Rationalism and Higher Criticism in Classical Greek Historiography

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint Lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

3 March 2011

The switching on of Rationalism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of our era became known as Enlightenment and this period was known for its critical view of the history of the Bible, which included critical views of the role of the supernatural, miracles, wonders and anything in which it was claimed that God had a role. Actually, as Seventh-day Adventists know so well, the so-called Enlightenment was actually a darkening of the perspective, a scrutinizing or limiting of the scope to exclude the Universe and to focus only on this domain called earth and its immediate surroundings. Especially as far as experience or ontology can stretch the borders. Empiricism became the name of the game and everything that was not seen, touched, felt, heard, or tasted, was not considered important for serious evalutation. The works of John Hurst until 1864 and the studies by Gerhard Hasel of trends between 1850-1994 outlined the dangers of Rationalism and Historical Criticism for Old Testament Studies (Hasel) and Theology (Hurst). The book of John Hurst, A History of Rationalism appeared in 1864 and it is critical of the critics of the Bible. It is a jewel for a proper understanding how the poison entered theological studies that tried to minimize God, supernatural, wonders, miracles, revelation, inspiration, authority of the Bible and other similar matters.

During 1976-1978 this researcher was studying Hellenistic Greek at the University of South Africa. One of the professors, prof. C. P. T. Naudé was the teacher for Herodotus Book III. In his introduction to his notes, he gave an overview of Greek historiography in the Classical Period. Naudé focussed on the "origin and early developments of Greek historiography" (Unisa Guide GK002/006 [1976]: 5-17).

What is very interesting about his treatment of this topic in the Classical period of Greek historiography, is that the same phenomenon of the so-called Enlightenment and Rationalism, occurred at the end of the sixth, beginning of the fifth century BCE in Greece.

Horography

The word horo- is the word for hour in Greek and lists of kings or eponyms of magistrates were kept and this Naudé classifies as local history. In his view, horography is not historiography because historiography through a conscious effort to have a sense of history but also a critical sense, to scientifically distinguish truth from fiction, history from myths (Naudé 1976: 5). With the development of a critical sense is also the origin of a historical method, method of research and of control of the data. During the seventh and sixth centuries BCE science and rationalism originated in Greece (Naudé 1976: 5).

The so-called logographoi or prosewriters, in contrast to the epic writers, started to take a critical view of the traditions of the poets and mythology, and that is how historical science originated in ancient Greece (Naudé 1976: 5). The greatest of these logoigraphoi was the historical writer Hecataios of Miletus. Hecataios that took part in the Ionic revolt (500-494 BCE) also travelled Egypt and wrote two works in the Ionic dialect of Greek: 1. Genealogies which is a collection of family traditions and family registers, also his own (Herodotus 2.143) and 2. Periodos ges, a trip around the world which is a geographical work.

Hecataios opened his Genealogies with the words:

"Hecataios of Miletus gave the following explanation: What I write here is what I view as the truth. Because the stories of the Greeks are many, and as it seems to me, a joke". With these words, Hecataios indicate that he is going to follow only one tradition and not the logoi polloi and in this he distinguish himself from the Eastern historiographer. He is critical of his data (Naudé 1976: 6).

Eastern literature existed as pretext for Hecataios but they were all inspired by men who were taken up by how great they were. The annals of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Persia all indicate a historical consciousness on the part of these rulers how great they were. Thutmosis III, Darius I, Mursilish II, Sennacherib are all names that one can mention. At this point there is an aspect that we need to add that prof. Naudé was not aware of in his days. In the Annals of Thutmosis III at Karnak, the scribe indicated that he copied on Karnak what was written on papyrus or velums. This means that it was possible that the annals could circulate in private and public libraries of that times and later times.

The Hittites for example, as was indicated by H. W. F. Saggs and also by my professor Charles Fensham, had a sense of historiography that they were thinking in terms of cause and effect. It was not just a chronicle report. Saggs felt that the Assyrians influenced Herodotus (H. W. F. Saggs, The Greatness that was Babylon [London: 1962]: 504). In similar vein as the Hittites are also the books of the Old Testament, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. In fact even the writing of Genesis by Moses in 1460 BCE in Midian displays the role of God in the life of humans as a whole and Hebrew people specifically, in a historical sense. The so-called attempt to call Genesis 1-11 prehistory is based on a vague reading of the Bible. It is understandible that not much information survived the Flood of Noah and that what did, was recorded by Noah who also kept a record by Adam and these two books were handed to Moses the night he fled to Midian and served him as pretext for writing Genesis 1-11, selectively focussing on the important parts.

Different than in the historiography of Moses, Hittites and other Biblical writers we find for the first time in Greece historiography the "Ich-Ton" as F. Jacoby puts it, because Hecataios is focussing on what he thinks about situations and also in a critical way (Felix Jacoby, "Griechische Geschichtschreibung," Die Antike 2 [1926]: 1ff).

So what we find in the introduction of Genealogies by Hecataios is not the indidualizing of deeds as the annal writers of the East did, but the individualizing of critical thinking, to be scientific, something that was unknown in the East (Naudé 1976: 6). Each histicist tried to distinguish himself from the previous one and criticized his predecessors. Hecataios started with the mentioning of his own name in the introduction, a custom that was then also followed by Herodotus and Thukydides. Josephus mentioned this aspect as the difference between Greek and Jewish historiographers:

Namely that every Greek historiographer wrote as he himself think the truth is and criticizes every predecessor, while the Jewish historiographer uses the Holy Scripture as authoritative and above criticism (Contra Apionem 1.8).

The scholars before Hekataios described their heroes with poems and epics loaded with myths of wonder surrounding each one of them. It is the Heroic past, the past of the epic traditions, that part of the past that inspired great poetry. Naudé feels that the later Herodotus was the historiographer that started emphasizing the contemporary over the past with great success (Naudé 1976: 7). Between the time of Herodotus and the Heroic period lies the Dark period that with the archaic period or early period of Greek history makes it very difficult for modern scholars to write a proper history since they have to make sense out of fragments filled with myths and reality. When Thukidides wrote Archaiologia (lines 2-19) he apologizes for the troubles involved in writing a proper history due to the distance from reality. Hekataios tried to show continuity of his own time with the Heroic past, since it was popular in his own time. The alternative title for his work Genealogies is Herologia. Hekataios connected with the mythical gods of the Heroic period and his own time and was able to connect to a divine sixteen generations before him.

But, something happened with the process with Hekataios here: he reformulated the traditional myths and legends with principles of the current science. The result was that any wonder was considered with skepticisim. Jacoby says that Hekataios was trying to bring into the "stuff of history" the time which is in fact prehistorical (Felix Jacoby, Atthis - the local chronicles of Athens [Oxford: 1949]: 133). It is the attempt to turn myths into history. Many of the claims in the myths that contained wonders or superhuman aspects were criticized by Hekataios. Heracles never entered the underworld to fetch Kerberos. What Hekataios did is to reformulate the actions of Hekataios so that Heracles deeds are more possible and historical. What we have here is a similar phenomenon that we would find in the period of the Rationalism in the seventeenth century CE, that rationalism reformulate the original and recast it in a new content that would be more acceptable for his own time. Hekataios used empirical standards to reformulate the Heroic period more acceptable in his own time due to standards of his own time. Any wonders are rejected and removed. The basis of Hekataios method was the same as that of Historical criticism during the period of the Enlightenment, personal choice and personal observation, thus analogia entis or as Hekataios said "what I write here is what I consider truth". In his Geographical descriptions it took the form of autopsy, personal observation (Naudé 1976: 9). Empericism and Rationalism are the two foundations of Hekataios analysis. As historiography progressed, Rationalism made space for Empiricism, namely what really happened as opposed to what I think happened. A vague past was no longer acceptable. Especially Herodotus followed Empiricism strongly (Naudé 1976: 9).

Second period of Greek historiography

After Hekataios it was not the practice to reformulate the Heroic period into the "stuff of history". A second phase entered into Greek Historiography since people did not follow the method of reformulation of Heroic legends as Hekataios did, and that person was Herodotus. He was born in 480 BCE about the time of the death of Hekataios. Herodotus was different than Hekataios since he was known for his skepticism and the attitude of empirical investigation (Max Pohlenz, Herodot, der erste Geschichtschreiber des Abendlandes [Stuttgart: 1961], 79).

What is important about Herodotus is that he had a preconceived idea about the role of Athens and the Spartans and that this view became a theme that influenced his historiography. Naudé feels that it is not important whether he is right or wrong, the fact that he had a theme for historiography is already important by itself (Naudé 1976: 12). No longer did Herodotus write only facts, something he did in his logoi, but facts are now bound together in a central political thought.

Herodotus' empiricism led him to keep to his own and near own period and not to move further back than Kroisos. What cannot be verified was not used. His history of his own time, the 5th century BCE grabbed his attention. Major events near the time of the historiographer and a critical spirit and a special method to collect historical facts and verify it, started Greek historiography, the way we know it in the Enligthenment period. Thukidides continued with the method of historiography of Herodotus although he was critical of his predecessors, a trend that was not uncommon with Greek historiographers (Naudé 1976: 12).

Thukidides

Thukidides distinguished himself from Herodotus as Herodotus distinguished himself from Hekataios. It is typical of Greeks to do this. Thukidides claimed 1) that he kept more strictly to the events from his own time since it can be verified 2) that he kept strictly to political history and omitted unecessary ethnography and geography that we still find with Herodotus 3) he selects his evidence more strictly and with the spirit of Hekataios, he makes his own choice with contradictory traditions and what he did not accept or what was irrelevant, he omitted. While Herodotus looked at data that already happened, Thukidides sometimes imagined a future result. Thukidides looked at the Peloponesian war "in the expectation that it will be great . . . " (1.1.1.). Thukidides laid out other principles that is also important: "I will be satisfied if those who find my work useful, who want to get certain knowledge, both of things that happened as well as what may happen again in future. And so my work is compiled more as a permanent possession for all times as a showpiece to be listened to in one moment only" (1.22.4).

Thukidides strives to reach absolute truth as the goal of historiography. and this distinguish him from the heightened subjectivity of Hekataios with which he rationalized traditions into his own time descriptions and of the naive trust of Herodotus for information obtained and written down.

Thukidides distinguish between ta lechthenta and ta erga as two kinds of events that needed two different sets of methods to verify:

"It was difficult to remember speeches in the deepest sense, but my method was thus to let the speakers say that which was according to my opinion expected from the different situations, while I kept myself to the basic thrust of what was really said" (1.22.1-2).

With deeds or actions, he did not use the best source but "based it partially on what I saw myself, partially on what other saw while I always tested the accuracy of their report in the finest details" (1.22.1-2).

For Thukidides a good historiographer is one who participates in the events as observer and one with practical experience in public life.

Contemporary historiography

This was the case where we had pragmatical historiography, namely like with Polybios where what he has written is meant to be a kind of textbook and guide to the politician. We have Jerome of Cardia (3rd century BCE) and Polybius (2nd century BCE). Contemporary historiography started actually with Hekataios and this process Jacoby classified as "Zeitgeschichte" (Naudé 1976: 14). It includes the universal history of Ephoros and Polybios, encyclopaedic compilations of Diodoros and Nikolaos, contemporaries of Augustine as well as monographs by Thukidides. Jacoby lists about ten kinds. Contemporary history means that it was compiled from history at the same time the writer or compilor lived.

The Persian Empire was a period that brought a secularistic tone to the Greek mainland and caused them to stand critical of myths and applied Rationalism to reject wonders and miracles of the Heroic poems and try to reformulate with empiricism as method. Whereas this process can be applauded to occur in Greece of the sixth, fifth, fourth, third and second centuries BCE, since their gods was not real after all, such a Rationalism during the Enlightenment of the Victorian Age is not wise for Seventh-day Adventists to follow, since we are dealing with realities in the Bible that cannot be submitted to unconverted reason and studied with hermeneutics of suspicion instead of hermeneutics of affirmation.