as meaningful truths“ which Leibnitz, the history of ph his contempt positivist t< The fi: sensation wi‘ iately creat positivist c our sensatit 57 For all its panting after the physical sciences, logical positivism no more eludes the curse of epistemology than the idealism which it abominates. Not only does it confine reason to comparing, relating, distinguishing and abstracting, but also it never defines the relationship between known and knower. Yet, positivism uncritically accepts modern categories of thought and, like "all dog— matic theories of knowledge", postulates "that the object of cognition is something fixed and given” whose "absolute and unambiguous definiteness" can be understood "in an ever more perfect and adequate reflection upon a world of things.”43 The positivist will not think metaphysically; his entire attention is given to "making sense"; his medi— tation is upon the melody of language, and he recognizes as meaningful nothing save "mathematical and empirical truths" which may be traced, in modern times, to Hume and Leibnitz, the latter being the only philosopher in the history of philosophy that he admires. It may be, perhaps, his contempt for all thinking but his own that blinds the pOSitivist to the inherent defects of his own position. The first mistake of positivism is the equation of sensation with perception, for by it a disparity is immed- iately created between mind and "the external world". The positivist cannot ever hope to get to "the far Side Of ' _ ll Our sensations" and must assume the eXistence of the external N 43R. Kilbansky, "The Philosophical Character of His— tOrY", in Philosophy and History: Essays Presented to Ernst $23.12, edited by R. Kilbansky. New York, 1963, p. 325f. world" by virtu gives one the r tain material t tions", writes not, to say tha that such sensa accurate descri statement abou ports to be me This is the "p all ideas and sense", mere t ontic referent or rather, any But, the principle? It alization abou contends, this register our ' statement of : in virtue of ‘ needs empiric into "the sna find amongst 58 world" by virtue of the sensations we experience. "What gives one the right to believe in the existence of a cer— tain material thing is simply that one has certain sensa- tions", writes A. J. Ayer, "for whether one realizes it or not, to say that the thing exists is equivalent to saying that such sensations are obtainable."44 "Truth" is the accurate description of sensations—~does this rule out all statement about the past?——since any statement which pur- ports to be meaningful must be verified by observation. This is the "principle of verifiability" which considers all ideas and beliefs unconfirmed empirically to be "non— sense", mere tautologies. There is no concern for the ontic referent of sensations, because it cannot be known, or rather, any question regarding its reality is meaningless. But, then, what sort of statement is the verification principle? It cannot be an a priori truth or even a gener— alization about sense-experience, for, as E. L. Mascall contends, this principle cannot make assertions, but only register our "linguistic conventions", whereas, if it is a statement of fact, “then it is a synthetic proposition, and in virtue of the very assertion which it makes, itself needs empirical verification.“45 Ayer seems to have fallen into "the snare which the empiricists customarily claim to find amongst the metaphysicians, that of packing into their 44LanguageLTruth and Logic. London, 1946, p. 50. Cf. R. Carnap, Philosophy and Logical Syntax, in The Age of Anal- sis, edited by Morton White. New York, 1955, pp. 203-225. 45Words and Images. New York, 1957, p. 8. principles wha juror inserts the stage.”6 concede that " of Positivism, the “principle physical knowl "over or beyon of things, ab such like . "47 Metaphy ject such ide 2mg, etc., metaphysical constitution must be sensu of "the exter acter of the empirical is other side 0: unknowable. W 46hasc 47R. 1 iii. 59 principles what they want to get out of them, as a con— juror inserts the rabbit into the hat before he comes onto the stage."46 In fact, Ayer and his school must further concede that “the verification principle", like every aspect of Positivism, carries an implicit metaphysics, that is, the "principle" was contrived in order to give no meta— physical knowledge or, as Carnap puts it, all that which is "over or beyond experience, e.g., about the real Essence of things, about Things in themselves, the Absolute and such like."47 Language and judgment have been deliberately geared to evince nothing metaphysical.48 Metaphysics, however, is unavoidable. One may re— ject such ideas as Deus, substantia, accidentia, materia Brigg, etc., but in that very rejection one has taken a metaphysical position, that is, a view about the ultimate constitution of the universe. To say that all knowledge must be sensual is to make an assertion about the nature of "the external world”, its intelligibility and the char- acter of the human mind. To recognize all knowledge as empirical is to say that either there is no world "on the other side of sensations" or that "the other side" is unknowable. Either position is inimical to the positivist 46Mascall, p. 8 47R. Carnap, Philosophy and Logical §yntax, pp. 213- 214. 48To be more accurate, the positivist says that "metaa Physical propositions" while describing no reality do have an "expressive function", that is, like art they express “emotional or volitional dispositions" Carnap, p. 220). attitude tower the positivist sensuous. He a non-sensuous restricted to something abou non-sensuous i knowable sensu positivist dic physical stan "representati reality. It is nc ance with and permitted log: philosophy am presuppositio. "there can be spread instin of things.“‘r“C derives from that every 61 cedents in a principles . " 60 attitude towards metaphysics. To be perfectly logical, the positivist must be utterly silent about anything non— sensuous. He has no right to say whether or not there is a non-sensuous reality or even that our knowledge must be restricted to the senses, for in either case he is saying something about the nature of things: the denial of the non-sensuous is a contradiction, the affirmation of only a knowable sensual world is untenable. And finally, the positivist dichotomy of knower and known is clearly a meta— physical stance, for thought is a function of being and "representative perception" presupposes an attitude towards reality. It is not a persuasive argument either that the alli— ance with and the imitation of the physical sciences have permitted logical positivism to banish metaphysics from philosophy and history. Science, too, has its metaphysical presuppositions.49 Thus, Alfred North Whitehead wrote, "there can be no living science unless there is a wide— spread instinctive conviction in the existence of an Order Of things."50 This "instinctive conviction", he continues, derives from the medieval idea of “the inexpungable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its ante— cedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying generah principles."51 This "belief", in its turn, rests upon ”the 49See A. E. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science. London, 1932. 5OScience and the Modern World. New Yerk, 1952, p. 4. 51Whitehead, p. 13. medieval insis other words, i possibility of i velopment of mt derivative fror else, the "sci: medieval theolr prevailing at sophically, it struggle betwe anism, mystici Many thi cognizant of 1 dained the hy} metaphysics 0] leading Weste: were smotheri less mechanis nineteenth ce entific mate by which his man freedom c Thus, most h:‘ lay with epi knowledge an IIIIIIIIIIII_____________________________i 61 medieval insistence of the rationality of God."52 In other words, it is historically true that "the faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the de- velopment of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology."53 To be even more pre- cise, the "scientific faith" is contingent upon not only medieval theology but the whole range of circumstances prevailing at the birth of the physical sciences. Philo- sophically, it was a birth preceded by a long metaphysical struggle between monism and pluralism, vitalism and mech- anism, mysticism and humanism. Many thinkers in the nineteenth century were fully cognizant of the weaknesses of logical positivism and dis- dained the hyposticization of science. Not only were their metaphysics obvious, but also science and positivism were leading Western man into an insufferable collectivism and were smothering individual creativity beneath their joy- less mechanism. Historicism led the revolt against the nineteenth century idea of "progress” and opposed to sci— entific materialism its own Platonic and Romantic ontology by which historicism sought to halt the exhaustion of hu— man freedom and man's uniqueness at the empirical level. Thus, most historicists, believing that the critical issue lay with epistemology, simply ignored current theories of knowledge and turned to antiquity for guidance. They took 52Whitehead, p. 13. 53Whitehead, p. 14. a metaphysical ular trend. philosophical One of t Friedrich Mein dualism, he po and a timeless changing in c exists in a 5 reached by co the empirical nor truth. Ag says that the offer us no c1 ular "epoch". epistemologicz is insulated, every moment of the world comes throug exc 1a ims , Me 1959, p. 147 —7— 62 a metaphysical posture in complete opposition to the pop- ular trend. They repudiated mechanism and materialism for philosophical spiritualism and vitalism. One of the chief spokesmen for historicism was Friedrich Meinecke (1866-1952). Accepting the Platonic dualism, he posited a relationship between the human mind and a timeless ueberwirkliche Welt.54 This "world" is un— changing in contrast to the physical or wirkliche Welt which exists in a state of change, panta rhei. The former is reached by contemplation, the latter by observation—-it is the empirical order which contains in itself neither law nor truth. Applying his philosophy to history, Meinecke says that the usual methods used to investigate the past offer us no criterion for judging the value of any partic- ular "epoch". The past cannot be penetrated——not only for epistemological reasons——because every "epoch“ in history is insulated, like a Leibnitzean "monad". Nevertheless, every moment in history is immediate to the timeless reality of the world above; therefore, an understanding of the past comes through grasping the universal and eternal values the ueberwirkliche welt gives to all "epochs". "Vertically, not horizontally, does historical life strive," Meinecke exclaims, "toward the heights it can achieve. In every epoch, in every individual formation of history, egotism 54Gedanken ueber Welt— und Universalgeschichte, in Meinecke Werke (bd. II) hrsg. von Carl Henrichs. Stuttgart, 1959, p. 147. reigns, strivi icism, then, t process of nat stratum, no "n By placing its entific mecha believes that and freed hum in precisely floundered ag vidualism—-s that the univ posed to elim. testations cow 55"Virt liche Leben 2 In jeder Epoc Geschichte re Welt" (Gesch 11), p. 99). 55R. G. . 57See ( 1n Historiogr (1936-1937), 581. B: 59See “Wan (Okla s... us %( 4 ——— 63 reigns, striving upward to a higher world."55 For histor- icism, then, the meaning of events is not found in the process of nature, but above it, for events have no sub— stratum, no "natural continuity“, no temporal "substance".56 By placing its pluralistic vitalism in opposition to sci— entific mechanism and epistemological dualism, historicism believes that it has overcome collectivism and materialism and freed humanity from both.57 But having avoided “the Charybdis of reducing every- thing to verifiable behavior or identifiable men and women in precisely identifiable places and times,"58 historicism floundered against the Scylla of its own Leibnitzean indi- vidualism-~subjectivism and relativism.59 Meinecke insisted that the universality of the ueberweltliche welt was sup- 1 posed to eliminate this danger,60 but none of his pro- n testations could prevent "the anarchy of values". "That 55"Virtikel, nicht horizontal strebt das geschicht— liche Leben zu Hoehe, die es ueberhaupt erreichen kann. In jeder Epoche, in jedem individuellen Gibilde der Geschichte regen Egoismus emporstreben in eine hoehere Welt" (§§§chichte_gpdggqenwart, in Meinecke Werke (bd. II), p. 99). 56R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Histor , p. 213. 57See C. A. Beard and A. Vagts, "Currents of Thought in Historiography", American Historical Review, XLII (1936-1937), 466f. 581. Berlin, Historical Inevitabilit , p. 16. 59See G. Barraclough, History in a Changing world. Nbrman (Okla.), 1956, pp. 1-7. 60K:ausalitaeten_gnd Werte in der Geschichte, in Mein- ecke werke (bd. II), p. 82f. historicism is a fact to requ field. "Every relation--and place, context there is no tr itself is ato the end it is essentially m icism is subj relativism 1e of eternal ve vidualistical and since the historicism 0: Yet, hi; it orients us derable which his prejudice his thinking Has he alway in the futur answer any 0 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIllIlllIll-----__.________i 64 historicism is the progenitor of relativism is too obvious a fact to require demonstration", writes Professor Butter- field. "Everything is related, judged and evaluated in relation-~and far too often only in relation—~to time, place, context and environment; there are no absolutes; there is no transcendent sanction for man's action; morality itself is atomized, particularized, pulverized, until in the end it is held to be 'impossible to think one man essentially more wicked than another'."61 And, too, histor— icism is subjectivst, that is to say, its monadological relativism leads to solipsism, because the timeless world of eternal verities is something which is understood indi- vidualistically, privately, without public verification; and since that "world" cannot be demonstrated to exist, historicism offers humanity only solipsism. Yet, historicism does come to the heart of the matter: it orients us to the real issue in modernity, "the impon- derable which is the human personality."62 It is not only his prejudices, the strength of his emotions, the laws of his thinking that puzzles us, but man himself. What is man? Has he always been the same, has he changed, will he change in the future? There seems to be no evidence with which to answer any of these questions. But if we do not, then, we have no certainty that our study of history is accurate or 61Historv and Human Relations. London, 1951, p. 108. 62Henri Pirenne, "What are the Historians Trying to Do?", in The Philos0phv of History in Our Time: An An- thology, edited by Hans Meyerhof. Cambridge (Mass.) 1959, ever will be . epistemo logica be any genuine are assured th less we "know" the historian Might not the knowledge? An God and whethe if we knew on and, therefor tions confron In as m recognizing " determine his history as it some magic or possibly bene: predict the f' should have t mined" or "u and even in so in the fu ought mankin Who shall te hmself? Pe will? Has H —7 65 ever will be. Past epochs will be closed to us not only epistemologically but anthropologically. How can there be any genuine knowledge unless we know what man is and are assured that he was and always will be the same? Un- less we "know" what he is, what right have we to demand that the historian be impartial and seek objectivity as an ideal? Might not the true definition of man solve the enigma of knowledge? And could we not discover whether there is a God and whether man is ordained to Him as to his End? And if we knew our destiny might we not also know our origin and, therefore, lay to rest all the other vexatious ques— tions confronting mankind? In as much as modern man has resigned himself to recognizing "the mystery of origins" and seems unable to determine his end, does it not seem vain to seek to "know" history as it happened? If perchance we shouid uncover by some magic or machine the past as it was, what could it possibly benefit us? Would the knowledge permit us to predict the future or in some way alter the present? We should have to first ascertain whether history was "deter— mined" or "undetermined". If "undetermined” in the past and even in the present, could we be sure that it would be so in the future? If history is "open“, in what direction ought mankind to move? What is the criterion for the choice? Who shall tell us? The state? Will each man decide for himself? Perhaps, God? Does He exist? Do we know His Will? Has He spoken clearly? Has He spoken at all? If, on the other goal? Will i of history to or malicious? internal and the past or a native-—the c how do we "kn if we satisfi "know" in wha confused fre All th tance--does that each ge meal.“ I because if ii would deprim be only powe not seem to cyclicism, {honkinLd-n IIIIIIIIIIIIII:_______________________——7 66 on the other hand, history is "determined", does it have a goal? Will it have a goal? Are we to understand the goal of history to be under the control of a Mind (beneficent or malicious?) or impersonal forces? Without freedom, internal and external, of what value is our knowledge of the past or anything else? Perhaps there is a third alter— native-—the coexistence of determinism and freedom. But how do we "know" that we exist in such a condition? And if we satisfied ourselves that we do exist, how should we "know" in what respects we are free? Or that we had not confused freedom and bondage? All these questions raise yet another of equal impor— tance—~does history have a meaning? Theodor Litt suggests that each generation must find its own meaning, its own Endziel.63 He denies that history has a meaning er se, because if it had, then, history would have "norms" which would deprive it of freedom and without freedom there would be only power and power leads only to tragedy. It does not seem to have occured to Litt that the meaning of his- tory is simply tragedy. The Kantian, Karl Popper, agrees that history has no universal meaning. He rejects Greek cyclicism, Spenglerian Untergangstheorie and Saint Augus— tine's civitas dei, in a word, all the traditional opinions concerning the meaning of history.64 In his optimism, 63"Die Selbstbesonderung des Sinns der Geschichte," in Der Sinn der Geschichte. hrgs. von L. Reinisch. Munich, 1961, p. 81f. 64"Selbstbefreiung durch das Wissen," Der Sinn der Geschichte, p. 106. Popper instru and by their ‘ The only prec tains, is a d per leaves us democracy and government an per say, unco meaning in hi there is none But the port from Chr never has be the problem c asserts, and Meaning comes and without 1' the power wh: Niebuhr conc cause it has of the ratio story of man pation from N —— 67 Popper instructs us to learn from the past and the present and by their illumination to establish our own Zielsetzung. The only precondition for the search for truth, he main— tains, is a democratic and pluralistic society. But Pop— per leaves us without any convincing reason for accepting democracy and pluralism rather than some other form of government and social order. Indeed, both Litt and Pop- per say, unconvincingly, that hitherto man has found no meaning in history, but this notion does not certify that there is none. But the liberal tradition has received curious sup— port from Christian thinkers. Karl Leowith says, "There never has been and never will be an immanent solution to the problem of history."65 Time is a mystery, Toynbee asserts, and we do not know the design of the universe.66 Meaning comes only with faith, that is, the Christian Faith and without it, history is absolutely sinnlos. Faith gives the power which unaided reason does not possess. Reinhold Niebuhr concurs, but adds that modernity has erred, be— cause it has placed its faith in "the empirical strategy of the rational faculty."67 It wants to see history as the story of man's increasing power and freedom, his emanci— pation from the ambiguities of existence. The cross of 65Meaning in History. Chicago, 1937, p. 191. 66"Sinn und Sinnlosigkeit,“ in Der Sinn der Geschich— Eg. hrsg von L. Reinisch. Munidh,196l, p. 87. 67Faith and History. New York, 1949, p. 3. modern man is cal assumptio: "the scientif: thereby acqui of the meanin toric catastr worship of ra the idols of tion of men a tive forms 0 human existe as progress In fac tion from ev revolution 0 avoid nihilis [against meta} God with his1 betrays the I value of its. ciples of in lies . . . . tory. He ha 7 e 1956, pp. 2 68 F modern man is the vanity of his imagination, his egotisti— cal assumption that human reason has the capacity to chart "the scientifically observable structures of nature" and thereby acquire "a simple rational answer to the problem of the meaning of his existence."68 He does not see his- toric catastrophes as judgments against the idolatrous worship of rational institutions, the wrath of God against the idols of culture and civilization, against the inclina- tion of men and nations to regard their tenuous and tenta— tive forms of human order and justice as final forms of human existence, because modern man interprets his tragedy as progress towards perfection. In fact, historical growth is equated with redemp— tion from evil.69 In the words of Albert Camus, "The revolution of the twentieth century believes that it can avoid nihilism and remain faithful to true rebellion [against metaphysical and religious bondage], by replacing God with history. In reality, it fortifies the former and betrays the latter. History in its pure form furnishes no value of itself. Therefore, one must live by the prin- ciples of immediate expediency or keep silent or tell lies . . . ."70 Man is not redeemed, he is consumed by his- tory. He has been cast completely upon his own inadequate ‘68Niehbuhr, p. 58. 69Niehbuhr, p. 109. 70The Rebel, trans. by Anthony Bower. New Ybrk, 1956, pp. 289—299. resources and God from hist but instead m own passions durate beneat is somehow co some day bani for the past. demands of th to create his without found arched, like meaning or pu nothingness is no God--o the truth. What, t that the hist and has broug iated with “I not even abl: son must havr escape the i to "the sure toriography, “cris is in —7— 69 resources and has been reduced to impotence. Having driven God from history, he sought to replace Him with himself, but instead man has become less human, the servant of his own passions and powers.71 Nevertheless, he remains ob- durate beneath the blows of suffering and terror, for he is somehow convinced that science and technology will some day banish all fear of the future and all nostalgia for the past. But he is a somnambulist, ignoring the demands of the very ratio by which he hopes sua,sponte to create his "brave new world". His life is a Charade, without foundation, without certitude. His existence is arched, like some cruel and voluptuous parabola, without meaning or purpose, between the nothingness of desire and nothingness of despair. His way makes no sense, for there is no God—wof whom the question must be asked-—to give man the truth. What, then, has this chapter told us? We have seen that the history of modern western thought began with "doubt" and has brought modernity only deSpair. All thinking init- iated with "I think" leads necessarily to agonizing ignorance, not even able to prove its own existence. Therefore, rea- son must have an extra-rational foundation if it is to escape the infinite regress of presuppositions and attain t0 "the sure path of knowledge". Otherwise, modern his- tOriography, unavoidably associated with the current modern “crisis in knowledge", can make no assertion about history 71Camus, p. 73f. and no pronoun lies beyond do torical writin has no right t understanding “evidence " . clusion of "t claring that Thus, when th "evidence", t as subjective In 0th history are conclusions cerning the credence? W] of Alexandri: Zeno? Why d1 christology Mater and Is in doctrine it impossibl merely prep not the peg piety have IIIIIIIII___________________________________ii 1"IIIEEEEE 70 and no pronouncements about "historical evidence" which lies beyond doubt. The scientific method of modern his- torical writing offers no certainties and, consequently, has no right to deny validity to an alternate, even opposing, understanding of history and the nature of historical "evidence". The modern historian has no basis for his ex- clusion of "theology" from history; and no basis for de- claring that all "evidence" must have a natural source. Thus, when the Fathers accept an extra-natural source of "evidence", there is no basis for dismissing their "faith" as subjective, superstitious, self-deceptive or fabricated. In other words, if, as Meyerhof says, ”the methods of history are often dubious and suspect",72 then, why are the conclusions of Harnack, Holl, Koch, Wolfson, etc., con— cerning the nature of the patristic witness, given such credence? Why are Saint Gregory of Nyssa or Saint Cyril of Alexandria examined in terms of Plato or Aristotle or Zeno? Why do scholars look for the source of patristic christology and ontology in the cults of Mithras, Magna Mater and Isis? Who do historians assume that similarity in doctrine necessarily implies identity of origin? Why is it impossible that the ancient cultures and religions are merely preparatory to the Christian revelation? Why can— not the pagan similarities to the Christian doctrine and piety have been providential anticipations in human nature 72The Philosophy of History in Our Time: An Anthol— °_qr, p. 20. night we not and familiar through antec Paul meant by historians un Very li with "the lib methodology h which have pe which may or pect, even a strable. In matter of hi the facts", " "the language tion" of hisi “freedom", "i Thus, we ask tory? Why n reasons, but not permit ’ fear of his IIIIIIIllllllll-"""""'L'— 71 of what God could and would accomplish in Christ? Rather than saying that paganism influenced Christianity, why might we not say that God rendered the evangel appealing and familiar to the world in which the Church appeared through antecedent analogies and types? This is what Saint Paul meant by "the fullness of time". Why cannot modern historians understand the Fathers in this way? very little has been accomplished by secular historians with "the liberation of history from theology". Their 3 methodology has left them with materials they call "facts” I which have permitted them to give us a historical narrative which may or may not be accurate; but the narrative is sus— pect, even as its epistemological assumptions are indemon- strable. In addition, to those assumptions, "the subject matter of history presents a problem", as do "the nature of the facts", "the primary aim of a historical narrative", “the language of history", the "theory" and Einterpreta— tion" of history. Furthermore, there are the questions of "freedom", "values", "meaning" as well as "method".73 Thus, we ask, why does he not revise his thinking about his- tory? Why not reintroduce "theology"? He will not for many reasons, but primarily because his "secular faith" will not permit it. Then, we proceed with our "method" with no fear of his criticism. 73Hans Meyerhof, The Philosophy of History in 0g; Tnme: An Antholo , pp. 18—25. In the tory, nature, "secular fait doubt and, f; was unhallow‘ God, 0n the tie "philoso is no other Nevertheless of the Chris both are dis Concern fer and M Special rev carnation i reason insi In t} CEpt 0f Lil distinguis} neceSSary ~; genera 11y j CHAPTER III THE ECONOMY OF GOD: A DEFINITION In the preceding chapter we learned about the his— tory, nature, scope and fate of the modern historian's "secular faith". we observed that "faith" gave rise to doubt and, finally, despair. The primary data of his "faith” was unhallowed reason. "The economy of God", the Will of God, on the other hand, is the primary data of the patris- tic "philosophy of history". That "philosophy", in fact, is no other than an intellectual delineation of the "economy“. Nevertheless, the "economy", oikonomiai is not the totality of the Christian revelation which also includes "theology", theologia, the "knowledge of God" in Himself. Moreover both are distinguished from "providence", pronoia, or God's . . / . 9 / concern for all His creation. Pron01a, unlike Oikonomia and theologia, may be discerned in things without the Special revelation of God, the Incarnation: but the In— carnation illuminated "providence" and lends to human reason insights it could not otherwise obtain. In this chapter, then, we intend to define the con- cept of oikonomia, showing its scope and limit and thereby distinguishing it from both theoloqia and pronoia. It is necessary to make these distinctions, because they are generally not drawn. The failure to understand the difference 72 between these ; cerning the na‘ revelation. I and "economy" the complete p its exclusiven ligion is func' "theology" mus or we must del accommodate t] we relativize Christianity ‘ the distincti b“ equate "e in Christolog “ring the 3c of that "thec of M ters Clarity The wo; or, as it wa ment of the In the Chris IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlI---::——————————————* 73 between these ideas leads, as it has lead, to errors con- cerning the nature of the patristic witness to the Christian revelation. In other terms, if "providence", “theology" and "economy" are simply identified, the result will be the complete perversion of Christianity's uniqueness, its exclusiveness. Either we must concede that all re— ligion is fundamentally the same, since "economy“ and "theology" must be revised to accommodate "providence"; or we must deny the existence of "providence" in order to accommodate the Christian revelation. In the first case, we relativize all religions; in the second, we absolutize Christianity at the expense of history. Now, if we maintain the distinction between “revelation" and "providence", but equate "economy" and "theology", as we shall see, error in christology and triadology will ensue, even as it did during the Scholastic period and the Protestant revision of that "theological" rationalism. In brief, a definition of oikonomia theou is necessary to give the following chap~ ters clarity and accuracy. The word "economy" means literally "the law of house", or, as it was commonly applied in antiquity, "the manage— ment of the household" or "the administration of a state".1 In the Christian sense, "economy",_§:konomia--or as it was used in Latin texts, dispensatio——is synonymous with God's — 1For the many uses of the word oikonomia, see W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich, Aggreek-Enqlish Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Christian Literature. Chicago, 1957, 562: and A Lexicon Abridged from Lgddell and Scott's Greek- English Lexicon. Oxford, 1953, 478. plan of salvat redemption. ' and insight tl pose which He ness of time, things in Chr 9-10). The " Will, "the my the sons of m disclosed to Spirit" (Phil to all creatj in God who c] FOllow; that the neel so, Since it for how COul TherefOIe, S is the mYSte and Man beca \ editedzgeEi gart, 1960, IIIIIIIIIIIIII:—______________________——I 74 plan of salvation, His “secret arrangements” for man's redemption. "For He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His Will, according to His Pur- pose which He fixed in Christ as an economy for the full- ness of time," wrote Saint Paul, "to recapitualate all things in Christ, things in heaven and on earth“ (Eph. i, 9—10). The "economy” is the revelation of God‘s eternal Will, "the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in former generations as it has been now disclosed to His holy prophets and apostles by the Holy Spirit" (Phil. iii, 4—5). Their witness was "to manifest to all creation the economy of the mystery hidden for ages in God Who created all things" (Eph. iii, 9—10).2 Following Saint Paul, Saint John Chrysostom says that the "economy" is a"mystery", "and well may it be called so, since it is not manifested to all, not even the angels—— for how could it be when it was I'made known by the Church'? Therefore, Saint Paul states that 'without controversy great is the mystery'. Great, indeed, it was: for God became Man, and Man became a God.“3 And Saint Basil the Great writes, 2The Greek text is found in Novum Testamentum Graece, edited by Eberhard Nestle. Twenty—fourth edition. Stutt- gart, 1960. 3E9. ad I Tim. XI, 1 PG 62 555. Cf. St. Ignatius of Antioch, in The Apostolic Fathers (vol. II) trans. by K. Lake. Loeb Classical Library. London, 1925, Ad Eph. xx, 1; and xviii, 2; St. Irenaeus, Contra Haer., V, praef. PG 7 1120; St. Methodius of Olympus, De Jonah Hist., 2 PG 18 329D; St. Athanasius, Ora. de Incarn. Verbi. Dei, 54 PG 25 192B; St. Gregory Nazianzus, Poem. Dogn., X, 5—9 PG 37 465; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Ora. Catech. 25 PG 45 65D; and St. Maximus the Confessor, Ad Thal. 60 PG 90 921AB. "The economy recall from t God which the the reason f< pattern of H: fering, the 1 man is saved In the words 0f the ”econ Christ into Maximus the economy, Chr looking to j the knowledg lowed3u6 I} De\i, thosre ‘ which man i Partakers 0 Althc SalvatiOnu, tory "ecom IIIIIIIIIIIII:___________________________i 75 "The economy of our God and Savior concerning man is his recall from the fallen state, a return to communion with God which the disobedience of Adam had caused. This is the reason for the visitation of Christ in the flesh, the pattern of His life described by the Gospels: His suf— fering, the Cross, the Tomb and the Ressurection. Thus, man is saved by Christ, receiving the ancient adoption.“4 In the words of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, the entire purpose ‘ of the "economy" was “to transform what was assumed by i Christ into something divine and incorrupt."5 And Saint I Maximus the Confessor tells us that "as a result of the economy, Christ is already working the things of the future, looking to future joy, the satisfactory contentment of the knowledge which is the end promised to the Lord's be— loved."6 In other words, the "economy" is the magnalia Qgi, those divine acts, beginning with the Incarnation, by which man is brought into communion with God, “to become partakers of the divine nature" (II Pet. i, 4). Although the Incarnation initiated "the economy of salvation“, the Greek Fathers recognized two other prepara— tory "economies" leading to the finality of the divine epiphany: the economies of the Jews and of the Gentiles, 4De Spirit. Sanct., 34 PG 32 128D. See St. Athana— sius, Contra Ar. II, 6 PG 160B; and st. Gregory of Nyssa, De Bapt. PG 46 416C. 5Contra Eun. v PG 45 693A. 6Cap. Theol. et Oecon. II, 24 PG 90 1136B. especially thi referred to t I / 7 oikonomia; a Jews with "th tion."8 The E, even if, tYPes or pser Er, son of A] OrPheus retu: Pened among 1 "who has Vis but a Short . Logos".10 A Greek Philos mind' to Chr The "economi Creed by the 10 Con °f “exam : edited 1951: ,5}? 11 The Je & W —i—7 76 especially the Greeks. Thus Saint Gregory of Nazianzus referred to the covenant between God and Old Israel as oikonomia;7 and Saint Athanasius identified the God of the Jews with "the Logos Who became incarnate for our salva— tion."8 The Gentiles, too, had their preparatio evangel— iga, even if, in many instances, it took the form of anti— types or pseudo—analogies of the Christian truth, such as Er, son of Armenius, who rose from the funeral pyre, or Orpheus returning from Hades."9 "For nothing good has hap- pened among men without the Divine Logos," Origen exclaimed, ”who has visited the souls of those who are able even if but a short time to receive these operations of the Divine Logos".10 And Clement of Alexandria, as we know, described Greek philosophy as "a schoolmaster to bring ‘the Hellenic mind' to Christ, just as the Law was for the Hebrews."11 The "economies", like all the good in the cosmos, were de— creed by the Father but executed by the Son and the Holy 7Ora. II 24 PG 35 433A. Cf. Gal., iii 24. 5 ) 8Contra Gentes, 45 PG 25 89B. Cf. St. Irenaeus, Contra Haer. IV, 14 PG 7 lOllA-lOlZA. 9Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. by H. Chadwick. Cam- bridge (Eng.), 1953, II, 16, 56; St. Justin Martyr, I A 01 60 PG 6 417Af; and see L. Bouyer, The Pasch§l_Mysterv. trans. by Sister Mary Benoit. London, 1951, pp. xviii— xxiii, 321—325. '2 10Contra Celsum, VI, 78. Cf. Rom. i, 14—16; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson. Grand Rapids, 1951, I, 5; St. Justin Martyr, I A201. 46 PG 6 397C. llStrom. I, 6. See A. C. Purdy and G. H. MacGregor, The Jew and the Greek: Tutors Unto Christ. New York, 1936. Spirit Who pe The mom divine source ./ theologia, th His relation is, according concerns "the and wise, pm being.“l3 T1“ t0 one anothe of theology” I theologia is \ sons and does Since the ris of the Christ Certainly rer / J 91: and oikox \ J \ Whereas 0ik01 IIIIIIIIII'll-lll-l-I-I-I-I-I-L__ 77 Spirit Who permeates all things.12 The moment the Greek Fathers began to explain the divine source of the "economies", they were discussing theologia, that is, the "knowledge", gnosis, apart from / His relation to the creation, God in Himself. Theologia is, according to Saint Maximus the Confessor, that which concerns "the unending, unlimited, undefinable, both good and wise, powerful and providential, the Judge of all being."13 The relationship of the Persons of the Trinity to one another, says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, is "the mystery 5 \ .. I I \ of theology"'Gto tes theologias mysterion}l4 In other terms, I theologia is the "knowledge" of the Divine Nature and Per- sons and does not, as it has been understood in the West since the rise of Scholasticism, comprehend the totality of the Christian experience.15 The Fathers, Greek and Latin, certainly recognized an intrinstic relation between theolo- / l / . gia and Oikonomia, but the two levels of discourse were not -_ / confused. Theologia is fundamentally closed to reason J / whereas oikonomia is open to it.16 12St. Justin Martyr, II Apol., 10 PG 6 461B; St. Atha- sius, Ora de Incarn. Verb. Dei, 8 PG 25 109A; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Ora. Catech. 25 PG 45 65D; St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. VI, 6 PG 33 548A, etc. l3CaR. de Chai: Cenfit; II, 27 PG 90 992D. Cf. St. Basil, E . VIII ad Caes. 3 PG 32 252A. 14Corregga Eun. IV PG 45 624A. 15For example, one need only read Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas or Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion or Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology. lGIt is probably with Augustine's analogy between the In itseI sense and the sensible and : and non-being not metaphysi ledge of God, human mind--r_n mt: tha rationalism i 17st. r 39973. See (VOL 11), tr St. Justin Me Alexandria, _: Adv. Eun. I, ENTRZ Pi 10 PG 45 828: PG 48 720; Si 1, 1 PG 90 l! 2 PG 94 800B 78 In itself, the Trinity is beyond reason, beyond “the sense and the operation of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, all things in the world of being and non-being . . ."17 The knowledge of God is existential not metaphysical, "mystical" not rationalist.18 The know— ledge of God, moreover, differs according to the capacity human mind—~memoria, intellectus and voluntas--in his 2e Erinitate that we find the first example of theological rationalism in the Early church. 17St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Myst. Theol., I PG 3 997B. See also Hp. ad Diogn., in The Apostolic Fathers, (vol. II), trans. by K. Lake. London, 1925, VIII, 1; St. Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. 4 PG 6 484D; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. V, 2 PG 9 109A; St. Basil the Great, Adv. Fun. I, 6 PG 29 521f; St. Gregory Nazianzus, grg, XXXVIII, 2 PG 36 294B; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Fun. 10 PG 45 828f; St. John Chrysostom, De Incompr. Dei III, PG 48 720; St. Maximus the Confessor, Theol. et Oecon. I, 1 PG 90 1084A; and St. John of Damascus, De Fid. Orth. 2 PG 94 800B. l8The "mysticism" of the Greek Fathers, contrary to Scholastic and post Scholastic thought, was neither indi— vidualistic, exotic, erotic nor private and never opposed to the experience of the church. All the theolOgy of the Fathers was "mystical", because the object of this disci- pline, God, is "ineffable". See Fr. Eusebius Stephanou, "An Approach to Christian Philosophy", The Greek Orthodox TheologicalkReview, II, 1 (1956), 24f. Also, the Greek Fathers believed that the church possessed all Truth and nothing they taught was in Opposition to its tradition. Thus, St. Irenaeus wrote, Ubi enim_Ecclesia. ibi et Spiri- tus Dei; et ubi Spiritus Dei. ille- Ecclesiap et omnis gratia: Spiritus autem veritas (Contra Haeg, III, 24 PG 7 966C); and St. Maximus proclaimed, ”I have no private teach- ing, only he common doctrine of the Catholic Church"-- egfi dogma idion ouk.€cho. alla to koinbn tes‘hkklesias tés Katholikés (Rel. Mot., 6 PG 90 izoc). Cf. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. XVIII, 23 PG 33 1044AB; St. Basil, Hexa. III, 5 PG 29 65A; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eun. XII PG 45 984A; St. Dionysius, Div. Nom. 1, 1 PG 3 589B; St. John of Damascus, De Imag. III, 3 PG 94 1320D-1321A. On the mysticism of the Greek Fathers, see V. Lossky, Egg Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. by Members Of the Fellowship of St. Alban and/St. Sergius. London, 1957, pp. 7-66. Observe that Danielou, in comparison, of those to \ "economy" uni Trinity and, "Who illumini and Worshipf quires almos economy of t Trinity?( )3: tures of inc “ings and cc rection frog 0f the king the grace o; my Spirit ter than th Again Providence) to des(tribe 79 of those to whom it is given.- The special grace of the "economy" uncovers for the believer the gnfisis of God as Trinity and, indeed, the very meaning of the Incarnation. "Who illumined you with the faith of the Holy Consubstantial and Worshipful Trinity?“, Saint Maximus the Confessor in- quires almost rhetorically. "Or who made known to you the economy of the Incarnation of the Second Member of the Holy Trinity?C é tis oi egnorise ten ensarkon oikonomian tou heaps t§§_hagias Triados;)—And who taught you about the na— tures of incorporeal beings and the reasons for the begin- nings and consumation of the visible cosmos? Or the resur- rection from the dead and eternal life? Or about the glory of the kingdom of heaven and the dread judgment? Was it not the grace of Christ dwelling in you, the pledge of the ' Holy Spirit? What is greater than this grace? What is bet- ter than this wisdom and knowledge?"19 Again, "economy" is distinguished from "PrOVidence", / Providence, ronoia, is the term used by the Greek Fathers to describe "the care which God has for all things."20 defines non—patristic theology in non-mystical terms. The- ology is, he says, ". . . the use of the human understanding to arrive at the object of faith, intellectus quarens fidem (The_Lord of History, p. 245). 19%. de Char. Cent. IV, 77 PG 90 1068A. There is also an "economy of the Spirit“, but it is generally re- lated to the work of the Son. See V. Lossky, The Mysti— cal Theology of the Eastern Church, pp. 156-173. 20On the idea of providence in the Greek’Fathers, see H. de Juaye DuManoir, Dogme_et _piritualite chez Sainte Cyrille d'Alexandre. Paris, 1944, p. 86; and St. John of Damascus, 9e Fid. Orpho. II, 29 PG 94 965A. This contains something bot'. be known abou "Ever since t ture, namely, perceived in 19'20). Prov serves and gc all things ix x; 29). PrO‘ all things 01 Unlike the 'H mysterious ( is a sense i it exercized be in vain “ Incarnation Merino the °f men to t1 the writer , of the Seas. of NYSsa de COShhSk-klo and °Vercom \ 21Dic 220m 0f OlymPUS, 80 This contains a "knowledge” open to all men, possessing something both "knowable" and "utterable". ”For what can be known about God is plain to them", writes Saint Paul. "Ever since the creation of the cosmos His invisible Na- ture, namely, His eternal Power and Deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Rom. i, 19-20). Providence is the act of God by which He pre— serves and governs the cosmos, preventing the collapse of all things into nothing (Neh. ix, 6; Ps. xxxvi, 6; Matt. x, 29). Providence includes God's care for unbelievers and all things outside Christ's sanctification (Matt. vi, 26). unlike the "economy", providence is something dark and mysterious (Ps. xxxvi, 6, Rom. xi, 33). Nevertheless, there is a sense in which providence is also an "economy", for it it exercized to spiritual ends. All human effort would be in vain without providence. Pronoia existed before the Incarnation and exists now. It was and is involved in ordering the ways of men, the conditions and circumstances of men to the slightest detail (Prov. xx, 24). For example, the writer of the letter to Diognetus called "the changing of the seasons",g&konomia theo3121 In fact, Saint Gregory of Nyssa designated providence as "the economy of the / l, / . . cosmos"--kosmon Oikonomenon.22 Again, prOVidence overrules and overcomes the wicked designs of Satan (Phil. 1, 12). *— 21Piog. , IV, 5. ”W” praef., pg. 45 12A. Cf. St. Methodius of Olympus, Conviv. dec. Virg.,II Pg. 18 64B. Providence, creation, ev whereby the By the erally meant the special, redemption ( m of tl is a “knowl< tions with 1 the knowledv of God in n force in hi logical his the "knowle ProvidenCe men for the as a means Ural histox Vision be fr now making and M is Common, may now to: aCCOrding , —7—7 81 Providence, in a word, is the mercy and love of God for His creation, even though it is not "the economy of salvation" whereby the Father saves all those who abide in the Son. By the expression oikonomia theofi, the Fathers gen— ) \ /- oikonomia soteria "the economy of salvation", erally meant , the special, historical revelation of God's "plan" for the redemption of mankind in Christ. Theology is the saving gnosis of the Trinity which comes through Christ; but it is a ”knowledge" of God apart from his providential rela— tions with His Creatures. Theologia is m stikog, "mystical", the knowledge of a "mystery". Providence is the immanence of God in nature, the guiding, sustaining and enlightening force in history. We may call ”the economy of God“ christo- logical history "the history of salvation", which brings the “knowledge" of union, henosis, with the Trinity; but providence is a kind of "natural revelation" given to all men for the preservation of the race and the cosmos as well as a means to lead men to faith. Providence concerns "nat- ural history", man outside of Christ, although making pro— vision before the Incarnation for His Advent and even . .. . /. I. ./ now making prOViSion for His return, parouSia. Oikonomia / ‘\ and theologia are unique, privileged, limited, but pronoia is common, universal and unlimited. With this in mind, we may now turn to the exposition of “the economy of God' according to the Greek Fathers. TIMI We have d: patristic thougl identify the sp ophy of history or "economy" is nity. It is he the ancient wor Ciples which he heir "inteller of the Physica cosmos was con to time nor fa Mas’ter of all reason, condes so that they I the L0908, thi of the Church basis of thei the classical t° etEInity-. c lSee C. %' Nev , CHAPTER IV TIME AND ETERNITY: THE COSMIC SETTING We have defined the most general concept of Greek patristic thought-—"the economy of God"--but now we must identify the specific components of the Christian "philos— ophy of history". The first component of that "philosophy" or "economy" is its cosmological setting-—time and eter- nity. It is here, too, that the Fathers introduced to the ancient world new cosmOgonic and cosmological prin- ciples which helped to reshape Graeco-Roman civilizationi Their "intellectual revolution" was not their description of the physical world, but their declaration that the cosmos was contingent and man's destiny, subject neither to time nor fate, was revealed by a Deity Who, although Master of all things and transcending all the categories of reason, condescended to share the life of His creatures so that they might share the life of the Creator. It is the Logos, then, Who was the center of "the philosophy of the Church Fathers". It was the Logos that was the basis of their "radical revision", their “revolt" against the classical scientia.l The idea of time--and its relation to eternity-~was the conception which was viewed by the lSee C. N. Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture. New York, 1957, iii—vii. 82 Fathers as the 1 their debate wi For the G history, the ve ism--in art, ph from their conc state was the 1 perfect medium the good life j was the fullnes of human potem hibits nothing and coming-mg 11, xi, 338A), t0 be endured, be made tolarai circle of time COSmic PurPOSe "Completed" ‘ them. They We “the last thir. nally reeurrir and a<3ain.2 We can 5 Sixth bOOk Of IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-II------——————t 83 Fathers as the most critical intellectual problem in their debate with the ancients. For the Greeks, time determined the constitution of history, the very nature of human existence. Their natural— ism——in art, philosophy, politics, ethics, etc.——issued from their conception of time. Their belief that the city- state was the right unit of human society and the most perfect medium for education was based on the ideas that the good life is found here and now. Virtue, for the Greeks,~ was the fullness of manhood and the complete realization of human potentialities. In other terms, since time ex— hibits nothing but constant recurrence, an unending cycle and coming-to-be (Aristotle, de Generatione et Corruptione, II, xi, 338A), life is a series of adjustments, something to be endured, something to be exploited if it were to be made tolerable—~if at all meaningful--in the relentless circle of time. Thus, the Greeks had no word that meant . x“ . cosmic purpose—~telos was understood as "accomplished" or "completed". The christian idea of gschatos was alien to them. They were concerned with “first principles" not “the last things". History had no end, for it was eter- nally recurring, gnakyklssis, returning upon itself again and again.2 We can see this idea clearly illustrated in the sixth book of Poleius' Histories. Kingship, he said *9 2G. Florovsky, "Eschatology in the Patristic Age: An Introduction", The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, II, 1 (1956), 132s. deteriorates i1 and democracy ‘ ical developme: ways follow th from the other to understand ‘ change of each transformation follows "the c aPPOinted by n aPPear and fin Startedglll ”I all the above ily", POlybiue subject to dec Proof; fOr the us”% P°1Ybix manent cycle < PhenomenOn, b1 . / mflflkgstflrii, the SenSe .7 \ 3T}: . e H 4P°1ybi 5P°1Ybi 6P°lybi 7R. e o IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIll-llll---:_:———_____ 84 deteriorates into deepotism, aristocracy into oligarchy and democracy into anarchy. This is the nature of polit— ical development, he tells the statesman, and it must al- ways follow the same course. He who has seen "how each from the other naturally arises and develops will be able to understand when and how the growth, perfection, end and change of each is likely to occur once more."3 The natural transformation of one kind of government to its opposite follows "the cycle of political revolution, the course appointed by nature in which constitutions change, dis- appear and finally return to the point from which they started."4 "Lycurgus had perfectly well understood that all the above changes take place naturally and necessar- ily", Polybius observed.5 "That all existing things are subject to decay and change is a truth which scarcely needs proof; for the course of nature is sufficient to convince us.”6 Polybius, a typical Greek, believed that the per- manent cycle of time, the principle of cyclism, was not a phenomenon, but an underlying substance in things, a / hypokeimenon, something not servile to nature and hidden from the sense.7 3ghe Histories, (3 vols.), trans. by W: R. Paton. Loeb Classical Library. London, 1923, BdgksyI;,4, 4. 4Polybius, VI, 9, 9. 5Polybius, VI, 10, 10. 6Polybius, VI, 8, 57. 7R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, pp. 33-36. For this task an "inqui: the truth in t? more, for therl or end. Creat contrary to re tradition of H ence of inconc behind all the was an unseen pose" and “per the EXEQEEEEEE was no unity j "histories-u nc °f C°ntemlolatj Greek hj not always cor be°°ming and 1 SPired to make beginningless Suggesting in immutablY rin of Course, 30‘ history, 100k 0f the senses jectin, Onto 8Collin ——’i 85 For this reason, too, the Greek historian made his task an "inquiry", discovering when nature would disclose the truth in things, their.aitiai. History could do no more, for there was for the Greeks no absolute beginning or end. Creation would have implied something utterly contrary to reason and the philosophical and scientific tradition of Hellenism; and it would have meant the exist— ence of inconceivable power. Yet, they acknowledged that behind all the vicissitudes of the phenomenal world there was an unseen realm of things beyond it, a world of "re— pose" and "permanence". It was here that they looked for / the hypokeimenon of time's movement. Because, too, there was no unity in phenomena, the Greek historians spoke of "histories" not history,8 for unity is found in the world of contemplation. Greek historiography, then, presupposed, even if not always consciously, the dualism of time and eternity, becoming and being, matter and form. These concepts con- spired to make the Greek experience of history endless, beginningless time, moving tirelessly from point to point, suggesting in itself nothing but itself and infallibly, immutably riveted to its own totality. Some of the Greeks, of course, sought a way out of time, out of the flux of history, looking for salvation up and away from the world of the senses. The solution, they said, had to be ob- jective, ontological, rational. They would not have accepted .._—__ 8Collingwood, p. 22. the Kantian ex1 than the form 1 of ourselves a: is the formal general."10 T of time becaus cycle of past, Time was Greeks, but ar cate themselve ment to happi} ThUS, Plotinu: things, even ] WOrld 0f Ulys; beComing What broken by no the SOUl find where there i temporal em of this desir Escapes the l 9% 10Kant 11 . III, 1, 3&3 121310t l3Plot ——— 86 the Kantian explanation of time, "Time is nothing other than the form of the inner sense, i.e., the intuition of ourselves and our inner circumstances."9 Again, "Time is the formal condition a priori of all appearances in general."10 The Greeks would not have rejected his theory of time because Kant had not seriously dealt with the cycle of past, present and future. Time was not simply an intellectual problem for the Greeks, but an existential agony. They wanted to extri- cate themselves from it. Time was an ontological impedi— ment to happiness, to freedom from suffering and death. Thus, Plotinus (204 A.D.-270), contemptuous of sensible things, even his own body, struggled to emerge from the world of Ulysses and Circe, to "a life never varying, not becoming what previously it was, the thing immutably itself, broken by no interval."ll Only in "eternal repose" can the soul find beatitude, only in "the vision of the good" where there is the cessation of all activities native to temporal existence, can man know truth.12 The realization of this desire, he said, was possible only if the soul escapes the body, that is, time.13 Consequently, Plotinus 9Kritikwger Reinen Vernunft, p. 68. lOKant, loc.cit. llThe finneads, trans. By S. MacKenna. New York, 1951, III, 1, 7. 12Plotinus, VI, 8, 10-11. 13Plotinus, III, 7, 7-8. completely rej Christian sens awakening“, he with the body. tion would haw present impri: renewed endle: ph11050phy, Plotinu: his "mysticisx does not show does not even turn to Saint SCmtiny of t the Eleventh ‘ I know: if I know not; ye Passed away, ing, a time t Present Were how are they, 1‘“ Yet? But never Pass ir but eternity‘ cometh into 6 how can We se l4P10t.‘ IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIl---——_______t 87 completely rejected the idea of the resurrection in the Christian sense. The "true resurrection", the "true awakening", he argued, is "resurrection from the body not with the body."14 The Christian belief in the resurrec- tion would have meant to him—~and all the Greeks--that the present imprisonment in the flesh, in time, would only be renewed endlessly, hence, negating the very object of philOSOphy. Plotinus may have received comfort and virtue from his "mysticism”, but he achieved nothing else. The Enneads does not show that he confronted the problem of time; he does not even pretend to give an analysis of it. we must turn to Saint Augustine for the first and most profound scrutiny of time. "What then is time?", he inquires in the eleventh book of the Confessions. “If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly that I know that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were com- ing, a time to come were not; and if nothing were, time ' present were not. Those two times, then, past and to come, how are they, seeing the past is not, and that to come is not yet? But the present, should it always be present and never pass into time past, verily it should not be time but eternity. If time present (if it is to be time) only cometh into existence, because it passeth into time past, how can we say that either this is, whose cause of being is, ‘— _—— l4Plotinus, III, 6, 6. that it shall no that time is, bu After pond past and time-to there is no past “I ask, Father, Who will tell me Present and futu W0 are not? or becomes present, 50, when retirir where did they, as yet they are And they Who rel in mind they cm they could not 1 come, are."l6 and present and “Plain in what present 0f thint sight; PreSent . infOrms Us Only Present While n m themselVeS lSTh e 16 1 St- Allg 7 St. AUg LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-lllll---———_______ 88 that it shall not be; so, namely, that we cannot truly say that time is, but because it is tending not to be?"15 After pondering questions about the length of time- past and time—to-come,;intervals which have no meaning if there is no past, present and future, Augustine continues: “I ask, Father, I affirm not: 0 my God, rule and guide me. Who will tell me that there are not three times . . . past, present and future: but present only, because those other two are not? Or are they also; and when from future it becomes present, doeth it come out of some secret place; and so, when retiring, from present it becometh past? For where did they, who foretold things to come, see them, if as yet they are not? For that which is not, cannot be seen. And they who relate things past, could not relate them, if in mind they did not discern them, and if they were not, they could not be discerned. Things past, then, and to come, are."l6 Reason, says Augustine, can tell us that past and present and future seem to be, but it is difficult to explain in what manner. The soul apprehends times as "the present of things past, memory; present of things present, sight; present of things future, expectation,"17 but the soul informs us only that the modes of time are grasped as present while not certifying the nature of past and future in themselves. There is no way to compare or measure what 15The Confessions, trans. by E. B. Pusey. New York, 1949, pp. 253-254. 168t. Augustine, p. 256. 17St. Augustine, p. 258. no longer exist; is mute. It is pro? gave no such an they affirmed t unlike him, the order, that is, ical concept wh not theological the fact of God Au(lilsizine comps and cannot be e \ 18Vladimi Greek Fathers ( ”Mn, p. 102} Altaner’ Quaste Greek Fathers 1 7—"——’: ’ no longer exists and what has not yet come to be. Reason is mute. It is probably for this reason that the Greek Fathers gave no such analysis of time.18 Not unlike Augustine, too, they affirmed that time was created with the cosmos.19 But unlike him, they placed time wholly within the "economic" order, that is, the order of being: time is an ontolog— ical concept which is understood, if at all, historically not theologically. Although the fact of time is related to the fact of God as Creator, God is incomprehensible-- Augustine compared the Trinity to the faculties of the soul—~ and cannot be subsumed under the category of being.20 God l8Vladimir Lossky devotes but a single page to the Greek Fathers on time (The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 102) while our other authorities, Tixeront, Altaner, Quasten, make no allusion to the matter, that is, no mention of an Augustinian analysis. The approach of the Greek Fathers to time is historical and cosmological. 19St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XI, 6; St. Basil, Hexa. I, 6 PG 29 16C; St. Maximus the Confessor, De Ambig. PG 91 ll64BC. 20Greek patristic ontology is usually misunderstood. It is true that the Fathers often Speak of God as "being", but never existentially. The object of knowledge is be—, ing, says St. John of Damascus, but God "does not belong to the class of existing things; not that He does not exist, but He is above all things having being, even above exist- ence itself. For if knowledge concerns be' g, surely what is above knowledge is above being (hyp r ousian); and conversely, what is above being is above knowledge, God, then, is incomprehensible . . . " (De Fid. Orth., I, 4 PG 94 8OOAB). The association of God and "being", therefore, is no affirmation, but a negation in the mouth of the Greek Fathers, for being is vacuous. The word is used to avoid any affirmation (St. thn of Damascus, 8003). It is other— wise,with Thomas Aquinas who applies "names" substantially: Et ideo aliter dicendum est; guod hujgsmodi quidem nomina sigpificant substantiam divinam,_et prggicantgr de Deo sub- §tantialiter sed deficunt a repraesentatipne ipsius (Summa is the creator fies Saint Maxi existence from altogether and pagite says tha creature.22 Tr the visible or tempted the Gre ca], account. 1 commentaries up expressed in t5 Prevailed in t} W, \ Mo, edited IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-llll---———_______ 90 is the creator of the ages and all that is in them, testi— fies Saint Maximus the Confessor. He brings them into existence from nothing, "not imperfectly nor in parts, but altogether and completely."21 Saint Dionysius the Areo— pagite says that God even transcends eternity which is His creature.22 The idea of creation, whether appertaining to the visible or invisible worlds, is a mystery and nothing tempted the Greek Fathers to speculate beyond the Bibli— caL account. It is true that the cosmology found in their commentaries upon the Biblical narrative "is necessarily expressed in terms of the conception of the universe which prevailed in their own age", but their hexaemarai are in- debted to Plotinus or Aristotle or Plato for language and modus opegandi, but not for truth.23 In other words, the Theol., edited by D. DeRubeis, etc., Turin, 1926, PP. q. 13, a. 2). In the words of Etienne Gilson, "If God is be- ing, He is not only total being: totum esse, but . . . He is more especially true being: verum esse, and that means that everything else is only partial being, hardly deserving the name of being at all" (The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, trans. by A. H. C. Downes. New York, 1940, p. 64). That God is above all the categories of reason, see also St. Maximus the Confessor, Cap. Theol. et Oecon. I, 7 PG 90 1087C. This fact contradicts, incidentally, Emil Brunner‘s allegation that a continuity exists between patris- tic and Scholastic theology on the question of God and be- ing (Revelation and Reason, trans. by O. Wyon. Philadel— phia, 1946, p. 345). Zlgap. @01. 8t OGCOD. I, 5 PG 90 1085A. Cf. II Nbcc. vii, 28. * 22Div. Nom. II, 10 PG 3 673D. Cf. St. Maximus the Confessor, Cap. de Char. III, 28 PG 90 10258. 23V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 104f; and G. Florovsky, "Eschatology in the Patristic Age: An Introduction", 31f. For a study on the Fathers invest: livered to ther Evangelists . "2‘ There is tradition and of the Fathers that creation They did not 0 nothing about ‘ gave it, that the cosmos, th it Order, E CO-eternal wit “0t bring matt the antonomotls will to order. \ ielation betWe Sa\ f int Basile 3§7§E;—e~—.._e IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllll---———_______1 91 Fathers investigated nothing beyond that which had been de- livered to them by "the Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists."24 There is no material synthesis of the Christian tradition and "the wisdom of the world“ in the cosmogeny of the Fathers. They give ample testimony to the truth that creation is not an idea of a philosophical nature. They did not compromise with ancient dialectics which knew nothing about creationism other than the sense which Plato gave it, that is to say, the Demiurge, the designer of the cosmos, the one who arranged prc—existing matter, gave it order, kosmos, fashioning all things from that which is co—eternal with him. The “creator" of the Timaeus does not bring matter, hyle, into existence, for it exists as the autonomous pure potentiality of being even without his will to order.25 On the other hand, the God of Christianity relation between Christian thought and ancient wisdom in the l Hexaemaron of St. Basil the Great, see YVes Courtonne, f Saint Basile et l'hellenisme. Paris, 1934. On the mystery of the Divine act of creation, see St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Joan. Evanq. I, PG 73 132-145. On the value of pagan wisdom, in general, St. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, said that he found Plato most useful, but only when he was in agreement with the church and its Holy Scripture. Where there is conflict he said, "we must abandon the Platonic chariot"-—he Platonikon harma (De Anima et Res., PG 46 49C). This matter of the attitude towards and the utilization of pagan wisdom by the Greek Fathers--almost always miscon- strued by modern scholarship-~will be taken up in the last chapter of this study. 24St. John of Damascus, De Fid. Orth., I, 1 PG 94 789B; and St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Div. Nom., I, 1 PG 3 588Aa 25"In order to establish the relation between the world of ideas and materia and to form an ordered world, the Cosmos, from its chaotic suring, matter must be shaped by created ex nih Again, the Fat] because not on imply the notil visible and in' his Oratio Catt ifies “an argw an argument wh its Very natur continues, two the nature of bOdiless, With Sense, by its Senses." Thou solute-IE7, beca consonance of all things; an creation itSel with the Divin sensible and i equally pertic —i— 92 created ex nihilo both the world of sense and intellect. Again, the Fathers make no adjustment to Platonic dualism, because not only does the distinction of dimensions not imply the notion of irreconcilable disparity between things visible and invisible, things temporal and eternal. In his Oratio Catechetica Magga, Saint Gregory of Nyssa clar— ifies "an argument . . . we have received from the Fathers, an argument which is no mythical narrative, but which from its very nature invites our credence." There are, he continues, two means of human apperception corresponding to the nature of existing things. "The world of thought is bodiless, without sensibility or form while the world of sense, by its very name, is perceived by the organs of the senses." Though distinguished, they are not opposed ab- solutely, because "a certain harmony is maintained by the consonance of opposites through the Wisdom which preserves all things; and, thus, there is a symphony of the entire creation itself, no break in the two worlds, only conformity with the Divine Wisdom--intercourse, unity between things sensible and intellectua1-—in order that all things might equally participate in the good and no existent be without mind," writes Eduard Zeller about Platonic cosmogeny. “To illustrate this idea, Plato makes use of the mythical form of the creator. This does not involve a creation,g§ nihilo, an idea which was entirely unacceptable to the Greek mind, but merely the reduction of the primitive state of chaos into an ordered and designed Cbsmos" (Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, thirteenth edition, trans. by W. Nestle, New YOrk, 1959, p. 165. a share in tha‘ All that Basil, includil intelligible :1 beginning God . perceptible m0} indivisible an the road is no is not yet the let be time, n that the begin ation the divi is absurd to i We further div of one-.0r m0, nUmber of begi is diViSible t the beginning of God made 121‘ .u27 have an end, E either the be( against the 01 ——71 93 a share in that superior nature."26 All that exists was created by God, states Saint Basil, including time which shares in both sensible and intelligible realities. "Perhaps, these words 'In the beginning God created' signify the instantaneous and im- perceptible moment of creation. The beginning . . . is indivisible and immediate. For just as the beginning of the road is not yet the road and the beginning of the house is not yet the house, so the beginning of time could not yet be time, not even the least portion of it. The objection that the beginning is a time, does not take into consider- ation the division of time-~beginning, middle and end. It is absurd to imagine a beginning of a beginning; and if we further divided the beginning in two, we make instead of one--or more precisely, several, or even an infinite number of beginnings-~many, for all that which is divided is divisible to the infinite. Then, when it is said, 'In the beginning God created', it is to teach us that the Will I of God made the cosmos to arise in less than an instant . . . ."27 Since time has an absolute beginning, it will i have an end, Basil says in another place, and to deny either the beginning or the end of things is blasphemy against the Only—Begotten Son of God.28 25Ora._Cat __g , VI,PG 45 25BC. Cf. St. Maximus the Confessor, iholon ton ex horaton kai haoraton synista- menon (M sta o ia, 7 PG 91 684D-685A). 27Hexa. I, 6 PG 29 160D. See note 19, page 89. 28De Spirit. Sanct. 43 PG 32 l45D—l48A. Erich Frank Another 3 us further tha' gent, measured ”Beginning, mit extended in ti] possessing the. Aeon."3O Beca' have any numbe‘ category of 'w‘ beginning to t Aeons were beg Within them be end of the ent is God Himself all things as is their begin dence and the 32 (Law IIIIIIlllllIll[::::——————————————————————’ 94 Another Father, Saint Maximus the Confessor tells us further that time was not only created, but it is contin- gent, measured and made subject to the categories of being.29 "Beginning, middle and end characterize things which are extended in time," he explains, "and any period of time possessing these attributes, as someone has said, is an Aeon."30 Because time, which is a measurable movement, may have any number of Aeons . . . it is subsumed under the category of 'when‘ experiencing interval and receiving the beginning to that existence. Of course, if time and its Aeons were beginningless, then, much more would the things within them be curtailed by the same limitations."31 The end of the entire temporal process, Maximus says elsewhere, is God Himself. He is "the beginning, middle and end of all things as their energy——yet suffering no change-—for He is their beginning as Creator, their middle as their provi— dence and the end of all as their boundary."32 In a word, makes the interesting observation that the Christian con— ception of time, the idea of its creation with the cosmos, is neither to confuse it "with the metaphysical assumption that the world had a beginning in time nor to make any con— cession to the notion that the principle of its creation is to be found within the world" (Philosophical Understanding and Religious Truth. New YOrk, 1956, p. 59). Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. PP. q. 46, a. 2; and Summ. Contra Gentiles, in The Basic WOrks of St. Thomas Aquinas, (vol. II), Edited by A. C. Pegis. New York, 1945, II, 38. 29Gnost. Cent., I, 5 PG 90 1085A. 3OSt. Maximus the Confessor, loc. cit. 3lSt. Maximus the Confessor, De Amb. PG 91 1073BD. 32Cap. Theol. et Oecon. I, 10 1085D-1088A. time is not cy< ning and an em time, which art with no other ] eternal, becau; come to an end and flow into If we tu a clear summar its difference ,AmA‘L/HHAH—nlmnfl‘mi-JQJB. III[I:—__________________________________———fi 95 time is not cyclical, because it contains not only a begin- ning and an end, but "aeons" or measurable durations of time, which are terminated by intervals and can be equated with no other period of time. And, too, time is not eternal, because when its purpose is fulfilled, time will come to an end——or, at least, lose its temporal character-- and flow into eternity. If we turn to Saint John of Damascus, we will find a clear summary of the patristic explanation of time and its difference from the "age“ and "eternity": "He created the ages Who Himself was before all the ages and of Whom the divine David said, 'From ages to ages Thou art' (Ps. xc, 2); and Saint Paul also says, 'Through whom He created the ages' (Heb. i, 2) . . . The life of each man is called an age . . . a period of a thousand years is called an age . . . the whole course of the present life . . . the future life, the immortal life, after the resuru rection. Again, the word 'age' is used not to denote time itself nor yet any part of time measured by the movement and course of the sun flue. clock—time . . . but the kind of temporal motion and interval that is coextensive with eternity. For 'age' is to things eternal what time is to things temporal. Now, seven ages of the cosmos are mentioned, that is, from the creation of heaven and earth to the general consumation of things and the resurrection of men . . . the eighth age is the future age. Before the cosmos was established, when there was no sun to divide the day from the night, there was not an age that could be measured, but there was nevertheless a certain temporal motion (ti chronikdn kinema) and an int,rval coextensive with eternity ( idios). And in this sense, l—thHrf' drrmmrrI—l-mtflm s‘s‘r-rlr-sA It is notewort eternity as sc the agees or ti it is not thei time and "the Di°niISius the 96 there is but one,age, and God is refe red to as aionios and proai— onios, for the age or aion itself is His creation. For God, Who alone is without beginning, is Himself the Creator of all things . . . But we speak also of ages of ages, in as much as the seven ages of the present cosmos includes many ages . . . Further, everlasting life and punishment show that the age to come is unending. For time will not be counte by days and nights (oude gar meta EES hemgrais kai nuxin ho chronos arithmésetai) after the resurrection, for then there will be rather but a single day with no evening . . . .“ 3 It is noteworthy that although the Greek Fathers identify eternity as something other than time—-whether time gga the ages or time Qua the omnipresent medium of living-— it is not their practice to limit "the present age" to time and "the future age" to eternity.34 Thus, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite says that sometimes the Scrip— tures declare the glories of a temporal eternity and an 33De Fid, Orth. II, 1-2 PG 94 86lB-864C. 34Erich Frank, following the Augustinian—Thomist tradition, insists that eternity ”is an idea of which we can have no notion or experience." It is difficult to understand, then, how he can define “the Christian concept of eternity" as "timeless, something beyond time and incom— mensurable with it, for if we have "no notion or experi— ence" of eternity, we could not know that it was impossible to have no "notion" or "experience" of it. He is only partly correcting in saying that "the Christian term 'eternity‘ should be distinguished from the Greek term aeon which means 'everness'. For the Greek philosopher, aeon- ign is that which is always (éfil), unending, and conveys the idea of infinite duration. Everness is an everlasting now, a perpetual present" (Philosophical Understanding and Reli ious Truth, p. 60; and p. 77, note 16). We shall see later that the Greek Fathers believe that Christians already experience eternity. eternal time, describes and out end and ti Time and then, because through an "ag through the In a kind of temp observes, "all take this time soPhical reint is nothing but this unending come so Clear: the Word, ggié t0 a limited , tween What We between everl; Eternity is to In 0ther Wor d Eternity had time °°ntains eternity whic delPhia\ -,D BM WtOn E istle to t} and Matt 0 Xij 6Chris l9ec IIIIIIIIII:____________________________——7 97 eternal time, although we understand that more strictly it describes and reveals eternity as the home of things with- out end and time as the home of things which have birth.”35 Time and eternity are not distinguishable absolutely, then, because the latter is in touch with the former through an "age“; eternity dips into time, to be sure, through the Incarnation. Furthermore, "the future age” is a kind of temporal period, for, as Oscar Cullmann rightly observes, "all talk about the coming age that does not take this time qualitylpf eternityjin full earnest is philo- sophical reinterpretation." Again, he states that "time is nothing but a part, defined and delimited by God, of this unending duration of God's time. Nowhere does this come so clearly to expression as in the . . . fact that ) / the word, aion ('age‘), is the same word that is applied to a limited division of time; otherwise expressed, be- tween what we call eternity and what we call time, that is between everlastingly continuing time and limited time . . . . Eternity is the endless succession of the ages (aiohes)."36 In other words, eternity does succeed time, but not as if eternity had appeared at the end of history abruptly: time contains many ages which pass into one another and into eternity which is the final, unending age. 35Div. Nom., x, 3 PG 3 123A 36Christ and Time, trans. by F. V. Filson. Phila— delphia, 1960, pp. 62, 65-66. See also the discussion in E. D. Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. Edinburg, 1948, pp. 462-433; and Matt. xii, 32; Mark x, 30; I Tim. i, 17, etc. Accordir ages of limits end. "The tin this, the firs (hebdoma/dos) c with the firsi day," writes : 'there was one second, and 5‘ day was the e1 the cosmos (g determined by W days of time, the number se alwaYS by the Until the thi Once the tran says (I Cor. are no longer there Will e) thrOugh the E After 1 Greg”)? cont; all the Dece; 37% ————" 98 According to the Greek Fathers, there are seven ages of limited duration and an "eighth age" which has no end. “The time of this life (ho tdfi biogktoutou chrohos)-- this, the first creation-—was accomplished in one week (hebdomados) of days; and the formation of beings began with the first and was completed on the seventh or last day," writes Saint Gregory of Nyssa, "for it is written, ‘there was one day', in which beings were created, then a second, and so on until everything was done. The seventh day was the end of creation . . . . This is the time of the cosmos (kosmou chronon) . . . . The nature of time is determined by the week of days (te hebdomadi t5h hemefbn he tog-chrohoupphysis). This grace by which we measure the days of time, beginning with 'the one day' and enclosing the number seven, we return again to 'the one' measuring always by the circle of weeks the whole interval of time. Uhtil the things which have motion have passed away and once the transciency of motion has ceased, as the Apostle says (I Cor. vii, 31), there will come the time when things are no longer tossed about, changing and altering, but there will exist a creation which remains forever the same through the successive ages."37 After the consumation of ”this creation", Saint Gregory continues, there will come another "age" in which all the necessities of "the bodily life“ (somatikes zoEs) -___ 37pe Ogggya, PG 44 608C-609D. will disappea realized. It "purifies" an the Hebdomas. (hebdomatikou )Qflé) will a receives with uninterrupted the night . . In his the same then ——7 99 will disappear and the purification of the cosmos will be realized. It is "the eighth day", the O doad, which "purifies" and "circumcizes" the life of the anterior ages, the Hebdomas.38 "The hebdomatic time having ceased (hebdomatikou.pausamehou chrohou), the eighth day (hemera pgggé) will appear after the seventh, since it no longer receives within it a succession of numbers: it abides uninterruptedly ‘the one', never divided by the dark of the night . . . ."39 In his Hexaemeron, Saint Basil the Great elaborates the same theme in greater detail: "God who made the nature of time measured it out and determined it by intervals of days; and wishing to give it a week as a measure, He ordered the week to revolve from period to period upon itself, to 38Daniélou contends that the idea of Ogdoad-Hebdomas found in the Greek Fathers "comes directly from the school of Pythagoras," in particular, the De mensibus of John of Lydia. (He could also have mentioned Philo's De officio Mundi). He believes, therefore, that by this doctrine history "could not be more completely emptied of all sig— nificance; we are here in the midst of Hellenistic thought" (The Bible and thegggturgy, trans. by scholars of Notre Dame's Liturgical Studies. Notre Dame, 1956, p. 265). But Daniélou's chief authority, YVes Courtonne, is not cat— egorical. The language is clearly from "une source pytha— goricienne", but it is used with "pieux dessein" (Saint Basile et L'hellenisme, pp. 34-36). Because the conception of time and eternity, creation and consummation, Christian cosmology differs radically from pagan cyclism and "Basile est oblige’d'en charger complement 1e sens" (Courtonne, Po 36). No doubt the Fathers made formal use of Greek phi— losophy, but their ultimate authority is Genesis. See P. Duheim, Le Systems du Monde: Histgige ges Doctrine Cosmo- logigue de Platon‘a Copernic, (vol. 11). Paris, 1954, p. 408f, 39St. Gregory of Nyssa, De Oct. PG 44 609D—612A. Cf. his De Beatit., 8 PG 44 1292AB. i i 4OHexa. 100 count the movement of time, forming the week of one day turning upon itself seven times. A proper circle begins and ends with itself. Such is also the character of eternity, to revolve itself and end nowhere else. If, then, the beginning of time is called ‘one day' rather than the 'first day', it is because the Scriptures wishes to establish its relationship with eternity. It was, in reality, quite natural to call 'one' the day whose character is to be wholly separated and iso- lated from all others. If the Scriptures speak to us of many ages saying everywhere, 'age of age' and 'ages of ages“, we do not see it to enumerate them as first, second and third. It follows that we are hereby shown not so much the limits, ends and successions of ages, as distinctions between various states and modes of action. .The day of the Lord', says the Scriptures, 'is great and very terrible'; and else— where, ‘Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? The day of Lord is dark— ness and,not light'. A day of dark- ness without evening, without suc- cession, without end is not unknown to the Scriptures, and it is the day the Psalmist calls the eighth day-«it is outside the time of weeks. Thus, whether you call it day or eternity, you express the same idea. What gives this state the name 'day' is that it is not Several, but only one. If you call it eternity, still it is unique and not manifold. Thus, it is in order that you carry your thoughts forward towards a future life that the Scriptures marks the word 'one', for it is the day which is the very image of eternity, the first fruits of days, the contempo— of lights, the holy Lord's day, honored by the resurrection of our Lord."40 , II, PG 31 ZOA—ZlB. This witness Saint Basil, common tradit call their te they "oppose of time”42—-< John Chrysosi modern schole offers us the day, but the like a consul When the hea. 'Then the pot forth the ki: tion of a tr, the future 1 One week (E ending with i 101 This witness of Saint Gregory of Nyssa and his brother, Saint Basil, is not at all peculiar to them, but is the common tradition of the Church.41 It would be unfair to call their teaching about time and eternity "Hellenic"-- they "oppose all neoplatonic distortion and hypostatization of time”42—-or "Origenist" or even "Cappadocian". Saint John Chrysostom-~a so—called "Antiochian"—-(if we follow modern scholarship in its division of patristic "schools”)-- offers us the same explanation of time: "What is the eighth day, but the great and manifest day of the Lord, the day, like a consuming fire inside an earthen vessel, the day when the heavenly powers tremble or as Saint Matthew says, 'Then the powers of heaven will be shaken—~the fire showing forth the kingdom? It is called the 'eighth day‘, the revela- tion of a transformed state of things and the renewal in the future life. This present life is nothing else than one week (hebdomas mia), beginning with the first day and ending with the seventh day, and then returning (anakykloumenos) 41Barnabas, in The Apostolic Fathers, (vol. I), trans. by K. Lake. London, 1925, XV, 1—9; St. Ignatius of Anti0ch, Ep. ad Magg., IX, 1; Origen, Sel. Ps. PG 12 1624BC; Clem— ent of Alexandria, Stom. VI, 16; St. Irenaeus, Contra Haer. I, 18 PG 7 645B; St. Hippolytus, Frag: In Genes. PG 10 585A; St. Methodius of Olympus, Conviv. dec. Virq., VII, 6 PG 18 133A; St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 10 PG 33 982A; St. Gregory Nazianzus, Qgg. XLI, 2 PG 36 429C-433B; St. Athanasius, De Sabb. et Circum., 5 PG 28 141A; St. Maximus the Confessor, gap. Theol. et Oecon. I, 51 PG 90 1101C; and cf. Psalm. VI and I Pet. iii, 20. 42". . . gegen alle neuplatonische Verunendlichung und Hypostatisierung der Zeit." (H. Urs von Balthasar, Egémigghg Liturqie: Das ngtbild Maximus des Bekenners. Einsiedeln, 1961, p. 123). to itself in arriving at 1 not so much 1 day; for the eight. When the course Oi There is no 1 We see, in their tree says, it is contrast to . the eighth d; According to "realistic" , the Latin Fa COncept of t the WEek a k the Latin RE approach of of 9r6ater h the l'ages", for ther e ap What i 43 M 44 The 451s tine D . t the , anlé] Litur IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII::::T_______________—' 102 to itself in regular order, to the same beginning and arriving at the same end. Wherefore, the Lord's day is not so much to be designated the eighth day as the first day; for the weekly cycle does not extend to the number eight. When all things have stopped and dissolved, then, the course of the eighth rushes into the center of time. There is no return again to the beginning . . . ."43 We see, then, that the Greek Fathers are unanimous in their treatment of ”the biblical week". As Danielou says, it is "a figure of the whole time of the world in contrast to the eighth day of eternity”. More precisely, the eighth day or "age" conducts the creation into eternity. According to Danielou, however, this doctrine is not as “realistic" or "historical" as the teaching of many of the Latin Fathers who sought not only to expound the same concept of time and eternity, but also wanted “to find in the week a key to the succession of the ages."44 Apparently the Latin patres were not satisfied with the cosmological approach of their brothers in the East and went in quest of greater historical detail, more extensive application of I the "ages". To whom does Danielou turn? Saint Augustine, for there appears to be no one else.45 What is the sabbath? Augustine inquires. It is a 43De Compunctione ad Stel. II, 4 PG 47 415—416. 44‘I‘he Bible and the Liturqv. p. 275. 45If there are other Latin Fathers who follow Augus- tine, Danielou fails to mention them. See The Bible and the Litur , PP. 275-286. share in God /U‘OI—thDrffllmmb‘Q:mLQOthH-Otjrrmrrrfturfb‘rfrffl'rfmrflmo = ———-—7 103 share in God's "rest", His eternal “repose". "This Sabbath shall appear more clearly, however, if we count the ages as days, in accordance with the periods of time mentioned in Scripture. The first age, as the first day, extends from Adam to the deluge; the second, from the deluge to Abraham, equal to the first, not in length of time, but in the number of generations, there being ten in each. From Abraham to the advent of Christ there are, as the evangelist Mat- thew calculates, three periods, in each of which are fourteen genera— tions-~one period from Abraham to David, a second from David to the captivity, a third from the captiv- ity to the birth of Christ in the flesh. There are thus five ages in all. The sixth is now passing, and cannot be measured by any number of generation . . . . After this period God shall rest as on the seventh day, when He shall give us (who shall be the seventh day) rest in Him- self . . . the seventh shall be our Sabbath, Which shall be brought to a close, not by an evening, but by the Lord‘s day, as an eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the resurrection of Christ, and pre- figuring the eternal repose not only of the spirit, but also of the body . . . ."46 46De Civ. Dei, XXII, 30. Augustine repeats the same analysis in Enarrationes in Psalmos VI and Sermon 259 PL 38 1197f. According to Danielou (The Bible and the Lit- urgy, p. 227) the latter show "a definite millennialism". Millennialism or Chiliasm "is specially used of the period of 1000 years during which Christ, as has been believed, would return to govern the earth in person" and "is used to describe a vague time in the future when all flaws in human existence will have vanished, and perfect goodness and happiness will prevail" (A. von Harnack, "Millennium", Encyclopedia Britannica, (vol. XVII). New YOrk, 1911, p. 461). This doctrine is nowhere to be found in the New Tastament except Revelations XX (if taken literally). The idea of the future earthly Messianic kingdom stems directly The Gr divided into them. Their cosmos as re book, moreov creationism shall see in t0 ”christol things, seen the other j: Creation imj reality, Ct \ from Jewis} Erbschaft’ d V?“ Harnack. Vlerte aufl: 1214A); BarI Dial. cum T: et Antichr, 34 PG7 1215 MR IX, P( Ap(Diogists IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-llll---——________ 104 The Greek Fathers, too, believed that history was divided into "ages", but they do not seek to identify them. Their attention is dominated by the life of the cosmos as revealed in "the doctrine of Genesis."47 This book, moreover, is important to them not only for its creationism and its theological implications, but, as we shall see in the following chapters, for its introduction to "christological history."48 Indeed, God created all things, seen and unseen. One dimension is involved with the other just as Christ Himself, the incarnate Logos. Creation imitates Him; it is the unity of two orders of reality. Christ is the unity of two ontic stasis, as from Jewish apocalyptic literature. "Es war eine schlimme Erbschaft, die Christen von den Juden eubernahmen" (A. von Harnack, Lehrbgch der Dogmenqeschichte, (bd. I). vierte aufl. Tubingen, 1909, p, 114). In the East, it was held by Pappias (in St. Irenaeus, Contra Haer. V, 33 PG 7 1214A); Barnabas, IV, 15; Hermas, X, 16; St. Justin Martyr, Dial, ppm Tryph. 80 PG 6 664A-668A; St. Hippolytus, Christ. Gt Antichr. 61 PG 10 7808; St. Irenaeus, Contra Haer., V, 34 PG 7 1215B; and St. Methodius of Olympus, Conviv. dec. Virg. IX, PG 18 177B. The "sub-Apostolic fathers" and Apologists, says the German historian, Harnack, used Jewish literalism in order to oppose Marcionism, Ghosticism and Origenism, all representatives of Greek rationalism and spiritualism ("Millennium", p. 463). In general, the Greek Fathers never accepted this view and even seriously questioned the canonicity of the book of Revelations. The Eastern Church has held to their testimony and, in fact, that book is not to be preached from during the Divine Lit- urgy. See B. Orchard, etc., A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. New YOrk, 1953, 962C. We mention Millenianism here only to dispense with it; it does not belong to history according to the Greek Fathers; therefore, it will not be alluded to again. To be sure, it is an interesting subject, but Millennialism has no bearing on our understanding of the Greek Fathers. 47J. Danielou, The Lord of Histor , p. 14. ./ 48Danielou, pp. 183-202. Vladimir Sol created, tem cance of the lution by th only for ort understandin history not events, but Place in the Histor unfolding, t the tempora] rushes towel creation its Particular ; mos ' Accorz IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-llll---———_______f 105 Vladimir Solovyev asserts, the one created the other un~ created, temporal and eternal. Thus, also, the signifi— cance of the christological controversies and their reso- lution by the church's ecumenical councils is crucial not only for orthodoxy in itself, but for the entire Christian understanding of history.49 Thus, the Fathers spoke about history not so much in terms of the import of particular events, but the soteriological implications of them, their place in the divine mosaic of history. History, the Greek Fathers said, is a process, an unfolding, the realization of the unseen Will of God in the temporal becoming.50 Although history, God’s economy, rushes towards its "recapitulation in Christ", the materiah creation itself displays an “orderly succession“, the particular is not lost in the general purpose of the cos- mos. According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, the pivotal word 49Lectures Concerning_§pdmanhood, trans. by Peter Zouboff. Poughkeepsie (N.Y.), 1944, pp. 169-218. Cf. St. Maximus the Confessor saying that the church and the cosmos reflect the unit found iglthe two_natures of Christ-~peri tas diaphorous tan onton ofisias aschhvton henosin (M st., 24 PG 91 705B); and Danielou says that "the christological definitions open the way to a right judg— ment of the theological meaning of history" (The Lord of Histor , p. 190); and in the same work, he asserts concern— ing the council of Chalcedon, "Just as the dogma of the hypostatic union, illuminating the course of past history, enabled us to reconcile the two opposite tendencies of the Old Testament, reaching their single culmination in Christ, so the same doctrine, illuminating time to come provides the definitive interpretation of world history in the period waiting before the second advent" (Danielou, p. 201). 50St. Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus XII PG 75 292B- 293A. in our under more (a t Aristotle. ning," Saint and collect: energy EELiu by the impei dom simultai and perfect order . , things foll coming , , States that elements f0 "We suPpose moment of i unfolded ar W which might Proceeding Saint or Chance, a nature, 1 Changes. eVitable C' \ 515E 52De \ 106 in our understanding of this ”orderly succession" is £227 louthia (a following, sequence), a word first used by Aristotle. When "the cosmos was layed down in the begin— ning," Saint Gregory explains, "God established at once and collectively all things with impulse, power and cause, energy ab initio and concurrently the law of their beings by the impetus of His Will . . . . But the power and wis— dom simultaneously on creatures for their fructification and perfection required a certain necessity, a sequential order . . . and as the necessity of nature's order demands, things follow the succession (akdlouthon) of their be- coming . . . ."51 In another place, Saint Gregory of Nyssa states that everything possesses the innate and necessary elements for the perfecting of its nature, including man. “We suppose that the human seed contained from the first moment of its existence the inherent potentiality which is unfolded and manifested through a natural succession (phygf / ikes akolouthias) towards its end and not employing anything which might gain its completion in advance, but simply proceeding towards it gradually."52 Saint Gregory does not espouse historical mechanism or chance, for he describes things as having, to be sure a nature, but a nature which, while always self-identical, changes. "It is vain to murmur and grieve about the in— evitable course of events," he tells his sister, Macrina, 51A 01. Hexaem., PG 44 72BC. 52De Hom. Opfic., 29 PG 44 236B. 'hecause thc sign is unkr a certain sr skillful ari terminus is be charted 1 that "if an} cosmos--whi< a certain o: the Proclaix Occur, such beginning tj less we adm admit an en The 3 diVine prov mm and Events, for the pie logical pla 60d, n eXC la t0 the divi \ 53 nv E of h' face #7 107 “because though every detail of the arrangement in the de— sign is unknown and everything is wisely guided through a certain succession (ggxei tini kai akolouthia) by a skillful art to partake in the divine nature."53 The terminus is predetermined, but not in such a way that can be charted by human reason. Thus, Saint Gregory remarks that "if anyone, beholding the present course of the cosmos—~which is marked with intervals and proceeds in a certain order—-should argue that it is not possible for the proclaimed cessation of these moving stages ever to occur, such a man palpably does not believe that in the beginning the heaven and the earth were made by God. Un— . less we admit a beginning to motion, we surely cannot admit an end to it . . . ."54 The Eélgg to which history is guided depends upon divine providence, but God does not, like some great Marionettemeister, stand above history manipulating men and events. He acts within in history and is responsible for the place of every created being within His soterio— logical plan. "If nothing in the world happens without God,“ exclaims Saint Gregory of Nyssa, "but all is linked to the divine Will, Wisdom and Prudence, then, everything 53De Anima et Res. PG 46 105A. It is curious that so many scholars refer to Gregory as a platonist in the face of his soteriological use of Aristotle's kolouthia. 0n Gregory's relation to platonism, see J. Danielou, Platonisme et Théolo is M sti ue: Doctrine S irituelle de Saint Gregoire de Nysse. Paris, 1944. 54De 0 f. Hom., 23 pg 44 20913. exists acco: print of Hi: reasonless GOd; for it say, 'to ma? God will do “Wherefore, preserves t' Dionysius t freedom and PIOViding b the nature they receiv StOwed suit activity, “5 movement of are Sustair able Places the 10Wer v TeSt: Scriptures: Gene / em time.1158 ' \ 55De 56Di‘ 57? 58 R P- IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIll-lll---————_______i 108 / exists according to His design (loqos) and bears the im— print of His Wisdom and providential care. A blind and reasonless (a16§5é) occurrence can never be the work of God; for it is the property of God, as the Scriptures say, 'to make all things in Wisdom' (Ps. civ, 24)."55 God will do no violence to the integrity of His work. “Wherefore, providential character is shown in that it preserves the nature of each individual," writes Saint Dionysius the AreOpagite, "and in making provision for their freedom and independence, it has respect for their state, providing both in general and in particular, according to the nature of the nature of those for whom it cares, that they receive its providential benefactions which are be— stowed suitably on each by its multiform and universal activity."56 And Saint Clement of Rome affirms that "the movement of the heavens," the "seasons", "men and beasts“ are sustained by God's providence, and even "the unsearch- able places of the abysses and the unfathomable realms of the lower world are controlled by the same ordinances.”57 Testifying to the same tradition as do the Holy Scriptures, the Greek Fathers distinguish under that provi~ dence chrénos or "calendar time" and kairos or “historical - / - u n ' -/ time."58 Chronos 18 measured by the ages while kairos 55De Infant. ggi Praem..Abrip., PG 46 168A. 56Div. Nom., IV, 33 PG 33 7333c. 571 Clem., §g_Corinth., xx, 2-5. 58F. S. Minear, "Time and the Kingdom," Journal of Reli ion, XXIV (April, 1944), 81. Cf. I C1em., Ad Corinth., is relative the }_