The Gospel of Hellas
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
the gospel of hellas THE GOSPEL OF HELLAS The Mission of Ancient Greece and The Advent of Christ the gospel of hellas eneral view of side, W. view ofeneral side, G Athens: Acropolis Acropolis Athens: THE GOSPEL OF HELLAS The Mission of Ancient Greece and The Advent of Christ by F R E D E R I C K H I E B E L We must not follow those who advise us mortals to think of mortal things, but we must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal. – aristotle (Nikomachean Ethics) 1949 ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS new york 2008 Research InstitUte for Waldorf EDUcation Wilton, NH the gospel of hellas The electronic publication was funded by the Waldorf Curriculum Fund © Research Institute for Waldorf Education, 2008 Editor: David Mitchell Scanning and Copyediting: Ann Erwin Cover design: Scribner Ames Antrhrposophic Press, 1943 ISBN: None Preface Out of print reference books are often difficult to locate. Through the foresight and support of the Waldorf Curriculum Fund, this title has been resurrected and is now available gratis in an electronic version on www.waldorflibrary.org, one of the websites of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. We hope you will find this resource valuable. Please contact us if you have other books that you would like to see posted. – David Mitchell Research Institute for Waldorf Education Boulder, CO August 2008 the gospel of hellas To my dear wife Beulah Emmet Hiebel By the same author: shakespeare and the awakening of modern consciousness TABLE OF CONTENTS preface ........................................................................................................11 introduction: A New View of Hellenic Culture ....................................13 chapter I: The Hellenic Consciousness ....................................................18 1. History as a Problem of Consciousness 2. The Greek Psyche 3. The Color Perception of the Ancient Hellenes 4. The Polis 5. The Origin of Conscience chapter II: The Twilight of the Gods (Riddles of Greek Mythology) ..........41 1. Prometheus and the Three Generations of Gods 2. Heracles 3. The Children of Deucalion chapter III: The Triad of the Tribes ........................................................64 chapter IV: The Polis as the Axis of Greek History ................................75 1. Polis (The Trojan War) 2. Metropolis (The Repulse of the Persians) 3. Cosmopolis (The Age of the World Citizen) chapter V: The Lips of the Gods .............................................................97 1. The Oracles of Apollo 2. The Mysteries of Dionysus chapter VI: The Lyre of Orpheus ..........................................................122 1. The Genius of the Greek Language 2. The Miracle of Poetry 3. The Mission of Music 0 the gospel of hellas chapter VII: The World of Homer ........................................................147 1. The Wrath of Achilles 2. The Wonders of the Odyssey chapter VIII: The Song of Stone ..........................................................162 1. The Greek Temple 2. The Sculptor’s Message of Immortality chapter IX: The Origin of Drama .........................................................190 chapter X: The Rise of Philosophy (The Quest for the Golden Fleece) ......203 1. The First Philosophers (The Torch of Ionia) 2. Socrates and the Sophists (The Intellect’s Temptation and Sacrifice) 3. Plato (The Triumph of the Thinking Soul) chapter XI: Aristotle .............................................................................223 1. Platonism and Aristotelianism (The Decision at Eleusis) 2. The Master of Alexander (The Fulfillment of Samothrace) 3. The World’s University (The Lyceum at Athens as the Spiritual Rebuilding of the Mysteries of Ephesus) chapter XII: Hellas and Christianity ....................................................255 1. The Development of Conscience and Paul in Athens 2. The Teaching of the Logos and the Gospel of John epilogue: America and the Renaissance of the Greek Spirit ..................270 references ...............................................................................................283 ILLUSTRAtiONS frontispiece Athens: Acropolis General view of side, W. Page 40 Athens: Acropolis: Parthenon View of ensemble from N.W. Page 74 Athens: Theseum Temple of Theseus (columns and cornice at east end) Page 104 Delphi View of ruins from hillside showing Theatre, exterior: side W. and Temple of Apollo at right Page 182 Athena Parthenos (Athens: National Museum School of Phidias) Zeus-type, see chapter III Page 184 Hermes of Andros (Athens: National Museum School of Praxiteles) Hermes-type, see chapter III Page 186 Marsyas (Constantinople, Imperial Ottoman Museum) Satyr-type, see chapter III Page 248 Aristotle (Rome: Palazzo Spada alla Regola) the gospel of hellas P R E F A C E This book originated from various lecture cycles given in cities throughout the United States over a period of many years. Formerly, while teaching classical languages at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany, and recently while lecturing on classical art in an American college, the author had ample opportunity to broaden his view of Hellenic civilization. Much of this book was written in the quiet beauty of the Brooks Farm in Hyampom, California. I wish to express my great appreciation to Henry B. Monges, who offered many valuable suggestions and encouraged me to add several details. I also have to thank most cordially Miss Esther Eaton, who supervised the entire manuscript with unerring accuracy and great devotion. Frederick Hiebel Princeton, 1947 the gospel of hellas I N T R O D U C T I O N A NEW VIEW OF HELLENIC CULTURE Confronted with the multitude of publications devoted to the legacy of Hellas, one might ask why a new book about Hellenic culture should be written. When Emerson said: “Every man passes personally through a Grecian period,” he expressed the conviction that our whole modern civilization is inseparably connected with the heritage of ancient Hellas and that every new generation is challenged to build up its own view of antiquity. The justification for a new study of ancient Hellas lies in the attempt to find a method which can lead to a deeper understanding of history as a whole. Why is this ever recurrent yearning for a renaissance of Greece so deeply rooted in our minds and so indisputable a factor in our education? With the exception of the structure of our modern economic life and the trend of our technical inventions, the main achievements in the field of our knowledge and in the creation of our art are rooted in the genius of Hellas. The Hellenes discovered the reign of the human being by means of knowledge based on the intellect born of their consciousness. “Know Thyself ” was incised on the pronaos of the temple at Delphi. Later Protagoras announced: “Man Is the Measure of All.” And at the height of Greek thinking, Aristotle called the human being the dearest friend of the gods and concluded: “We must make ourselves immortal!” Thus this fundamental challenge of self-knowledge ran through all stages of Greek life, and the history of Hellas was a thousandfold response to it. Everything which the Hellenes originated was centered around man’s search for self-knowledge and his discovery of himself. To name only a few of the geniuses who changed the soul of the whole human race we may point to Pherekydes of Samos as the first philosopher and to Thales of Miletus as the first natural scientist. Anaximander and Hecataius opened the doors to physics and geography; Heraclitus of Ephesus to philology the gospel of hellas and theology; Pythagoras to geometry and mathematics. Herodotus lived as the father of history and Demosthenes as the creator of oratory. Astronomy and mechanics were developed by such scholars as Ptolemy and Archimedes, while Plutarch originated the art of writing biography. The Homeric poems became the canon of all poetry. Archilochus added to the hexameters of Homer the iambus and the trochee; Sappho was named as the first poetess; Myron’s and Phidias’ chisels carved out the representation of full motion, giving life to stone; Polycleitus in his Canon wrote the first essay on aesthetics. Aeschylus originated the drama, Socrates dialectics. The times of Sophocles and Euripides, like those of Plato and Aristotle, marked the ripening and harvesting of the fruits which the mind of Hellas had produced. The sum total of these creative forces appeared in the structure of logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetics developed in the schools of Aristotle in the era of Hellenism which the world empire of Alexander the Great introduced. The acknowledgment of all the various ways in which the human race has tried to conceive the idea of Hellenic culture would fill a large book. Among the more recent writers of the present and the last two generations we observe an increasing desire for understanding the Hellenic world from the viewpoint of its myths and mysteries, cults and symbols. Ever since the time of romanticism, our view has been directed with increasing emphasis to the Dionysiac or Orphic aspect, or, as we often call it, the “night side of Hellas.” In fact, it was a search for the rediscovery of the Greek mysteries which inspired Nietzsche in his early writings centering around his Birth of Tragedy. Psychoanalysis, initiated by Sigmund Freud and continued along another path by Carl Gustav Jung, was linked with an attempt to reinterpret the early myths and symbols, particularly those connected with the Greek world. Research into the subconscious