"Hebraism and Hellenism" in Culture and Anarchy

Introduction: Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was one of the great critic of Victorian age. He was a British Poet and
Cultural Critic who worked as an inspector of schools. Arnold has been characterized as a Saga
writer, a type of a writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.
Arnold is a one the literary figure of Victorian age, and He comes next to Browning and
Tennyson. He has the experience of twenty – four years as the inspector of schools and so it
provided him so much time to meet the different classes and society and he examine their
behaviors and their habits. His comparative experiences at the home and abroad yielded such
essays as, The Popular Education of France, with Notices of That of Holland and Switzerland, A
French Eton, or Middle-Class Education and the State, and Schools and Universities on the
Continent, all of which influenced the ideas which found expression in Culture and Anarchy.
Matthew Arnold has wrote one essay on culture and social issues titled “Culture and
Anarchy”. This essay considered as his one of the masterpiece of social criticism. Arnold mostly
known for his this essay in which he has criticizes the culture and society and gave clear vision
of Victorian issues of his time.
Culture and Anarchy:
Culture and Anarchy is the major work of criticism. According to Arnold culture is “the
study of perfection”. Culture and Anarchy is a long essay on social issues and culture. Much
more than a mere treatise on the state of education in England, Culture and Anarchy is, in the
words of J. Dover Wilson, “ at once a masterpiece of vivacious prose, a great poet’s great
defence of poetry, a profoundly religious book, and the finest apology for education in the
English Language.” Culture and Anarchy is a series of periodical essay, first published in
Cornhill Magazine 1867 – 68 and collected as a book in 1869. This essay contains six chapters
and these chapters gave us view of Arnold about Political and Social issues.
The first chapter of the work was originally entitled: “Culture and its Enemies” The essay
spurred a number of responses, and soon, Arnold's attempts to respond to these responses grew
into a sequence of essays in Cornhill published between January to August 1868. These essays
would later form the collection, Culture and Anarchy.
 This essay written in six parts here the summarizes of Arnold’s aspects of culture that will
bring human society to greater perfection and the aspects of modern life that bring human society
towards anarchy:

TOWARDS CULTURE TOWARDS ANARCHY

Ø -Sweetness and Light (Beauty and Ø -Fire and Strength
Intelligence)
Ø -Philistinism
Ø -Hellenising: a more holistic, internal,
intellectual transformation to see things “asØ -Hebraising: tendency towards action, fire,
they truly are” strict adherence to rules

Ø -Idea of eternal process, progress, vital Ø -“Machinery”

movement of thought
Ø -Newspaper orthodoxies
Ø -Making reason and will of God prevail
Ø -Middle class liberalism
Ø -“best self” (collectively, everyone will
agree over values if everyone is cultivatingØ -cultivating natural taste for “bathos”
their best selves)
Ø -“Ordinary self”
Ø -need for ideas before action
Ø -Random action, or fixed rules for action
Ø -“right reason” without ideas behind them

Ø -ensuring “light” is not actually darkness Ø -“Doing as one likes” as the middle class,
liberal doctrine
Ø -allowing “consciousness to play freely and
simply” to cultivate disinterested views of Ø -“One thing needful”
 things and to avoid blind orthodoxies
Ø -Fetishizing the production of wealth and
Ø -Critique as actionable and pragmatic manufactures

Ø -State authority needed to reign in anarchy;Ø -Mindless partisanship – rule bound

should not be afraid of State as long as it “liberals” and “conservatives”
expresses collective “best self”
Ø -Fanaticism: nonconformists are perhaps as
rule-bound and counter to individual
thought as the Established Church

Ø -“Clap-trap”

The names of these six chapters of the essay:

1. Chapter – 1 “Sweetness and Light”
2. Chapter – 2 “Doing as One Likes”
3. Chapter – 3 “Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace”
4. Chapter – 4 “Hebraism and Hellenism”
5. Chapter – 5 “Porro Unum est Necessarium”
6. Chapter – 6 “Our Liberal Practitioners”
Hebraism and Hellenism:
Hebraism:
“Hebraism is the identification of a usage, trait, or characteristic of the Hebrew language.
By successive extension it is often applied to the Jewish people, their faith, national ideology, or
culture.”
The word “Hebraism” describes a quality, character, nature or method of thought, or
system of religion attributed to the Hebrew people. It is in this sense that Matthew Arnold
contrasts Hebraism with Hellenism.
Hellenism:
 “The word “Hellenism” derived from the Greek word “Ellinismos”. In Greek, Ellinismos
has been used to describe the people of Greek lineage and also to describe a set of values for
living that were invented by the ancient Greeks.”
Hellenism, generally used by historians to refer to the period from the death of Alexander
the Great to the death of Cleopatra and the incorporation of Egypt in the Roman Empire
in 30 B.C.E. Egypt was the last important survivor of the political system which had developed
as a consequence both of the victories of Alexander and of his premature death. The word
Hellenism is also used to indicate more generically the cultural tradition of the Greek-speaking
part of the Roman Empire between Augustus and Justinian and/or the influence of Greek
civilization on Rome, Carthage, India, and other regions which were never part of the empire of
Alexander.
In this essay he has discussed Hebraism and Hellenism. Arnold defines this chapter and
presents his ideas about Hebraism and Hellenism. He has quoted from Bishop Wilson, “First,
never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your light be not darkness.
"These two forces we may regard as in some sense rivals,--rivals not by the necessity of their
own nature, but as exhibited in man and his history,--and rivals dividing the empire of the world
between them. And to give these forces names from the two races of men who have supplied the
most signal and splendid manifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces of
Hebraism and Hellenism.
Hebraism and Hellenism are religious disciplines that incorporate similar language in their
teaching. Arnold argues that these are the two prime driving forces in the world with each
interacting strongly with the others. Some time they both are in harmony, at that time one may
have a stronger effect than the opposing force. Hellenism is a Greek teaching and focuses on
seeing the world and reality as it really is and spontaneity. As we seen above Hebraism is
obviously Hebrew, and put stress upon have personal obedience and strictness of the conscience.
While there are many differences in both of these teachings, they each emphasize the fact that
desire is a very human characteristic as well as the need for the love of God.

In the beginning of this topic, Arnold discusses about doing and thinking. His general
view about human being is that they prefer to act rather than think. He rejects it because mankind
is to error and he cannot always think right, but it comes seldom in the process of reasoning and
meditation, or he is not rightly guided by the light of true reason. The nation which follows the
voice of its conscience and its best light, but it is not the light of true reason except darkness.
Arnold gave his opinion that, the nation is energy or the capacity of doing but it is not
intelligence or capacity of thinking rightly. Such energy that has the sense of obligation and duty
must be related to the best light.

Arnold said that Hellenism and Hebraism they should be in harmony by the light of
reason, and talks about the great idea to know and the great energy to act. He considered both
these forces very powerful and insists on the balance of the both thought and action. The final
aim of these Hellenism and Hebraism is the same as man’s salvation and perfection. Even when
their language indicates by variation, — sometimes a broad variation, often a but slight and
subtle variation, — the different courses of thought which are uppermost in each discipline, even
then the unity of the final end and aim is still apparent. To employ the actual words of that
discipline with which we ourselves are all of us most familiar, and the words of which, therefore,
come most home to us, that final end and aim is "that we might be partakers of the divine nature"

Arnold also discusses further thing that the supreme idea with Hellenism or the Greek
Spirit is to see things as they really are, and the supreme idea of Hebraism or the spirit of Bible is
conduct and obedience. If Hebraism means only the knowledge of the Bible and the word of
God, then Arnold has come to the defence of culture and says: “No man, who knows nothing
else, knows even his Bible”! Essential to Hellenism, on the other hand, is the impulse to the
development of the whole man.

Arnold points out that the Greek philosophy considered that the body and its desires are
an obstacle to right action. The root idea of the both is the desire for reason and the will of God,
and the desire of love of God. Hebraism studies the universal order and observes the
magnificence of God apparent in the order, whereas Hellenism follows with flexible activity.
Thus, Hellenism acquires spontaneity of consciousness with a clearness of mind, and Hebraism
achieves a strictness of conscience with its clarity of thought. Hellenism has more earnestness of
free play of the intellect or a Plato says, “for ever through all the universe tends towards that
which is lovely”. In brief, Hebraism shows stress on doing rather than knowing, and follows the
will of God. Its primary idea is absolute obedience to the will of God.

Both these Hebraism and Hellenism are directly connected to the life of human beings.
Hebraism fastens its faith in doing, where as Hellenism put stress on knowing or knowledge. The
final aim of both is the partaking of divine life with knowledge and action. Arnold describes that
the Bible reveals the truth which awards the peace of God and liberty. The easy and simple idea
of Hellenism is to get rid of ignorance, to see things as they are, and to search beauty from them.
Socrates, as Hellenic, states that the best man is he who tries to make himself perfect, and the
happiest man is he who feels that he is perfecting himself.

In this treatise, Arnold says that there is enough of Hellenism in the English nation, and
Arnold emphasizes on Hebraism, because it is based on conduct and self – control and admit that
the age is incapable of governing itself in the pursuit of perfection, and the bright promise of
Greek ideal is faded. The Obedience or submission must be to the rules of conduct as expressed
by the Holy Scripture. Hellenism lays its main stress on clear intelligence. Whereas Hebraism
keeps main stress on firm obedience, moral power and character. Arnold explain and turns to Sin
that spoils the efforts to achieve Hellenism. He gave his opinion that sin is an obstacle to
perfection because it brings hurdles in knowing ourselves, it prevent man’s passage to perfection.
He calls it is a mysterious power that is hostile to man. The discipline of the Holy Scripture
teaches that how to avoid and stop the sin. Hebraism speaks of becoming conscious of the sin
and keeping away from it, Whereas Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly and seeing the things in
their essence and beauty.

In this chapter Arnold also talked about Christianity and also talked about the idea of
immorality as illustrated by the St. Paul, the Christian saint and Plato the Greek Philosopher and
Thinker, but both have left something unexplained. So, its create a problem the problem of
human spirit is still unsolved in both Hebraism and Hellenism. In all this writer finds triumph of
the great movement of Christianity on the man’s moral impulses. Arnold Accepts that
Renaissance re established Hellenism and man’s intellectual impulses in Europe and Puritanism
embraced the blessing of both Hellenism and Hebraism. In time of Reformation, there was the
more influence of Hebraism than the Hellenism, there was a grave return to the Bible and to
doing the will of God from the heart.

There was superiority of Puritanism over Catholicism and it was moral, it has the result of
its greater sincerity and greater earnestness. Arnold then says that the attitude of mind of
Puritanism towards the Bible differs from the attitude of mind of Catholism toward the
church. In the sixteenth century, therefore, Hellenism re-entered the world, and again stood in
presence of Hebraism, — a Hebraism renewed and purged, but Hellenism of Renaissance lost its
moral character. Arnold viewed on thing most that, Hellenism is of Indo-European growth,
Hebraism is of Semitic growth; and we English, a nation of Indo- European stock, seem to
belong naturally to the movement of Hellenism.
The greatness of the difference is well measured by the difference in force, beauty, significance
and usefulness, between primitive Christianity and Protestantism. Eighteen hundred years ago it
was altogether the hour of Hebraism; primitive Christianity was legitimately and truly the
ascendant force in the world at that time, and the way of mankind's progress lay through its full
development. In 16th century there was a reaction of Hebraism against Hellenism. If Hellenism
was defeated by Hebraism, it shows that Hellenism was imperfect.

There was the defeat of Hellenism by early Christianity and the defeat of Hellenism by
Puritanism was the result of Renaissance stress on the progress of humanism and science. And
incline that the man to knowing himself and the world to seeing the thing as the spontaneity of
consciousness.

Arnold defines how Hebraism and Hellenism have the same ends - so that "we may be
partakers in divine nature" and thus they should be balanced in our society. Hebraism's close
relationship with sin tends to make it too much about conduct and obedience, and not enough
about seeing this as they really are. In history, there have been waves of Hebraism and Hellenism
(Renaissance - Hellenistic; Reformation - Hubristic). Arnold values the "tenacity" of Hebraism
but suggests that Hellenism is needed to make sure the "light" which this tenacity follows is not
"darkness."
 At the end we can say that Arnold’s argument is about the idea of Hebraism versus
Hellenism. Hebraism represents the actions of people who are either ignorant or resistant to the
idea of culture. Hebraists subscribe to a strict, narrow-minded method of moral conduct and self
control which does not allow them to visualize a utopian future of belonging to an enlightened
community. Hellenism signifies the open-minded, spontaneous exploration of classical ideas and
their application to contemporary society.

At the end of this part of this essay “Hebraism and Hellenism” we can say that it must be
added that the rule of life should be based on these theory of Hebraism and Hellenism because
both has final aim that is man’s perfection or salvation. As in this part Arnold has defined very
well concept about Hebraism and Hellenism on the other side he has also defined the things
which are related to the politics, society, culture and other thing also comes in other chapters of
the essay. This essay “Culture and Anarchy” ended with then Arnold idea and his thought that he
how he gave different view about culture.