The
Greek roots of Christian Europe
A book that sparked debate in France
Sylvain Gouguenheim:
Aristotle au Mont Saint-Michel. Les racines grecques
de l´Europe christiane. Editions de Seuil. 2008. 280 p.
When in the early 1960s I studied literary at the University of Gothenburg,
we started with Greek literature. Professor Lennart Breitholtz just had
published the first parts of his subsequently widely distributed anthology
Litteraturens klassiker. We were the first group to use it. Around
the large seminar table in a basement room with garbage cans outside the
window, our journey through the Greek heritage began, in Swedish translation,
under the guidance of the grim professor. The Iliad and the Odyssey were
cut down. We were briefed on the "Homeric question". Continuation
followed through the lyricists, Sappho, Alkaios, Pindaros and others.
When we got into drama, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, the professor
stepped up because above all he was a theater historian and had a doctorate
in French-classical drama. On the other hand, he never raised the question
of what winding path these texts traveled to after more than two millennia
end up in his anthology. Apparently, it was assumed that the texts were
traded through the centuries without major problems.
It was different when I came to the history of ideas and learning. A sympathetic Czech refugee became our teacher. He showed us contexts throughout history. In particular, I remember the surprise our small group suffered when he told us about the unlikely path of Greek literature to Western Europe. During the era when the central parts of our continent were shrouded in cultural darkness, with Irish monks in the west and the Byzantine Empire in the east being the only bright spots, Greek literature had been translated into Arabic. Baghdad and its "House of Wisdom" became the centre of culture. The Muslims then brought the ancient Greek heritage through North Africa to Spain, to the Caliphate of Cordova, where they lived in harmony with Jews and Christians. In Toledo, the Greek classics then were translated from Arabic into Latin, from where they were carried on to Western Europe, where they brought about a philosophical and scientific revival. Our Western culture is therefore indebted to the Muslims. (This Andalusian harmony is strongly questioned by Dario Fernandez Morera in The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, ISI Books, 2016.)
This history gradually has become public domain, although it is still often presented as if it were news. It fits well into the self-doubt of the post-colonial West. When President Obama spoke in Cairo on June 4, 2009, he said: “I am also aware of civilization's debt of gratitude to Islam. It was Islam in places like Al-Azhar that carried the light of learning for many centuries and paved the way for Europe's renaissance and enlightenment.”
The
dark ages were not so dark
No wonder that it sparked a violent debate when Sylvain Gouguenheim, professor
of medieval history at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure
in Lyon, questioned this whole process. In his book Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel,
Les racines grecques de l´Europe chrétienne (Aristotle on
Mont Saint-Michel, the Greek roots of Christian Europe) he believes that
the Greek heritage was transferred directly to Western Europe without
taking the detour via Muslims in Baghdad and Spain. Gouguenheim thus has
taken the risk of being labelled an "Islamophobe" by neglecting
to observe the self-censorship that is part of good manners, something
that is particularly important in France with its Muslim suburban ghettos,
debate over veil bans and Le Pen's Front National. The debate Gouguenheim's
book sparked shows that history told from a different point of view than
the usual one can be pure dynamite.
The Dark Ages (The Dark Ages, a concept originating with Petrarch and which was then expanded and spread through Protestantism and the Enlightenment) during the 4th–7th centuries were in fact not so dark at all, emphasizes Gouguenheim. The so-called barbarian peoples were not completely alien to Roman culture. It is true that knowledge of Greek, the language of the New Testament, was lost in the West, but the Greek heritage was still passed on through Christianity. Greek literature was transmitted directly from Byzantium to Sicily and southern Italy, but also to France and the German Empire, something which not previously had been so widely known.
Some examples: Gregory, bishop of Agrigente in Sicily during the 6th century, has many references to Aristotle in his ten books of commentaries on Ecclesiastes. Learned priests in flight from the persecutions of the Byzantine emperor or the Arab-Muslim expansion brought the ancient heritage in different instalments. During the 6th century, many Greek manuscripts were brought from the Orient to Sicily. Greek culture was very much alive in Southern Italy and Sicily, where many people spoke Greek. The Norman princes there came to favor Greek culture and founded several monasteries where Greek manuscripts were translated into Latin.
The Benedictine lay brother Constantine Africanus had acquired medical knowledge at the Muslim universities in Kairouan and Cairo. He had also been to Ethiopia, where the knowledge of Greek medicine had been preserved. He translated works by the Christian Arab Hunayn ibn Ishaq, one of the foremost scholars of the Orient in the ninth century. Constantine was forced to flee from North Africa to Italy, where he established himself in Monte Cassino and translated from both Arabic and Greek. Through him Hippocrates and Galen were conveyed to the famous medical school of Salerno.
Boëthius, who was active at Theoderic's court in Ravenna, translated Aristotle and would also have translated Plato if his execution in 525 not had intervened. Greek culture was transmitted during the 5th–6th centuries through the Exarchate of Ravenna. In Rome there were many Greek refugees in the 6th century. They translated Greek literature into Latin. From 685 to 752 the popes were either Greek or Syrian. A German priest who attended a council in 704 stated that the clergy was bilingual. They spoke Latin during the sessions but Greek between them.
Pippin the Little was allowed to receive Greek manuscripts, e.g. a. Aristotle, from Pope Paul I. His son Charlemagne studied Gospel texts with the help of Greeks and Syrians active at the court of Aachen. Charles' daughter Rothrude was betrothed to Emperor Constantine VI, although the engagement later due to court intrigues in Constantinople was annulled. The Carolingian world saw Greek as its mother culture, a view that was passed on to the Ottonian Empire. Otto II married the Byzantine princess Theophania. Their son Otto III used Greeks in high posts.
Canterbury became a center of Greek studies as did the monasteries of Ireland. Bede Venerabilis in the northern English Jarrow read Greek when he wrote his commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles and other books of the New Testament. The Irishman Johannes Scotus Erigena, active at the Carolingian court, read the church fathers as well as Plato and Aristotle in Greek.
The Greek heritage trickled down with the help of many travellers. Western pilgrims made pilgrimages to Jerusalem to pray and to Constantinople to see the city. Greeks from Byzantium traveled to Rome to pray at the tombs of the apostles. Even before the Crusades, much of the ancient knowledge had reached the West.
As a result of the study of the ancient authors, a series of intellectual "renaissances" arose in Europe: the Carolingian, the Ottonian with a peak around 1000 and in the 12th century renaissance when universities were founded in Bologna, Paris and Oxford. The Church was not hostile to reason. On the contrary, the European consciousness arose in the church with its knowledge of existence and man, which in turn led to "the open society".
In contrast, the Visigothic culture of the Iberian Peninsula was essentially Latin. The anti-Arian Isidorus of Seville, who gained the reputation of being the last Latin church father, worked there in the 6th century. It was only after Toledo was reconquered by Alfonso VI in 1085 that the city became a centre for translation into Latin.
Unknown
cultural act in wellknown tourist attraction
Before that there were two other important centres of translation, namely
Antioch and Mont Saint-Michel. Gouguenheim highlights the latter place,
although not to the extent that the title of the book would lead you to
believe, which is probably intended to arouse interest among a wider French
readership. Mont Saint-Michel is one of France's most famous tourist attractions,
awarded no less than three stars in the green Michelin Guide. I must admit
that I had no idea of the significance of the place when in June 1998
I strolled around among the buildings of the old monastery out on the
strange rock island at the shallow tidal coast by the border between Normandy
and Brittany.
Margareta Brogren at Mont St. Michel
Jacobus Veneticus Græcus, an Italian priest who studied in Constantinople, during the 12th century worked in its scriptorium. According to Gouguenheim, based on the Italian historian Lorenzo Minio-Paluello, he is "the missing link" in the transmission of Aristotelian philosophy from the Greek to the Latin world. His translations were widely distributed, above all in France and England but also in Rome. Thomas Aquinas used them. The distinguished manuscript collection in the town hall in nearby Avranches also contains a number of Aristotle's translations from Mont Saint-Michel.
Even within the Oriental churches, the Greek heritage was cherished. The scholars spoke Syriac as well as Greek. In the 7th–8th centuries, they translated Greek works into Arabic, a prerequisite for the Muslim scientific flourishing that then came about in the 9th century. They then also had to invent new Arabic words for abstract concepts for which there were no expressions in the Semitic languages, e.g. "falsafa" for philosophy.
Islam
had no understanding of the Greek spirit
It is here, when Gouguenheim enters the relationship of Islam to Greek
culture that he treads on mined ground. The protests have not been slow
either.
According to Gouguenheim, the Bait al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) in Baghdad, referred to for its translations, is largely a legend, constructed by those who admired the Abbasids, especially the so-called the theological direction of the Mutazilites. It existed as a private library of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, reserved for Quranic specialists. Jews and Christians were not allowed. Thus where there was no meeting of religions or any cooperation in philosophy. When al-Mutawakkil came to power in 847, all discussion of the nature of the Qur'an was forbidden. Bait al-Hikma's activities seem to have ceased in the ninth century.
The Muslims certainly adopted the Greek knowledge as far as medicine and astronomy were concerned, but they found philosophy to be suspect. Furthermore, the impact of Greek culture on Islam was limited by purely linguistic reasons, as there were no corresponding abstract concepts in Arabic. Islam made use of what was useful but was not influenced by the Greek spirit itself. Neither poetry, tragedy nor philosophy were incorporated into Islamic culture, while logic, with certain restrictions, found its place. Medieval Islam was as little Hellenized as the West was Islamized. After Avicenna, the great physician and philosopher around 1000, Aristotle's texts were not used by any Muslim, with the exception of Averroës, who was active in Córdoba in the 12th century.
Therefore Gouguenheim emphasizes that he cannot agree with Alain de Libera, a specialist in medieval philosophy, who believes that Islam holds the role of having constituted "the first confrontation between Hellenism and monotheism" and thereby forgets the Greek church fathers. Gouguenheim does not accept de Libera's view that the West received reason and rationality from Islam. On the contrary, he believes that Christianity already early on absorbed the ancient culture into itself, integrated its spirit with left over from certain parts such as Epicureanism.
In Islam, coming cultural influences first must pass a legal sieve to be determined if something is compatible with the Koran, Gouguenheim emphasizes. There it was more difficult for the ancient heritage to pass on than in Christianity, because it arose in a Greek universe and could therefore more easily pass on the heritage. The Islamic sieve gradually became narrower. As little as the Abbasid world allowed itself to be influenced by Aristotelian metaphysics or politics, just as little was the Ottoman Empire influenced by the 16th century renaissance.
Nor did the Muslims' warlike dealings with the West promote scientific dialogue. The Arabs had no reason to send their mathematicians and other scholars to impart knowledge to the infidels. The scholars in the West had to procure what they needed themselves by taking advantage of manuscripts from the Mozarabic (Arabized Christians in Spain) elite and from the Jews who in the 12th century were expelled by the fanatical Almohads. In addition, they used translations that were made on the order of bishops and abbots by such Greek-knowledgeable clerics as James of Venice.
In conclusion, Gouguenheim says: That Islam, thanks to Syrian and Arab Christians, has preserved a large part of the Greek heritage is raised above all discussion. Islam has also contributed knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, etc. That the West benefited from it is true, even if this was not the only channel for the transmission of tradition. But that the Muslims would have voluntarily transferred the ancient knowledge to Christians is a wishful dream.
Hot
debate
It is probably the case that Gouguenheim, born in 1960, wanted to provoke
an older generation of researchers. He also succeeded in this. Since the
book was published, in March 2008, there has been a public debate of a
kind that historical overviews rarely do. Initially, Gouguenheim received
some positive reviews, but then forty scholars published an open letter
in Le Monde accusing him of wanting to bring about a Clash of Civilizations
in Samuel Huntington's spirit. A few days later, in the left-wing newspaper
Libération, a statement from 56 scholars could be read that emphasized
the debt of gratitude of Christian Europe to Islam. They considered that
Gouguenheim's book does not meet scientific standards, but is rather an
ideological project tinged with unacceptable political views. 200 teachers
and students at Gouguenheim's own university issued a petition in which
they distanced themselves from the book. In September 2009, a "counter-book"
was published with the participation of, among others, of the Alain de
Libera, above quoted by Gouguenheim.
Critics also think that Gouguenheim exaggerated the importance of the activity at Mont Saint-Michel. Someone has even questioned whether Jakob was active there at all. He has also been criticized for not knowing either Arabic or Greek, a criticism in my opinion irrelevant when it is not about basic research but about a historical overview whose bibliography covers no less than fifteen pages.
On the other hand, the conservative Le Figaro wrote that Gouguenheim had been subjected to "intellectual terrorism" by aligned left-wing thinkers. It has also been said that he is the victim of a conspiracy because he does not submit to the zeitgeist. Medieval historian Jacques Le Goff believes that Gouguenheim's theses are interesting but debatable, while noting that the violent attacks his younger colleague was subjected to are not supported by leading medieval historians.
The debate also was noticed in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in an underline on January 7, 2010.
The
Pope on the Greek heritage
It must be credited to Gouguenheim that he brought the church's Greek
roots into the light of day. Sometimes it has been as if the Greek heritage
was seen as a kind of contamination. But that this heritage is something
that is inevitably connected with the Christian faith, the Pope Benedict
XVI emphasized in his scheduled lecture in Regensburg on September 12,
2006.
This lecture was about faith and reason. The Pope emphasized Christianity's dependence on Greek philosophy. He reminded that not only the New Testament is written in Greek but also the Septuagint, the Old Testament read in the early church. The Septuagint is something more than a translation, it is also an independent textual testimony and "its own clear and important step in the history of revelation". The Pope also pointed to how John uses the first verse of the Bible by interpreting it as "In the beginning was the Logos", a central concept in Greek philosophy.
The Pope emphasized that the view that the Greek heritage constitutes an essential part of the Christian faith is contrary to the demand that Christianity must be "de-Hellenized". This is something that has characterized the theological debate since the beginning of the modern era. Three stages can be distinguished in this "de-Hellenization" program.
The requirement first arose during the Reformation in the 16th century. When the Reformers considered scholastic theology, they found themselves faced with a belief system entirely determined by philosophy. Over against this system was Sola Scriptura.
With the liberal theology of the 18th–19th century the second wave of de-Hellenization came. Starting from Pascal, a distinction was made between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Adolf von Harnack highlighted the simple teachings of Jesus beyond all theological theories and beyond Greek philosophy.
The third wave of de-hellenization is going on right now when, before the meeting with the diversity of cultures, it is claimed that in the synthesis with ancient Greece, the ancient church completed a first "inculturation" of Christianity. In the same way, the other cultures today must have the right to go directly to the simple message of the New Testament and then inculturate this in their own culture.
This in and of itself is not wrong, the Pope emphasized. There are elements in the process of the creation of the old church that do not have to be included in all cultures. But the fundamental decisions that were then taken regarding the connection between faith and reason belong to the faith itself. "They are further developments that are part of the very nature of the Christian faith."
Both the Pope and Gouguenheim have been criticized for not giving a balanced presentation of the Muslim position. The debate will continue, although Gouguenheim, in contrast to Benedict XVI, believes that a real dialogue is impossible because both religions have universal claims and therefore see each other as rivals.
Then one can also ask whether it was really so successful for the church to stick to the Aristotelian philosophy in the trial against Galileo.
Anders Brogren
Dean h.c., Falkenberg, Sweden
Sankt Lars Kyrkogata 4
S-311 31 Falkenberg
SWEDEN
Mail to
anders [ at ] brogren.nu