The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism (Enlightenment an Interpretation)

A magnificent, thorough, and long book (419 pages), impeccably documented, the first volume of two. A "must read" for anyone interested in the Enlightenment. The "cheerleaders" of the Enlightenment, from all over Europe, called themselves the philosophes. For a preview, read the 25 page beginning, "Overture."BOOK ONE: THE APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY CHAPTER ONE: The Useful and Beloved Past 1. Hebrews and Hellenes: As the philosophes of the Enlightenment saw it, the world was divided into two irreconcilable patterns of life: superstition versus the affirmation of life; mythmakers versus realists; priests versus philosophers. The historical writings of the Enlightenment were all part of their comprehensive effort to secure rational control over the world and freedom from the pervasive domination of myth. The most glaring and notorious defect of the Enlightenment was its unsympathetic, often brutal, estimate of Christianity. 2. A Congenial Sense and Spirit: Rome belonged to every educated man Classic antiquity was inescapable, therefore, some of the philosophes' seemingly pagan ideas were simply the property of thinking men in their time. The philosophes identified with their favorite ancient philosophers, especially Cicero, who had contempt for the fear of death, contempt for superstition, and admiration for sturdy pagan self-reliance. Modern historians no longer think of Christianity as a complete swamp, but the reliance of the Enlightenment on ancient classicism has withstood two centuries of criticism. 3. The Search for Paganism: From Identification to Identity: The philosophes had been born into a Christian world. They knew their Bible, their catechism, their articles of faith, their apologetics, retained many of their Christian friends, and even had clergy in their families. Gibbons was not without anxiety when he wrote his notorious chapters on the origin of Christianity in "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The German philosophes were reluctant to completely abandon the religion of the past. Diderot, the most ebullient of the French philosophes was driven and harassed by doubts. In a letter to his mistress, he cursed the atheism he accepted as true that "reduced their love to a blind encounter of atoms." Even David Hume, whose good cheer was celebrated, had to brood and struggle his way into paganism. CHAPTER TWO: The First Enlightenment 1. Greece: From Myth to Reason: The philosophes' historical thought was closely tied and deeply, if unconsciously, indebted to the Renaissance. Pious historians during the Renaissance and in the 17th century aided secularization by refining techniques of research, throwing doubt on extravagant tales of Hebrew prophets or Christian saints. The Old Testament, which had served countless generations as authoritative was in decline. The philosophes used it as neither authoritative nor historical, but as an incriminating document. Petrarch removed the label "Dark Ages" from classical pre-Christian times and fastened it instead on the Christian era. 2. The Roman Enlightenment: The Greeks were the teachers of the Romans, but the Romans were the Greeks made plain. The philosophes' two most reliable sources of literature were the Romans Lucretius and Cicero. No propagandist ever conducted a battle of science against religion more exuberantly than Lucretius. Religion was just superstition maintained by terror. Science was reason, offering a complete and coherent account of the universe. Cicero gave them even more - a philosophy of the public servant was that of humanism. Not far behind was the historian Tacitus, who was Gibbon's source of much of what is in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." These and other Roman Stoics and Epicurians gave the philosophes much fuel for their political and religious criticisms. CHAPTER THREE: The Climate of Criticism 1. Criticism as Philosophy: Hume proclaimed philosophy the supreme, indeed, the only, cure for superstition. Diderot - The philosopher should not be the inventor of systems but the apostle of truth. Adam Smith - Cultivation of philosophy is "the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." For the Enlightenment, the Age of Philosophy was also, and mainly, the Age of Criticism - they were synonyms - and there were plenty of liberal Christians ready to allow the new philosophy elbow room, provided it stopped barely short of the holiest of matters. 2. The Hospitable Pantheon: Each philosophe took what suited him from the Romans (or from anywhere) and added their characteristic touches, leading to eclecticism - the school that denied being a school. The eclectic "makes a philosophy for himself, individual and personal, one that is his own." The favorite theft of the philosophes was from the Stoicism of Cicero, but since they addressed their propaganda to a largely Christian audience, they also quoted the founders of Christianity, including Jesus. Such adroit posturing barely concealed the philosophes' convictions that Christianity was the worst of fanaticisms. 3. The Primacy of Moral Realism: The philosophes' practicalities were worldly, designed to translate into reality Bacon's and Descarte's grandiose vision of man controlling nature for his profit and desire. In a culture in which men believed in God and yearned for salvation, the study of His nature were matters of intense blessed concern - but during the Enlightenment, they seemed more like verbal games. Nor could the philosophes separate the study of nature from the study of morality. They were confident that the public needed to be educated and it was their calling to educate them. 4. Candide: The Epicurean as Stoic: Voltaire wrote a reality tale - a dialogue on behalf of Newton's empiricism in a world that had discarded myth; and one that caricaturized and satirized Leibniz. Candide is essentially a declaration of war on Christianity. BOOK TWO: THE TENSION WITH CHRISTIANITY CHAPTER FOUR: The Retreat From Reason: Educated Romans had at least made a serious attempt to construct a civilization based on reason, not myth. Then came Christianity, which claimed to bring light, hope, and truth - but its central myth was incredible, its dogma a mixture of older superstitions, and its sacred book an incoherent collection of primitive tales. Once the church had discarded its apocalyptic expectations, it settled down to the business of organizing a Christian community - eventually a rigid hierarchy.1. The Adulteration of Antiquity: In the callous hands of Christians, Greek and Roman literature survived, but barely, and at great cost. The church fathers could not deal generously with secular literature - they were at war for a higher cause. However, there was a minority that maintained an interest - and Christian policy ran somewhere between these two extremes. The great compromise, in the fourth and fifth centuries, was to adapt from paganism whatever could be adapted to religious purposes and to throw the rest away. They invented pious meanings for secular passages, converting and allegorizing meanings - but at least it kept the classics from extinction, though at the price of covering them with pious legends. Cicero was persistently misread into the thirteenth century.2. The Betrayal of Criticism: Medieval philosophers believed the advent of Jesus had subordinated the need for higher degrees of insight. Abelard devoted much of his ethical and theological speculation to the disappointing thought that his favorite pagan philosophers had been born too early for Christ, thus missing out on salvation. The philosophes saw this as despising and abusing the resources of the mind.3. The Rehabilitation of Myth: In the Christian millennium, myth was preserved, transcended, and raised to a higher level. The philosophes liked to deride medieval categories as infantile or vicious, but the myths merely followed inevitably from the medieval mind bent on finding religious significance everywhere. Science was done, but like philosophy, it was guided by man's search for holiness and salvation. The enormous distance separating the philosophes from the medieval world view is proof that the Enlightenment was the terminal point of a long process of alienation that had begun centuries before, in the Renaissance.CHAPTER FIVE: The Era of Pagan Christianity - For all their enormous but gradual contributions to secular thought, Europeans were still overwhelmingly religious - religious fervor attenuating slowly and uncertainly.1. The Purification of the Sources: Humanists of the Renaissance began to correct the corrupt interpretations of the Greek and Roman philosophers. Many new manuscripts, stored in monastery libraries and guarded by monks, were uncovered, although covered with dust, torn, and mutilated. Unknown copies of Cicero, a single copy of Lucretius's "De Rerum Natura," a single copy of Catullus, and whatever we have of Tacitus were uncovered by persistent Humanist effort bordering at times on thievery. Gradually, classis after classic was reborn, and Humanist scholars purified them of the corrupt accretions of centuries. The veil of pious interpretation was pierced.2. Ancients and Moderns - The Ancients: The protestant heresy persisted and thus stripped Christian Europe of one of its most tenacious myths, the myth of a Catholic commonwealth centered at Rome. Exploration discovered strange cultures which raised disturbing questions about the souls of heathens and the value of Christian civilization. The Copernican revolution in cosmology began to reverberate among educated men. The printing press and translations, the book trade, the growth of science, and the explosion of interest in accurate interpretations of ancient Greeks and Romans - all these things questioned the authority of the papacy. As Voltaire put it, "a corner of the veil was lifted. The nations, aroused, wanted to judge what they had worshipped."3. Ancients and Moderns - The Moderns: By the force of its logic, science began to cut its ties with philosophy and to assume a posture at first equal, and then hostile, to theology - less by literary than by scientific means. Even so, the Church first took the findings of Gallileo, Boyle, and Newton as evidence of faith rather than as a threat. Locke called for liberation from the shackles of antique and medieval rules of thought and his impact was huge, the last in a long line of pagan Christians. The philosophes, arrogant as they were, still displayed great reverence for this Age of Genius.CHAPTER SIX: In Dubious Battle1. The Christian Component: Locke and his disciple, Toland, both wrote books in 1695 and 1696. Locke tried to prove that Christianity was acceptable to reasonable men; Toland, that what was mysterious and miraculous about Christianity must be discarded - and within those two years the essence of revealed, dogmatic religion evaporated. The philosophes took advantage, striving to maintain a separation between reason and religion while well-meaning Christians continued to try to unite them. This was the beginning of deism, which maintained a healthy respect for Jesus as a teacher, but held that his teachings were distinct from what resulted as the Christian religion.2. The Treason of the Clerks: Clerical establishments didn't collapse, but every part of life became more secular - there was a subtle shift where religious institutions and religious explanations for events were slowly being displaced from the center of life to its periphery. The evidence for a growing critical rationalism among educated Christians is overwhelming, with a decline in religious fervor. They were thus open to the antireligious propaganda of the philosophes, as Sunday sermons simultaneously grew less severe and more accommodating to an easier life. As the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists fought amongst themselves, the philosophes triumphed over them all.CHAPTER SEVEN: Beyond the Holy Circle - the philosophes appropriated Christian labors for their own purposes.1. The Abuse of Learning: This was a time of the beginnings of Biblical critical scholarship. Diderot, Voltaire, and Gibbon each took particular advantage of a different scholarly friend, and applied that scholarship where it could be devastating to Christianity. The philosophes were missionaries - for the sake of their calling they were ready to exploit the best their enemy had to offer, without mercy or gratitude.2. The Mission of Lucretius: Lucretius was to Epicureus what the philosophes were to the Enlightenment - purveyors of savage, brutal, and relentless diatribes against superstition and religion. Religion retreated to the extent that philosophy and science advanced.3. David Hume: The Complete Modern Pagan - Whatever misgivings the philosophes had about their passion, Hume had the least. He thought all houses of faith were houses of infection and that a rational man must escape, after exposing, the squabbles of theologians. His philosophy embodies the dialectic of the Enlightenment at its most ruthless. Without melodrama, Hume lived cheerfully and without complaining, with no supernatural justifications, demanding no complete explanations, no promise of permanent stability, with guides of merely probable validity. He was a cheerful Stoic.

Gay presents an interpertation of the Enlightenment that is persuasive. He connects and then distinguishes the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the early English Enlightenment and the later French Enlightenment.His primary theme is that the reintroduction of Greek and Latin teaching into the European mind led to the death of christian thought and the creation of Modernity. Spends a lot of pages on the effect of Pyrrhonism (no truth avalabile) and the focus of the philophoses on destroying the christian culture. Makes clear that the christian culture was largely pagan from the start. Augustine's Platonism was built into the catholic world.Gay notes "Lorenzo de Medici could say in all seriousness that one could not be either a good citizen or a good Christian without being a good Platonist. . . What makes the era of pagan Christianity special is that the dominant form of that agony was a struggle between Christian and classical modes of thought." (257)Ficino, an Italian priest and friend of Lorenzo, celebrated Plato's birthday and death each year. He wrote claiming divine inspiration for Plato.Another connection between the Renaissance and the enlightenment is that both the Humanists and the philosophes were "their ties to the rulers of states; they were their servants, correspondents and friends, and on favorable occasions, their critics." (258)This cultivation of political power eventually led the worship of the state, as seen in twentieth century Germany.Gay explains that the desire for peace led to the goal of "natural religion" which was mainly drawn from stoicism. Grotius, a devout Christian, wrote in a famous passage; "natural law is so unalterable that God himself cannot change it." Gay comments, "with these pronouncements, natural law which had occupied a subordinate place in the Christian scheme of things, made its declaration of independence." (300) "Thus political absolutism and religious toleration are the improbable twins of the modern state system." (298)Explains that Diderot wanted to be the modern combination of Cicero, Diogenes and Seneca.One startling facet of this book is the authors willingness to analyze conflicting ideas. After spending a large part of the pages showing the weakening of Christian thought, he presents the devout faith of the early members of the Royal Society.Of course the most famous is Newton "whom the philosophes unanimously and categoricaly called the greatest man who ever lived - was a passionately religious man; he expressed that passion In his scientific speculations, his profound preoccupation with theology and biblical chronology, and his private correspondence. . .When Voltaire was in England in 1726, the year before Newton's death, he had several conversations with Samuel Clarke, Newton's devoted philosophical friend, and he later recalled that this Philosopher always pronounced the name of God within air of contemplation and extreme respect.''Why?''I acknowledged the impression this made on me; he told me he had insensibly acquired this habit from Newton. Nor, as Voltaire also knew, was Newton merely a pallid theist. He was a Christian, a Socinian, Voltaire wrote, Who refused to reduce his system to Deism as other Socinians had done." (317)Gay also explains the Enlightenments debt to christian teaching . . ."there were scores of theologians and scholars who embodied qualities and advocated ideals echoed in the philosophes' philosophy and who had these qualities and ideals, I must emphasize, not because they were Christian Stoics or Christian skeptics but simply because they were Christians. Much of the decency in 17th century civilization, much of its intelligence and critical acumen, was exercised by Christians for Christian purposes. And it was largely these Christians who created the atmosphere of the late 17th and early 18th century into which the philosophes were born." (325)Lessing, wrote in 1777 that he believed history was God's way of teaching."The old Testament is the primer of humanity, containing one great truth, the unity of God, and hints and anticipations of truths reserved for later years. Then Christ appeared, he better pedagogue, bringing the second dispensation, teaching immortality, original sin, and justification. But this, even at its purest, is not man's goal. When mankind is ready and the time is right, a third dispensation will come forth, the third gospel predicted by mid evil enthusiasts. Is mankind never to reach is highest step of enlightenment and purity? Never?"Lessing throws out this passionate question only to offer the equally passionate reply: "It will come, it will surely come. . .it will surely come, the time of a new eternal gospel!" (333)One chapter is entitled "The Treason of the Clerks". . .Gay makes the point that the loss of faith was more due to cultural suicide than cultural murder. Diderot, a virulent atheist, wrote about a Christian friend; "He goes to mass without believing in it too much; respects religion and laughs Up his sleeve at the jokes made against it; hopes for resurrection without being too sure about the nature of the soul. In general he is a large heap of contradictory ideas which make his conversation a complete pleasure."Gay adds; "it was precisely the contradictions which made M de Montamy so charming a companion that also made him an uncertain defender of the faith."Contradictions destroy belief. Think of the loss of faith in Aristotle at this same time. (341)Gay uses David Hume as a primary source. Hume "noted in his private correspondence the progress of the tolerant mood which is the brother to religious indifference." Another wrote about the Scottish clergy; "They taught that whoever could please God must resemble him in goodness and benevolence, and those who had it not must affect it by politness and good manners."Gay adds; "This was not a strenuous faith." (342)Gay's analysis of the reason for loss Christian faith is interesting."The real source of trouble, hard to diagnose and almost impossible to eradicate, was a bland piety, a self satisfied and prosperous reasonableness, the honest conviction that churches must, after all, Move with the times. This - the concessions to modernity, to criticism, science, and philosophy, and to good tone - this was the treason of the clerks." (343)Considering English belief, Gay writes: "The Englishman's need for peace after a century of upheaval and the revulsion of educated and respectable man against religious enthusiasm coalesced with the growing of authority of naturalism to produce a torpid Church and a tepid religion. The church of England, one good Anglican said, was an admirable "institution because it is fit for the people, subject to the laws, and most suitable to the clergy. For here, without care, without thought, and without trouble, honour and care are enjoyed at once, which is a state that most men wish for."These were the professional soldiers of Christianity, living without care, without thought, and without trouble -asleep at their posts while Philosophos quietly invaded their domains." (345)Gay continues, "there was much comfort and little anxiety in sermons purporting to prove that the course of a Christian life was easy, the reward for good conduct was sure and glorious, that God commanded men nothing either unsuitable to our reason or prejudicial to our interest; nay, nothing that is severe and against the grain of our nature, and that, on the contrary, the laws of God are reasonable, that is suited to our nature and advantageous to our interest."(345)This "definition of religion amounted to a faith singulary devoid of religious content." (346)Another source of damage to the Christian cause: "the version of political tolerance that grew up in German states like Prussia did the same damage in a different way. A tolerance based on indifference or on calculation only encouraged indifference or calculation in turn." (348)France did no better. "The only rational policy the church found it possible to adopt in such an unfavorable climate was to turn modern, and it turned modern with a vengeance. Sermons and educational tracts continued to treat the traditional subjects, but they treated them in a new way, almost as if a Philosophe so were looking over their author's shoulder. The old simple stark faith was being replaced by a gentler version, appropriate to a public informed about scientific discoveries and striving for bourgeois comforts. The very props of religious emotion were weakened in the widespread appeal to reason and reasonableness." (354)Gay reports on the manuscript by Reimarus that affected Lessing. It asks'if God was one in three, why could he, Reimarus, never visualize the Trinity in a coherent image? If all who were damned we're damned forever, why did the Christian religion ask members to think of their God as the God of love, and of Jesus Christ as the bringer of salvation?' (61)These questions reveal the damage non Biblical doctrines did and do to true Christianity. Greek ideas poison bibical understanding.Provides an extensive explanation of deism and the long term effect. . . "Their watch maker God who had endowed the world at the beginning of time with ethical laws that every individual can discover for himself through the use of his unaided reason - theirs was a philosophy emotionally appealing and logically persuasive. Girl, who witnessed the deist phase of German thought, rightly suggested that in an atmosphere saturated with Newtonian science and the cult of common sense, deism was a perfectly sensible religion to adopt." (375)

This is a superb introduction to the enlightenment, both as a social movement as well as an intellectual one. Gay does an excellent job of communicating the passion behind all of the efforts to bring about an age of reason.I should also add that thanks to Gay's command of the written word, the book is truly a joy to read; there were times when I found myself wondering how much I could really be learning, given how beautifully the sentences flowed. I suppose it says something about the mediocre standard of writing in most modern scholarly works that one's suspicions should be aroused when encountering a volume by as accomplished a stylist as Peter Gay.

Excellent value

This book is a great classic. Contains endless mind-expanding analyses. This particular edition includes only volume one of what eventually became a two volume history.

Loved the book