The Nature of History according to Herodotus

"These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds. According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. " (Proem to Herodotus, The Histories)
In this passage, which begins the work of Herodotus, he sets out his own understanding of the nature of history. First, the word Herodotus uses to describe his work is the Greek word "historia" and is usually translated research. This tells us that Herodotus understood history to be the kind of thing that must be researched. Secondly, Herodotus clearly tells us he does this for the sake of preservation. History then, according to Herodotus, engages in actions of preservation. Next we see that Herodotus wants to preserve very specific things. Actions. But it is not just the actions of the Greeks he is concerned with. Rather he is equally concerned that the "great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and Barbarians" be preserved. This tells us that Herodotus considers history to be impartial to some extent. Finally Herodotus tells that history concerns itself with the causes of events, not simply the relation of events.

Women in the Odyssey

Women play a more vibrant role in the Odyssey than they do in the Iliad. From the Iliad, one might get the impression that women were simply property. The Odyssey appears to portray women as powerful agents in the world of men, however. From the beginning of the epic, Kalypso exercises power over Odysseus. While she is a goddess, this does not mean that her power cannot be resisted. Often the desires of the gods are resisted by mortals, and yet Odysseus is powerless to resist Kalypso. Later in the poem we find Odysseus’ men trapped and transformed by Circe. The Sirens are often portrayed as seductive females, though Greek pottery often pictured them as winged bird-like creatures. In short, the women of the Odyssey appear to have a seductive and physical control over men in that poem. This is also consistent with the picture of women from other Greek authors, such as Euripides or Aristophanes.
However, the picture of women is not confined to these goddesses and creatures. Penelope and Helen also present vivid pictures of femininity to the readers of the Odyssey. When Telemachos visits Menelaus in Sparta, Helen sits at his side, but does not shrink from making an address in the meeting. The details of war and death are not hidden from her ears, nor is she silenced from talking in the presence of men. In like manner, Penelope flashes across the epic as a model of feminine virtue and strength. While she does not take up arms against her suitors (she is no feminist) she does what she can with what she has to delay and wait for her husband to return home.

Snow Day!

There is nothing like a snow day. I don't remember getting one last year. I think we did, but it wasn't this pretty. It started last night and snowed until nearly midnight. Got some great pictures of the kids at play and the pretty scenery. I will confess I haven't done much today. Built a great fire. Tried to decide on my favorite snow poem for this post. Dickinson has some as does Robert Frost. Everyone knows "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", but none of them really captured what I was looking for. That made me sad. It made me realize that I know so little poetry. I read it in college. I enjoy teaching the poetry that I teach in my Humanities classes, but I know so little beyond that.
Maybe that's what I'll do with some of my day. Read some poetry. That would be fitting.
I hope you enjoy the snow as much as our family did.
Here are a few pictures.

This is great!

I found this on YouTube looking for classical Christian schools. I am sorry I missed this when it was first aired. I especially like the part where Roy Atwood talks about the students preparation for the job market. In a world where the major questions parents ask have to do with computer classes, it is refreshing to see that a Liberal Arts education (which includes, in my opinion, a strong curriculum in math and science) is paying off for the students at Logos and New St. Andrews.

Hosptality in the Odyssey

The Homeric ideal of hospitality is very much a central figure of the Odyssey. Hospitality is a lost art in our modern individualistic society. While we think we are being hospitable if we lay some crackers and cheese out for guests or make sure we have clean sheets on the bed, we find a much more colorful sense of hospitality in the Homeric epics. When Telemachos visits Menelaus and Nestor, he is greeted warmly, given rich gifts and fed with succulent food – and all of this is before anyone even asks his name or his business. When Odysseus is stranded naked on Phaiacia, he is treated to clothes, a warm fire and a meal. Again no one even knows who he is when this takes place. Even Eumaios, the swineherd, knows it is his duty to be hospitable. When Odysseus, disguised as a old beggar, shows up at Eumaios’ home he feeds him, bringing in “the best of the pigs” (Hom. Od. xiv.414) and giving Odysseus the best portion of the feast “in honor” (xiv.437).

By obvious contrast we see the lack of hospitality in the cave of Polyphemus and the behavior of the suitors. Polyphemus locks his visitors in the cave and devours them one by one even after Odysseus has pleaded with him to be hospitable and “give us guest presence or otherwise / some gift of grace, for such is the right of strangers” (ix.267-268). Polyphemus declares he has no concern for the traditions of the gods or men. In like manner, the suitors treat Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, badly and shun him at the hearth rather than making him comfortable.

On Reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Are you hot-tempered? Do you flare up at the slightest offense and do everything in your power to maintain your honor, or someone else’s? If so, you are not alone. You have a lot of company in that particular Venn diagram. Among the people in that category would be King Arthur’s nephew Gawain. We met him reading Geoffrey of Monmouth and got a little sense of his hot-headedness there. If you remember, he was sent on the journey to meet envoys from Rome near the end of the book. He allowed himself to be provoked by the Romans and ended up cutting off the head of a Roman officer (an action he seems to repeat from time-to-time). His zeal for the honor of Arthur and Camelot led to the sacking of Rome by Arthur.

Geoffrey of Monmouth is not the only place we can hear stories of Gawain. In a lot of the medieval Arthur stories, Gawain is pictured quite often, and typically as a model of knighthood. This may strike us as odd; especially when we see the mess he gets himself into in the book we are about to read, but the medievals liked Gawain a lot and sung about him often. The stories that we are likely most familiar with about Arthur, those of Sir Thomas Malory and Alfred Lord Tennyson, do not picture Gawain as the model of the knight. Rather they tend to picture him as a scoundrel and a traitor. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight lets us see a little of the alternate tradition that pictured Gawain as a true hero.

We know that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in the fourteenth century but we do not know who wrote it. This may be because the author did not want to be known (out of a sense of humility) or because the name was accidentally lost. Oftentimes, tales told in the medieval world were more about preserving the deeds of the hero than the fame of the author. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was also a poem. It was written in a style known as alliterative poetry. We typically think of poetry as rhyming lines. Some poetry does rhyme, but by far most poetry in the world does not work like this. This can make poetry a little inaccessible to some people unless they read a lot of it. We are going to be reading a prose rendition of the poem. It preserves the story, but some details are necessarily lost. A very good verse translation exists by J.R.R. Tolkien (of Lord of the Rings fame).

Some of the features of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are worth examining a little by way of preview. Gawain is a knight and is bound by a code of chivalry. Chivalry essentially meant honorable conduct. It originally meant honorable conduct between warriors, but as Europe turned into what some scholars call Christendom (a concept we’ll deal with in a minute) this code of chivalrous behavior began to reflect the values of Christianity and the ethics it demanded of believers. This gives us a picture of Gawain in which honor, virtue, and truth are very important. Courtly romances, like Sir Gawain, often played up the situations that this code could bring into existence if all the aspects were not kept in their proper place.

A well-balanced worldview is like a clean room. Everything has a place and stays in its place. If it is left out of its place, the room is no longer clean and distortions are bound to occur (like leaving a school picture someone gave you out when everyone else’s is put neatly away, thus creating the distortion that you have feelings for this person when you do not). Courtly romances tended to capitalize on the distortions that could take place when honor or truth take a higher place than they deserved and at the expense of other components of the worldview. Sir Gawain shows us what can happen when honor is taken too far and at the expense of virtue or truthfulness.

Europe began as an influx of pagan Germanic tribes into Christian Roman territory. As time went on, many of these tribes converted to Christianity and began to establish legitimate kingdoms based, in part, on Christian teachings of morality and justice. By the time of Charlemagne (800 ad) most of Europe could have been called Christian. The invasions of the Vikings in the ninth and tenth centuries disrupted this general tendency, but even they were eventually won over by the power of the Gospel. Scholars often call this general saturation of European culture and society with Christianity, Christendom. Christendom means that the structure of society in Europe was Christian. The kings swore allegiance to the pope in many cases, and were often crowned by priests or had coronation ceremonies in churches. Sir Gawain gives us an accurate picture of the effect of Christendom on literature and folklore in Europe. The Church is always in the background of everything that is done. Masses are said every day, more than that in the castle Gawain stays at over Christmas. Lords often have their own private priests and chapels to have mass said in. Gawain visits the chapel often, as do most other characters in the story. Holy days and portions of the ecclesiastical calendar, like Michaelmas and All Hallows Day, are an essential part of how the passing of time is told in the story. We may object that masses are said but we must remember that Roman Catholicism was the only version of Christianity open to England, France and most of Western Europe at that time. The influence of Christianity in creating a Christian state, or Christendom, is monumental and this story exhibits it front and center in a very unapologetic way.

Finally we will notice that Sir Gawain takes a particular view of masculinity and femininity. The lord and his band go out hunting all day while the ladies remain at home and do feminine tasks. This may strike us as sexist or chauvinistic in our modern culture. Before we write Sir Gawain off, we should consider whether our notions are wrong. Medieval civilization attached some very definite roles to men and women that we have discarded for some poor reasons. Nonetheless, we do not have to accept the roles attached to the sexes in this story simply because they are medieval. As always, our standard should be Scripture and its teaching on the subject. We will find, for instance, that the picture of women as constantly trying to woo or be wooed by a knight, even if they are married, is a very unbiblical role.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a work of lasting beauty and creativity. It is short and fun to read. Enjoy!

The Gift of the Magi

I found myself with an extra class period for some of my Humanities classes last week (we just broke for Christmas break) and I thought I'd do something a little seasonal. O. Henry's short story The Gift of the Magi made a perfect filler session. O. Henry was William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), an American author living near the end of the nineteenth century. He was famous for his short stories with surprise endings. The Gift of the Magi is among these stories. The story itself can be found here. Below I have posted the questions I gave my class to consider as we talked through the story. If you decide to use this in any way, let me know. I'd love to know what you think of the questions and the discussion they create.
Merry Christmas!

Comprehension
1. Why is Della upset about her $1.87? What does she want to do with her money?
2. How does she feel about Jim? About his watch?
3. What asset does she have with which to get his present? How does she accomplish this?
4. What does Della fear when Jim comes home?
5. What is Jim’s reaction when he sees Della?
6. How does Jim feel about Della? About her hair?
7. What has he purchased for her? How has he purchased this gift?
8. In O. Henry’s opinion, what is the gift the Magi?
Connections
1. Why did the Young’s have the very pretentious name, Dillingham, in their name?
2. Why were they considering dropping it now?
3. Are the Young’s wealthy? How can you tell?
4. Define irony. What is ironic about this story? Briefly describe some other ironic event you have read about or of which you have been a part.
Application
1. What biblical allusions does O. Henry draw from to make his story?
2. Who were the biblical Magi? What gifts did they bring?
3. What parallel does O. Henry draw between the imagery of the biblical Magi and the gifts that Della and Jim offer to each other?
4. Why do we give gifts to each other at Christmas or other times of the year?
5. How do you feel when you receive a gift?
6. How do you feel when you give a gift?
7. What is the most a gift has ever cost you personally?

It's Christmas Time in the City

This is a great video. There are others like it as well. Search for Trans-Siberian Orchestra on YouTube. This is one of those things I'd love to have the time and the money with which to do something like this.

Why Welfare Systems Don't Work

The Puritans had much to teach concerning social action, as did godly Christian leaders from before their time and after. John Calvin, for example, created a "welfare system" in Geneva that upheld the biblical demands to feed the poor and care for the widow and the orphan, and all within the god-given structure of the Church. The Puritans understood the value of working for the common welfare of the community and men like William Ames instructed believers to have a "living religion" not one that was mere empty words. Works of piety and charity were often commended by the Puritans. As recently as the nineteenth century, Thomas Chalmers, through his tireless actions, reduced Glasgow's welfare budget needs to nothing by the careful and directed actions of the local church.
Modern welfare movements will fail for a couple of reasons. For one thing they are trying to do the impossible. Contrary to modernist assumptions Christ has told us that we will always have poor people among us. Therefore any attempt to eradicate poverty through welfare systems or socialism is doomed to failure. Another reason, however, is that the wrong agency is doing the deeds. It should shame us that the state is doing the deeds of the local church. The state was not meant to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. This is the job of the Church and to the extent we have let the state get involved, we have abdicated our responsibility.
Until the Church stands up and takes responsibility for mercy ministry, we will continue to see the state's destructive policies tearing families apart. Many families never make it out of poverty or abject living conditions through state welfare systems. That is because they come devoid of proper instruction. Part of mercy ministry is instruction in righteousness.
I'll get down from the soap box now.

Why We Think The Way We Think About the Puritans

I remember the way teachers at high school and college treated the Puritans in history and literature classes when I was growing up. It was not a pretty sight. The Puritans were presented as very drab and solemn folks who had no sense of joy whatsoever and wanted to make sure no one else did either. They were dogmatic in their beliefs and intolerant of anyone else around them having even a slightly different opinion. In a day when multi-culturalism and cultural relativism was the rule, the Puritans didn't strike my teachers as worthy of anything but spite.
As I read more and more history and literature, I began to see where that thinking came from. It didn't come from reading the Puritans, I can tell you that. It came from, or at least began with, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne (1804-4864) was a descendant of John Hathorne, one of judges in the famous Salem Witch Trials of the late 1690's. Hawthorne (who likely added the "w" to his name to separate himself from his ancestry) despised the actions of his grandfather and linked those actions to the austere Calvinism that pervaded much of New England at the time.
Hawthorne began writing in the 1820's and continued to write until the early 1860's. Many of his novels vehemently attack the Puritanism of New England history or simply picture the Puritans as ineffective and hypocritical. One of Hawthorne's most famous works, The Scarlet Letter, does this masterly. The main characters are hypocritical, ineffective, intolerant, and unloving. This was the version of Puritanism that colored the way generations of Americans view the Puritan movement.
Leland Ryken has done the world a great service by writing Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were. While not a work of classical literature or history, I like to teach this work in the course on 1500 - 1800 to show what Puritans were really like. It helps students see what good ideas they had, while not sugar-coating the bad things they stood for. It also helps frame many discussions that come up in American history; things like education, social action, and attitudes toward work and labor.