Dr Historian and Mr Divine

György Geréby

The title, of course, alludes to the story by Robert Louis Stevenson. The double personality of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide were meant by Stevenson to exemplify “that strong sense of a man’s double being which must at times come in upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking creature.”
Stevenson provided a powerful personalised image of what he took as a fundamental ambiguity in the human person, that of the evil and the good sides, that of the constructive and the destructive aspects.
Needless to say, when I set out to analyse the ambiguity inherent in the intellectual position of Caius Aurelius Cotta, so eloquently described by Karl Kerényi in one of his great essays, I do not want to push the analogy this far. There remains, however, a significant aspect, in which Cotta seems to have a divided soul, and I am alluding to this division in the essay now.
It is easy to realize that the central figure of Kerényi’s essay and, of course, of Cicero’s work On the Nature of the Gods is a philosopher of academic leaning, that is, he is a sceptic in the vein of the somewhat later account of Sextus Empiricus. It is not this intellectual character trait of Cotta that makes him interesting, since scepticism was a rather popular philosophical school (a hairesis) in the Hellenistic period. What makes Cotta the representative of a unique position is that he at the same time happens to be the highest dignitary of the cults of pagan Rome, a pontifex maximus. This title, later appropriated by the Roman emperors, refers to the high priest of Rome, who supervised such pillars of Roman society as the Lex Fufia Caninia, which prescribed the compulsory observation of portents before state decisions (institutionalizing thereby, for instance, haruspicy and augury). The pontifex maximus is a classic representative of the “political religion” of antiquity, a religion which was classified as theologia civilis by Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC). Civil theology, which was the basis of the antique city state, the polis, was not a matter of belief but, rather, the expression of political loyalty organized around the yearly festivities celebrating the city gods. Religion meant primarily the attendance at and participation in the celebrations, expected from the good citizen.
The partners of Cotta, his opponents in the debate, especially the Stoic theist Balbus at a certain point cry out of desperation, seeing all their arguments for the existence of gods being subjected to devastating criticism by Cotta. How come, Balbus asks, that a Roman high priest can maintain such an extreme scepticism and at the same time officiate and oversee the cults of the gods?
To which charge Cotta gives a twofold answer, and this is what I would like to subject to closer analysis. He says that there is a fundamental difference between the requirements of his office and his thinking as a philosopher. The rules of religion have a legal status. Their origin is the customs of the ancestors, the mores maiorum which have been bequeathed to posterity in order to be observed without any further justification: “I have defended and I will defend the opinions about the immortal gods received from our ancestors against all learned or unlearned attacks, and that not on the basis of my own opinion.… when it comes to religion, the high priests Titus Coruncanius, Publius Scipio, Publius Scaevola, and not Zeno, Cleanthes or Chrysippus is to be followed.” In this sense religion is about identity, that is, continuity. 
The justification of customs by tradition or inheritance is opposed to the acceptance of philosophical arguments, the rationes philosophorum. (I find the choice of the term “opinions”—opiniones—deliberate as opposed to “truth,” an allusion to philosophy.) Philosophical arguments are supposed to be valid. It is this ambition for conclusiveness in the theologia naturalis which invites scrutiny. Such a scrutiny would entirely miss the point if it would be applied to the mos maiorum, and vice versa. 
Cotta’s main point is that since the requirements and rules of these two different areas are different, they can peacefully live side by side in the same person—in the same way as, e.g., one and the same person can play two different games, soccer or chess in subsequent moments. Cotta will follow earlier pontiffs, his ancestors in complying with the rites established by the forebears without demanding reason—while he will demand reasons from the philosopher Balbus, since it is an essential characteristic of philosophy that it is pursued like that.
The question emerging now is the following: does the argument of Cotta really allow him to remain a sceptic philosopher while he is still a pontifex maximus? If yes, how can the sceptic and the theologian co-exist in the same mind in a compatible way without being mutually exclusive and thereby causing a divided personality? Can the figure of Cotta really set an example for the secularised but decent modern scholar attentive of things religious, as Kerényi seems to suggest? 
I would like to argue that Cotta, while he exemplifies an appealing sincerity, being an honest character, is doing a slightly different job from the one Kerényi assigns to him, and thereby his example will not really do for the modern scholar. The main point of difference between the modern scholar accepting the religions as they were, and Cicero’s hero is that Cotta is not talking about religion, like his modern counterpart does, but is a high priest in office, who is officiating the traditions he is speaking about. Therefore the pontifex can not be put in analogy with the modern scholar who neither believes, nor participates in a religion, but who has an interest in speaking about religion. When it comes to religion, Cotta uses the object-language, so to say, of the rites and practices, arranging the traditional services, the liturgy himself, while the sympathetic modern scholar uses metalanguage. Cotta is not an “armchair” high priest, withdrawing to the curious, but non-committal realms of metalinguistic discourse, but acts his religion out.
While the example of Cotta can not be used as a direct analogy with the modern secularized scholar, pace Kerényi, his case can exemplify another, different breed. This analogy is the modern scholarly-minded believer or, rather, the scholar who would still adhere to religion. For this breed Cotta’s position might offer an example, an example which has to be elaborated somewhat further.
Cotta’s figure can be interpreted, so it seems to me, in the sense that Cotta needs to be a sceptic as he takes a seemingly paradoxical position in an elaborate sense. He is a sceptic while being the high priest as well, since in a certain way he can not do otherwise. Not because of complacency, which would allow him to think that there is a double truth, a separate truth for philosophy and another truth for religion, a truth for the investigative mind and another, different truth for the heart. On the contrary I suggest that Cotta’s scepticism is legitimate since it will allow him to accept religious traditions in a well-founded way.
In order to explain this paradoxical point one has to concentrate on the conventionalism of Cotta’s argument. Leaving the trite general conflict of sceptical philosophy and dogmatic theology aside, let us rather look at the other part of Cotta’s position, the mos maiorum.
What are precisely the traditions of the forefathers? Who were those maiores who established them? When did the ancestors establish them? Did they really establish them as we have them now? Were these customs always the same, or were they changed at some point? Was the meaning of the customs always the same?  While the philosopher does not have a say in these problems, since the suchlike are matters of opinion, this is precisely the point where another type of scholar, the historian takes the floor. The historian, who is the bad conscience of the traditionalist.
The doctor of history proceeds carefully. First, the timeframe is settled by piecemeal work, then the fontes, the sources are put together and critically analysed, physically as well as linguistically, and finally the pieces of information are collected about those habits of the ancestors. After the sifting and organising of the evidence comes the interpretation, establishing the meaning of those customs.
Having finished the analysis, the historian can in most cases point out a number of uncomfortable aspects to the high priest.
First, Dr Historian might raise uncomfortable questions about one of the implications of the traditionalist approach, that is, about the founding moment. As for any law, at some point and by some sovereign or lawgiver a decision had to be taken, at least at the point of codification. Mr Divine might end up feeling pretty uncomfortable when Dr Historian would want to look after the great judges, Minos or Rhadamantys. The ruins of Mycene will not betray a single footstep of them. Statues falling down from heavens, central objects of religious processions may have some pretty earthly origins, or it may turn out at a closer look that heroes or saints attained such a level of sanctity that they were granted exemption from the burdens of existence (like in the case of the Dioscuri, or Saint Catherine of Alexandria).
The historian can also point out to Mr Divine that the tradition he assumes is much shorter than the tradition-talk would suggest. The timeless ancient institutions and their foundational texts may turn out to have taken shape relatively recently and under special circumstances. The customs prescribing divinations and sacrifices may have been quite different under Numa, let alone Romulus, about whom hardly a trace survives. Yet again, things changed in the republican period, and yet again during the principate, not to speak of the new situation during the reign of  Julian. The Sibylline oracles may have been tampered with. Interested parties can be discovered behind the developments.
Secondly, historical research will show that the traditions are rather varied in various places. A comparison of the traditions of certain segments of a larger realm may reveal differences and fragmentation among the local versions. (Like in the case of various national Christianities.) It seems that the traditionalist assumption has to neglect the alternative traditions of the neighbouring cities or nations systematically, even if they go back in theory to the same founding moments. Traditions are bound to be local, which is often expressed by the ideal of the attachment to the ancient soil, a symbol of continuity. Territories are different and so are the nations that are attached to them, which results in what Swinburne has in his Erechtheus: “All races but one are as aliens engrafted or sown, / Strange children and changelings, but we, O our mother, thine own.”
Rites are local. Even imported rites need localisation, adapting to the recipient community. The two thereby become similar to each other. A dark aspect of these ancestral traditions originating from abroad is often brought about by forged documents, meant to establish religious claims, producing, let alone pilfering materials for creating a past that never existed, like the case of “obtaining” the relics of St. Mark in order to gain credibility for Venice, mildly called as “sacred theft,” “furta sacra.” What to do if the historian traces down motifs suspicious of some manipulation of the past?
The local is inevitably limited, if not straightforwardly parochial. The local laws, the nomoi, as opposed to the generally valid logos, are contingent and rarely rational. In tune with the discovery of the success (and the need) of a universally valid law, the universalistic tendencies of the Hellenistic period were rather severe reactions to an uncritical, that is, unreflected traditionalism, summarised in the saying attributed to Pindar: “custom is the king to all men.”
Interestingly, Cicero did not mention any of the counterarguments against the traditionalist position, which were voiced by many also in antiquity. 
A famous line from Virgil was singled out as a target of this criticism by Late Antique writers: „Now by my head, a sacred oath, I swear, (my father us’d it)...” This passage was noted, e.g., by Apuleius as an absurdity in his Apology: “So what do you think about a philosopher who isn’t unrefined or ignorant with the abandon of the Cynic but who is mindful of belonging to the Platonic school? Do you think that it’s shameful for him to know those things or not? To overlook them or focus on them? To know how much natural order is in those things or to believe mommy and daddy about the immortal gods?”
Secondly, a heavy stress on the safeguarding of the religious memory runs the risk of the tyranny of particularism, if not an outright idolizing of its parochialism. This seems to be the reason why the Christian Minutius Felix—in an interesting alliance with the pagan Platonist philosopher Apuleius—also rejects the traditionalist argument, and on precisely the same grounds: „Not one of you thinks that he ought to know God before he worships Him; desiring without consideration to obey their ancestors, choosing rather to become an addition to the error of others, than to trust themselves; in that they know nothing of what they fear.”
Fallibility and narrowness are not the most important elements that can be established by historical research, though. A proper historical analysis reveals that religious customs are institutions of a particular society, embedded in priviledged legal, aesthetic and linguistic formations. By displaying such a tangible face religions become public affairs, and the religious institutions begin to live and develop a life of their own: their inner forces tends to follow their own trajectory, often independently of the preferences of their associates. 
The most interesting side of the institutional aspect of religion then becomes a means for the regulation of remembrance itself, of her own past. Religion creates its own religious memory. Zachor (“Remember!”), the great and passionate little book of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi is precisely about this aspect of religion: the regulative element of religion (in this case Judaism) in remembering the past. The important commandments in Deuteronomy about remembering elements of the past and prohibiting forgetting the same events define the content of the relevant history: “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm” (Deut. 5:15); or „And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no” (Deut. 8:2). These are co-ordinated with the following prohibition: „Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day” (Deut. 8:11; emphasis added everywhere).
All this does not imply that religions necessarily invent their past, but that they do aim to regulate it. (It is to be noted that not only Judaism and Christianity are religions about history, but archaic Greek and Roman religions as well.) The stories (like the story of Isis and Osiris, the exodus from Egypt, or the resurrection of the Christ) are neither fictitious, nor approachable by objective research. Religious history is the foundation of the religion itself. It is something given: given by the very religious relationship to the gods constitutive of the respective religion. The account of that relationship is the religion itself. The high priests are the keepers of these pasts—since they are the keepers of their religion. 
From the institutionalisation of religious memory, that is, of normative history, an interesting consequence seems to follow. If considered more thoroughly, Dr Historian loses some of his advantage as the man of science against the man of unreason, since Mr Divine will also emerge as a scholar, albeit of a different breed. It is not the case that Mr Divine, the high priest, the rabbi or the priest would be ignorant of history. As a custodian of the collective memory, the foundation of his own religion, Mr Divine studied the traditions, the languages in which it was formulated, the facts of this story and the complicated theological concepts symbolised by them—in order to master his own trade, which is to uphold and safeguard the memory, and thereby the very shape of his religion. Mr Divine is a scholar of his own religion’s history.
Dr Historian is different since his trade is not restricted by normative precepts about the past, but can—even should—register freely and only the “objective” events. Precisely herein lies a danger. The events will have no difference in weight, importance or significance, since they can not have a vantage point. Objectivity requires the mastering of all the events of the past, but this may result in a loss of orientation and the prevailing of antiquarian interests. If the past is not for the formulation of a significance, there remains no guidance by which the look can single out important events. Everything becomes important, since there is no reason why, no norm by what some events would be more important than others. Memory is then imperilled by being overpopulated by indistinct and inconsequential events of the past. While it is true that normative history risks changing the direction of the human look, by giving it a focus, the desoriented look of a history without a principle may put to risk the very nature of remembering (here we are not only talking about “antiquarianism,” which is based on the collector’s amassing of curiosities from the past gone.)
In order to show that such a separation of Dr Historian from Mr Divine may indeed lead to a Stevensonian case, let me quote the amusing anecdote related by Yerushalmi about Leopold Zunz, the great scholar of medieval Jewish literature, who asked the visiting Russian poet the following question: “Excuse me, when did you live precisely?”
I mentioned the tyranny of parochial religious regulations about the past, and also the inevitable loss of orientation for “objective” history. This problem was also addressed by the German Jewish philosopher-historian Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929), who after a brilliant academic career converted back to Judaism, and chose to establish the Free House of Jewish Learning in Frankfurt in the 1920s.
Rosenzweig’s dictum says that “Religious institutions have to cease to be brides of God. They must become houses for the children of God, for the human beings. The human being is more than his home.” I missed out the last sentence of the quote—but I will supply that below.  
Religious institutions are also constituted by (and are constituting) religious memory. The parochial memory can become tyrannical because of an unreflected use of her own power to regulate the memory of the past. In order to break the bonds of these “fetters of memory,” Dr Historan can do a great service to Mr Divine.
Let us consider finally the last and probably most important methodological difficulty with the historicizing approach.
As you may have observed, I used “historical” in a twofold sense. In the first sense I meant by “history” the Rankeian or scientific approach to history, namely the “how it really happened” method. The other sense of “historical” I used was—following Yerushalmi—that of normative history defined by religious memory, which may be termed the “how it ought to have happened” approach. The modern era unquestionably prefers the first approach—and wonders why the other can survive in the face of such a powerful opponent at all.
I suggested a difficulty with the historicizing approach above: the proliferation of events and the diminishing of their significance due to the loss of perspective. Again, I have indicated a different problem with religious memory, the tyranny of institutionalisation. Let me look at a common issue first before I come back to the missing part of Rosenzweig’s dictum.
There is a general problem with historical accounts, be they scientific or prescriptive, namely, that they can not give an account of the living human person. There is more to this deficiency than the triviality of history being about the past. History can not do one thing: it can not find room for the human moment of taking a decision. Any account of a historical event will inevitably be deficient since the circumstances of the decisions can not be described. The event itself, its antecedents and consequences can be known. But there is no other possibility but psychological analogies to approach what happened in the decisive moment of making a decision. And because of this deficiency, history at this instance can not seriously rival divinity. 
“See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.” (Deut. 30:15)
The moment of decision can be identified, pointed out and described—but the moment of ultimate responsibility stays with the acting agent. Making a decision is ultimately subjective and not objective. Preferably, a decision might be the result of a reasoned assessment—but the unpredictable element, so to say, can not be excluded in principle. A decision is a wager, but all risks and odds can not be calculated to the effect that the agent is relieved from this burden. (I take this to be at the heart of Pascal’s wager argument.)
The model of the decision exemplified in the choice of Abraham confronts every single human person, whether this decision is shunned or faced squarely. It is in this moment that scepticism, especially educated scepticism might be of great theological help. Not in that form which aims at the reservation of judgment, or which would find happiness in the freedom from disturbance and anxiety. Suspension of judgement assigning equal weight to both options, or epochē, the need for an unperturbed mind, or ataraxy characterise a lofty position, offering an elevated view on human hustle and bustle, but elevation means distance, and distance implies alienation. It is not human to withdraw from human activities and sweating—it is something which is diametrically opposed to Abraham’s courage. Abraham’s courage can not be approached by Dr Historian—but an honest account of his story is part of Mr Divine’s trade.
Not as if this final moment of solitude, where the human person is bound to take the courage to make a choice all alone, were not often exalted and idealized, and thereby often misunderstood. In itself, utter solitude does not lead to an idealized theological, let alone existential stance. Karl Löwith told the amusing story of a French student in Martin Heidegger’s class, who epitomized the doctrine he mastered in so many years in the school of the existentialist. “Je suis résolu, seulement j’ignore à quoi”—I’m as resolute as one can be, except I do not know to what purpose.
It is time now to supply the missing sentence of Rosenzweig’s dictum. “The human being is more than his home.” To which he adds: “But not the homeless.” (“Der Mensch ist mehr als sein Haus. Aber nicht der Unbehauste.”)
In our context, Rosenzweig’s dictum may mean that a “naked existence,” so to say, can not make a meaningful choice. A person on his own can not even articulate his problem without the institution of human language and its history-laden words. The human being needs a home, a tradition in language, thought and articulation. But the liberty of the human being is more important than serving those traditions. It is in this direction that scepticism helps—ultimately to retain the room for the freedom which constitutes humanity. It offers devices to remove the overbearing aspects of the house, of the traditions: the prejudices and superstitions. It helps to lay bare the real risks and odds, pointing out where the real decision should be made. Scepticism helps in religion. It is an indispensable tool to identify the moments of truth.
The first part of Rosenzweig’s statement defends the scepticism resulting from the work of Dr Historian: it is a justified case to show that the institutional houses, the traditions in which human beings live, are contingent and that the human being should gain freedom over his or her house.  Historical criticism helps to find the arbitrary, the fortuitous, and the humanly instituted elements of the “houses” of religions. Historical work is indispensable for the theologian, since by describing the human side of the institutions, it liberates human agency. Providing freedom is not enough, though. Freedom is for decision, so to say. Contingencies in the developments of things remembered should not lead to the paralyzing situation of Borges’ Funes, the memorious. History is meaningful if it helps to identify the necessity of decisions, the moments of human action. Clearing away the obstacles from before the “moments of truth” implies that the house can be accepted in that very condition, and contingency, in which it providentially exists. And it is the institution of memory that helps the decisions to be formulated and articulated.
 To sum up: in Karl Kerényi’s view, Caius Aurelius Cotta exemplifies something for the modern scholar, who is secularized but engaged in the study of the religions of the past. Cotta helps Kerényi to devise an honourable methodology: the subsequent developments, the Enlightenment of which he is a child can not encroach on the rights of archaic Greek (or Roman) religious formation. For Kerényi published his article in 1938, a time when classical scholarship was seriously influenced by scholars like W. F. Otto, who came close to believe in “the Gods of the Greeks”—the title of Otto’s most famous book on Greek religion. In Kerényi, the well-kempt faculty of reasoning is coupled with a gentle but unfailing attention to the subject. This is the way how the sceptic ex officio—since he is a professional scholar—can be in peace with his two conditions, remaining an unbeliever and at the same time sympathetically committed to his archaic subject.
I tried to say by reflecting on the figures of the historian and the theologian that Cotta, the sceptic philosopher and pontifex maximus may be a little more (probably even for Cicero) than a representative of the “double truth.” Cotta’s seemingly escapist position can be interpreted as circumventing this schizophrenia.
One may reject the option of deciding in favour of the commitment to religion, or that of a traditionalist alternative. But all outcomes are ultimately results of a personal decision, the forms of which are ultimately dependent on the understanding of the historical situation one finds himself in, and on the way of expression opted for.