An Unexpected Journal: The Ancients: Volume 4, #3

By An Unexpected Journal

Celebrating the Ancients
From before the time of Christ, pagan philosophers and storytellers have been influencing thought and shaping culture. In this issue dedicated to the ancient philosophers that formed the foundation of Western culture, we examine the way Christian thought was influenced by and engaged with those early writers and how the Jewish Messiah fulfilled the best hopes raised by what C.S. Lewis referred to as the "good dreams of the pagans."

Contributors

• C.M. Alvarez: "The Power of the Storyteller: Jesus and Aesop" on the ancient tales that changed the world.
• Jesse W. Baker: "Listening to the Past" on the value of the Ancients.
• Donald W. Catchings, Jr.: "The Chain-Breaker in Plato's Allegory" on escaping the cave, and an excerpt from the novelette, Strength in Weakness, a retelling of Theseus.
• Annie Crawford: "Wisdom Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us: Pagan Dreams of the King of Kings" on Christian virtues and philosopher-kings.
• Riz Crescini: "The Imaginative Strategy of Boethius" on the apologetic power of the imagination.
• Joshua S. Fullman: "A Galatian Marriage / Nasoni" on pagan morals and aesthetics.
• Karise Gililland: "Sede Vacante" on the Fall of Man.
• Douglas LeBlanc: "Vengeance is Mine, Saith Everyone" on societal and personal judgment.
• Alex Markos: "The Return of the Kings: Comparing the Homecoming of Odysseus and the Two Comings of Christ" on the tension between love and wrath, and "Persephone" on Christian re-imagination.
• Louis Markos: "In Defense of Hospitality and Storytelling" on the rules of xenia.
• Seth Myers: "Till They Have Faces: Lewis's Psyche Meets the Modern Helen of Troy and Circe" on different perspectives on ancient stories.
• Cherish Nelson: "The Nicomachean Ethics and the Enemy Within" on horror, power, and self-control.
• Annie Nardone: "Oh Brother: A Bluegrass Odyssey" on ancient morality, values, and spirituality.
• Zak Schmoll: "Pius Samwise: Roman Heroism in The Lord of the Rings" on Virgil and Tolkien's chief heroes.
• Jason M. Smith: "Worth Reading: The Ancients" with a list of suggestions on where to begin to read the ancient philosophers, and a review of After Humanity by Michael Ward.
• Ted Wright: "Drinking from the Well of the Past: A Reflection on the Role of History in Literature & Philosophy for the Modern World" on the function of history.
• Iris Zamora: "Ancients of Old," a poem celebrating the thinkers of days gone by.

 

Fall 2021
Volume 4, Issue 3
280 pages
Cover illustration by Virginia De La Lastra

• Language: English
• Publisher: An Unexpected Journal
• Release date: Sep 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201547141

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Copyright ©  2021 - An Unexpected Journal.

Digital Edition

Credits

Managing Editor: Zak Schmoll

Cover Art: Virginia De La Lastra

Journal Mark:  Erika McMillan

Journal Design and Layout: Legacy Marketing Services

Editors: Carla Alvarez, Donald W. Catchings, Jr., Annie Crawford, Karise Gililland, Jason Monroe, Annie Nardone, Cherish Nelson, Megan Prahl, Zak Schmoll

Contributors:  C.M. Alvarez, Jesse W. Baker, Donald W. Catchings, Jr., Annie Crawford, Riz Crescini, Joshua S. Fullman, Karise Gililland, Douglas LeBlanc Alex Markos, Louis Markos, Seth Myers, Annie Nardone, Cherish Nelson, Zak Schmoll, Jason M. Smith, Ted Wright, Iris Zamora

All rights reserved.  This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Listening to the Past

Jesse W. Baker on the Value of the Ancients

In his work The Lost World of Genesis One , Old Testament scholar John Walton gets his reader in a proper frame of mind before diving in and exploring Genesis 1 in its ancient context by explaining how the Bible communicates. He writes,

The Old Testament does communicate to us and it was written for us, and for all humankind. But it was not written to us. It was written to Israel. It is God’s revelation of himself to Israel and secondarily through Israel to everyone else. As obvious as this is, we must be aware of the implications of that simple statement. Since it was written to Israel, it is in a language that most of us do not understand, and therefore it requires translation. But the language is not the only aspect that needs to be translated. Language assumes a culture, operates in a culture, serves a culture, and is designed to communicate into the framework of a culture. Consequently, when we read a text written in another language and addressed to another culture, we must translate the culture as well as the language if we hope to understand the text fully.[1]

In other words, modern readers cannot open a biblical text and automatically assume that the ancient writers thought in exactly the same way we do, or are even asking the same questions that we might ask. Therefore, to gain a proper understanding of what ancient authors are conveying, those original writers need to lead the conversation; the reader, first, needs to listen.

While Walton’s book and the included poem have as their immediate reference conversations regarding the relationship between the Scriptures and science, the implication of the need for listening between the two areas has effects which reach more broadly, especially as it relates to apologetics. The Christian apologist—the cultural apologist in particular—must begin as a listener. While a basic and simple principle, it is powerful in its application. Jesus knew what he was doing when he told us, In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.[2] If we want to be heard, to share our own convictions, a good practice to begin with is listening. We should not assume we know why someone thinks the way they do, neither should we assume we know their conclusions ahead of time.

C.S. Lewis, in fact, suggests this is one reason why he reads good books. Reading the words and thoughts of others opens one to other perspectives. Lewis describes, [I]n reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.[3] Lewis is correct: transcendence can happen with great literature. Further, transcendence is all the more likely to happen when reading the ancient texts which comprise the Holy Scriptures. Yet, it will not happen against anyone’s will. To be open to the transcendence of literature and Scripture, one must first engage as a listener.

We cannot assume that non-Christians will enter into reading the Bible with the same sense of respect as Christians. While lamentable, perhaps our goal should not even be to instill that respect, at least not initially. I don’t think that one will reach that attitude by direct argument. It may be a better course of action to request that the non-Christian also practice the art of listening, thereby (prayerfully) arriving at respect by that more indirect route. When read from our modern viewpoints and (assumed) places of certainty regarding scientific or historical findings, it may be understandable that skeptics might read Genesis and assume the writers are either crazy or downright ignorant. Another option, we might lovingly suggest, is that the ancients were trying to communicate something altogether different from what we assume and walk with them as they explore the thoughts of another time and place, all the while pondering the present relevance of those ancient thoughts.[4]

No one culture or generation can claim exclusive rights to all truth. To be sure, Christians (rightly) have an upper hand on truth with the person of Jesus, self-described as the way, and the truth, and the life, but that does not mean we have nothing left to learn.[5] We need not be afraid of scientific discoveries, nor should those who favor science over Scripture necessarily fear the Bible. They can work together to make more sense of the world around us. Lewis, on top of encouraging us to read great books, also encouraged readers to read old books. In an essay—which, fittingly, was originally written as the introduction to a translation of St. Athanasius’ great work On the Incarnation—he urges people to read old books, for precisely the reason stated above: no one at any period has cornered the market on all truth. We read ancient texts, Lewis says, 

Not, of course, [because] there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.[6]

One might be reluctant to put all of Lewis’s words here as descriptors of the biblical authors. Rest assured, the reference is merely illustrative, not descriptive. Plus, Lewis himself did not have the biblical authors in view here, either. (If anything, we would need to be more cautious of the interpretations of the biblical texts given across the ages, not the text itself, which is what I have in mind.) Still, the larger and original point stands: we all write and think with limitations that others, even those writing millennia ago, can help us overcome. When it comes to discussions on science and faith, we need both ancients and moderns. The same holds true when thinking about conversations and debates more broadly. The apologist needs to listen, and the apologist needs to model listening. Those who engage with the Bible, whether sympathetic to its claims or antagonistic toward those claims, need to begin in a posture of listening. Whatever one’s starting point, listening is the only way to truly receive what was being said. On top of being a loving way to engage with others, in listening we just might learn something.

Listening

They used to think, stated dismissively,

Is all that’s needed for moderns to move

Beyond claims of divine creativity,

Favoring blindness and chance over love.

They used to think, quipped humorously,

Suggests ancient minds were underdeveloped,

Unable to comprehend reality,

And so settled for the fabricated.

They used to think, said curiously,

With a mind that’s open, ears that listen,

Discerning what was actually spoken,

Leads to a more profound discovery:

It’s not what ancients in ignorance knew not;

But, more, what we in ignorance forgot.

Worth Reading: The Ancients

Jason M. Smith on Where to Start

Worth Reading is An Unexpected Journal’s book recommendations column. Each issue we highlight a few titles, related to that issue’s theme, that are recommended by AUJ staff, contributors, or readers. Books featured here can be from any genre, for readers of any age, published at any time. What they have in common is that people who appreciate the work and goals of An Unexpected Journal believe them to be Worth Reading.

To contribute your favorite book to Worth Reading, write ~500 words explaining why it’s a good book and a good fit for an upcoming issue and use the Submissions form to send it in.

WHEN MOST PEOPLE THINK of St. Augustine, the book which typically springs to mind first is his Confessions, followed perhaps by City of God. Less famous but at least equally deserving is On Christian Doctrine, a book which (to my surprise) is neither a systematic theology nor a popular introduction to Christian belief. Rather, it's an original and well-developed guide to reading well, addressing how to read attentively and evaluate thoughtfully.

Sourcing the divine books for his examples, Augustine presents the essential principles of literacy—including recognition of metaphors and rhetorical styles, figurative and literal language, interpretive layers, accounting for context, the methods, use, and limits of inferring authorial intent, and even comparing translations to develop a more robust understanding of foreign-language texts. Observations and insights on Christian theology, scripture, and philosophy are liberally sprinkled throughout like so many jewels.

In Augustine’s day many converts to Christianity were not literate (and may have wished to become so in order to read the Bible), or may not have been well-practiced in reading complex literature, and in any case resources were in short supply for students. Reading was uncommon, and normally undertaken aloud and in groups; Augustine himself found it remarkable that St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and one of his great heroes, often read the Bible alone and silently.[7]

The Bible is a challenging book by any metric; as Augustine observes, speaking of those things necessary to the treatment of Scripture . . . is a great and arduous work . . . difficult to sustain . . . I fear some temerity in undertaking it.[8] Yet he succeeded brilliantly, producing a work that is succinct, illuminating, and itself very easy to read. I’m glad I made time for it as an adult; I wish I’d read it in grade school.

UNDERSTANDING HOW THE ancients thought is not always managed by simply reading what they wrote: sometimes, you need a guide. One really stellar example is The Book of the Cosmos: Imagining the Universe from Heraclitus to Hawking, edited by Dennis Richard Danielson. Danielson assembles essays from 85 experts, science historians, and modern scientists on cosmology and astronomy and presents them in chronological order, revealing how our understanding of the universe evolved sequentially throughout recorded time. Books like this are hugely helpful for coming up to speed on a subject, since every insight builds on those that came before. Periodically, this means disproving the best explanations that were previously available.

Tours de force through time and thought, like this one, go a long way toward refuting the natural but erroneous assumption that our present day has a special monopoly on rational, fact-based thinking. It's very easy to fall into this trap because, generally speaking, our tools for observation and measurement are more powerful and more precise than those available to generations past. But it does not follow that our wits are analogously sharper as well. When scientists of the ancient and recent past were factually wrong, they were sometimes spectacularly wrong. This makes it easy to be distracted by the spectacle and miss how good their reasoning was, given the data they had. The Book of the Cosmos brings home that on the shoulders of giants is no idle phrase.

IF I ASKED YOU TO RECOMMEND ancient works of fiction worth reading, even if you haven’t read them yourself, you’d probably be confident enough in their reputations to name an epic: The Iliad. The Odyssey. The Aeneid. Maybe even Gilgamesh. I wouldn’t disagree. But there’s an equally important work of fiction you may not have encountered since early childhood, if ever: the complete collection of Aesop’s Fables.

These stories, whether originated by or attributed to Aesop, have exerted an indelible and pervasive influence on Western culture. Greek philosophers Apollonius and Plato wrote admiringly of them. Roman historians Livy and Plutarch adapted fables like The Belly and its Members to illustrate historical events; the same story may have inspired the Apostle Paul’s discourse about the body and its members in his first letter to the Corinthians. Aphorisms and morals from the collection are common in everyday speech today, including advice about the treatment of geese that lay golden eggs, comparing the diligence of ants with the carefree irresponsibleness of grasshoppers, emulating the steadfast progress of tortoises who outrace hares, recognizing disappointment denied as sour grapes, why having mercy on mice could save your life, and how a bear encounter is a test of true friendship (just to mention a few). These are powerful, formative stories, packing a lot of practical, memorable, easily-transmissible wisdom into tiny kernels of language. Fluency in Aesop’s Fables is a worthy pursuit - not just to know the lessons, but to study the technique.

HAVE A BOOK WORTH READING? Write ~500 words explaining why and send it in using the Submissions form on our website

The Power of the Storyteller: Jesus and Aesop

C.M. Alvarez on Tales That Changed the World

T ell me a story. This is a phrase every parent hears at one time or another. From our earliest days of understanding, before we learn to read or write, to reason or persuade, we want to hear a story. This innate desire is a foundational element of the way we interact as human beings, as societies, and in the