THE CHRISTIAN CHALLENGE TO GRAECO-ROMAN HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE.

This topic is viewed historically and its geographical point of view is ancient Greece and Rome.
It is viewed in terms of the perspective of the people about the nature of history as opposed to the
Christian understanding of the same. The Christian perspective is based on St. Augustine’s ideas
as depicted from his City of God about his understanding of the nature of history.

The Graeco-Roman perspective

The Greeks and Romans had a belief which is said to have been depicted from or influenced by
the importation of the middle eastern ideas in particular from the book of Daniel in his
prophecies. One of the approaches to their history was that world history consisted of the
succession of the four world monarchies or great empires, with a possible fifth which would be
eternal. In some versions Rome was the fourth world monarchy succeeding the earlier empires of
Babylon, Persia, and Greece; each of which had inevitably declined and succumbed to the next.
These expected Rome to succumb to the fifth empire which would be eternal. Others took Rome
as the fifth following the empires of Assyria, media, Persia, and Macedonia making it the fifth.
These of course saw Rome to be the last and eternal which would last forever. This was however
not achieved as Rome lost to the Goths in 410 A.D under the rule of emperor Augustus.

During this period of time, the pagan thinkers had made a shift in their thinking away from the
constitutional changes within the complex histories of individual city-states. They instead
focused on the rise and fall of the empires. Some Romans and Greek who believed that Rome
was eternal had their justifications such as the virtues that were embedded in the Roman culture,
exceptional qualities of its statesmen, that they applied in their governance, morality and
discipline among others.

This idea of the rise and fall of the empires like they had experienced made them to have a belief
in the cyclical nature of history. In other words that history repeated itself. Some Romans and
some Greeks including the stoics believed in the cosmological cycles of nature and thus it was
easy for them to attribute history to the same. Some as they even believed in fate or the great
wheel of fortune. Therefore, the empires that rose were always expected to fall no matter what as
some had postulated that it was due to their propensity to expand beyond manageable sizes,
political divisions that led to radical disunity, moral decline among others.

Rome was taken to be eternal by some Romans because of the prophecy in form of a four-
monarchy myth and thus took Rome as the fifth and eternal, failure to base their assumptions on
substantive theories about the driving forces of historical change, superstition rather than
reasoning among others. This notion does not however mean that they did not believe in the
cyclical nature of history. They actually did believe but chose to excempt Rome. This made Dr.
Johnson to make an observation that; in the affairs of men, it is remarkable how interest smooths
the path of faith. Therefore, we may not blame them for the contradiction in their belief.

The Judeo-Christian perspective

The Jews and Christians believed in a monotheistic and transcendental God from whom all
things emanate which was different from the pagan perspective of the cosmological cycles and
many gods. For the Israelites, this person demonstrated His purpose through his mediation with
Abraham. The Jews had received a prophecy about the messiah who would be a warrior-king
with miraculous powers who would destroy their enemies and establish an everlasting kingdom.
The Christians had a belief in the second triumphant coming of the messiah and then finally there
would be the last judgment and then the new Jerusalem. This brings about the linear
understanding of history from creation to the end.

Augustine’s perspective

In his work, the city of God which he wrote mainly to defend Christianity against the Romans
who accused Christianity to be the cause of the fall of the Rohan empire. Augustine tried to
tackle the question of the relationship between Christian doctrine and actual life as lived out in
history. He rejected the idea of cosmic and historical cycles endlessly recurring and eternity
stretching either backwards or forwards in time. He instead insisted on the monumental
importance of the truth that God created the world in time and that the world was finite
according to God’s plan for mankind. In other words, history is linear.
Concerning the differences between the Graeco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian attitudes
towards history and time. Numerous scholars have argued that one of the most fundamental of
them centers precisely on their attitudes to time. The Greeks and romans had a cyclical approach
towards time and history whereas while Christians inherited from the Jews a linear approach. To
the Greeks and Romans, time was infinite and circular, a closed system of eternal recurrences
governed ultimately by cosmological laws. For the Jews and Christians, on the contrary, time has
a beginning with creation and progresses in a straight line, through God’s dealings with man to
the end.

Therefore, for the Greeks and Romans, history is endlessly repeatable and meaningless since
there can never be anything truly historical or even with purpose; whereas for the Christians,
history is always unique and has a direction and thus purposeful moving towards a certain end.
This is evidenced in the forward, irreversible movement of mankind in various aspects of life
towards the good for example in growth, progress, development among others. We appear to be
confronted by a vast ideological divide between the two traditions, that is Christianity and then
different philosophies by some ancient Roman and Greek philosophers.

The two mentioned perspectives of the understanding of history can be termed as dichotomy.
Several scholars questioned it after they had analyzed it and found that there were some
loopholes in each perspective. For example, the Judeo-Christians were not strongly opposed to
accepting the cyclical perspective of history as long as it did not involve eternal cosmological
cycles and various periodization of history into various ages of man.

There are two writers who supported each of the perspectives neglecting the other which
logically implies that the dichotomy was denied. Nisbet approved the linear approach stressing
that the ‘sacred’ and beliefs are both essential for philosophy of history. Trompf on the other
hand believed that the prerequisites for philosophy of history do not depend on a linear approach.
He further supported some political theorists who had equated Christian linear thinking with an
apocalyptic belief in spiritual salvation which renders actual history unimportant, thus claiming
that Christian doctrine cannot truly accommodate philosophy of history.

According to Jaki’s view in her Science and Creation, we can notice that she sees the history of
progress as substantially dependent on the emergency and development of scientific rationality.
She insists that all great cultures that witnessed a stillbirth in science have one major feature in
common. They were all dominated by a concept of the universe going through eternal cycles.
With this, she therefore confirmed the cyclical ideological perspective of philosophy of history
from her scientific point of view.

Augustine as a philosopher of history came up with two cities i.e., the city of God and the earthly
city. He described the earthly city as the one that contains aspirations for the good life such as
wealth, pleasure and health define the busy surrounding world. This city is corrupted by sin in
terms of greed, brutality, and self-interestedness of fallen man. He then defined the city of God
as the one where the value of one’s being is measured in terms of spiritual qualities of perfect
love, justice, mercy and faith. Thus, the good life is the maintenance of the spiritual state of mind
centered on the love of God and neighbor. Despite living in the earthly city, one should live in it
as merely a journey/pilgrimage to the city of God.

Many scholars interpreted Augustine’s city of God checking on its relevance of the history. Some
saw it as relevant for history and others as irrelevant. Among those who saw history as irrelevant
in the city of God is Trompf. According to his interpretation, he concluded that in the history of
man, there has always been wars, diseases, sorrows, and famine among others and therefore
since history is recurring, it could be meaningless and thus irrelevant. Also, Deane emphasizes
that to truly understand history of philosophy in Augustine’s views, one must look beyond the
earthly city to the city of God/the future kingdom of God. Therefore, the city of God is not a
product of human history.

One of the scholars who saw history in Augustine’s city of God is Nisbet. in his interpretation, he
viewed the progress of mankind as advancing in accordance with an immanent design as an
historical process. Human history is in a continuous progress not only spiritually, but also in
terms of political, social, economic and cultural improvement.

Another scholar who saw history in Augustine’s views of the two cities is Jaki. His interpretation
suggests the view of human history unfolding in a linear fashion towards a reformed temporal
world and that despite possible eventual extinction the history of humankind is or can be one of
the continual progress towards the perfect Christian world society.

In conclusion, we perceive both the linear and cyclical perspectives of understanding history of
the Judeo-Christian and the Graeco-Roman cultures respectively as necessary. This is because
there is a sense in which all of them apply in understanding the universe and what happens
therein. In the linear view based on Christian perspective, mainly supported by Augustine in his
city of God. In this, history has its beginning in God and its end in God hence it has a direction
and purpose. In the cyclic view, history is seen to be recurring and repeating just like the rise and
fall of the empires. This means that history is eternal and for that reason it was interpreted as it is
of no meaning for them. In our perspective, cyclic could be used to understand history. For
example, occurrences such as monsoon winds, winter and summer, re-occurrence of the
earthquakes in certain places among others.