Headmaster’s Perspective - The Study of History: An Incarnational Approach that Unlocks the Order to Our Lives
The integrated curriculum of Chesterton Academy of St. John the Evangelist (CASJE) includes the study of philosophy, theology, science, mathematics, literature, Latin, art, music, drama, and history. In this reflection, I will outline our approach to the discipline of history.
Every student of history must acknowledge that he has to begin somewhere, from some perspective, for historical phenomena are virtually infinite, and therefore every historian must choose, either wittingly or unwittingly, a starting point. Here the Catholic historian has the advantage, for he knows by the certitude of faith that history is not random, and that the Incarnation marks that singular moment in history which meaningfully divides all that came before and all that came afterwards. So extraordinary was this intersection of time and eternity that even those who seek to minimize or negate the significance of the Incarnation by changing B.C. (Before Christ) to B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and A.D. (Anno Domini) to C.E. (Common Era), nevertheless still inadvertently honor the birth of Christ because their new “religiously neutral” timeline implicitly keeps the Incarnation as the central event of history.
At CASJE, we embrace a thoroughly Catholic approach to history because to do otherwise would be to betray the truth that illuminates the entire history of mankind. Having been given the key that unlocks the meaning of human history, we would be fools indeed to pretend no such key exists. That is not to say, of course, that we twist facts and events to fit a predetermined narrative, but only to say that God has revealed the fundamental outline of history such that we rightly see all that precedes the Incarnation as preparation for God becoming man, and all that follows that salvific event as a working out of divine providence.
The word “history” comes from the Greek word “inquiry,” which is the very title of the foundational work of Herodotus, who is rightly considered the Father of History. History is not one of the seven liberal arts, nor is it a science, but there is nonetheless a sense in which the formal study of history underlies our whole curriculum. After all, we are beings of spirit and matter, of time and eternity. For from the encounter of the human spirit with the matter of events have emerged the great ideas which have shaped western education and culture. In this we follow John Henry Cardinal Newman whose work on the development of doctrine is more than a work on the growth of Catholic Christian belief; it is a meditation on how ideas both modify and are modified by the course and setting of history.
To understand the great ideas as they are embedded in the great books, which have their origin in the books of nature and supernature, we must draw upon the context of history. In textu et in contextu. This is the first principle of all exegesis. Just as we understand a law or a line of Scripture through the wider context in which we find it, so we understand better these things and all else by the yet wider context of time and place and cultural ambience. At the same time, we reject the claim that cultural ambience necessarily determines the thought of the thinker; otherwise, culture would lose a prime and intelligible ingredient of change and self-criticism. Men of thought and sound judgment will be both determinants of the times and influenced by them, especially in the practical order.
As for the relative importance of history in our curriculum, we follow Aristotle who famously argued that literature is more philosophical than history because literature is ultimately concerned with knowing the universal whereas history is concerned principally with the particular. Hence, our literature class meets five days per week whereas history meets for three. Nonetheless, even though history sets its sights on the particular rather than the universal, it is of service to the higher studies because it marshals evidence, however weak and remote, seeks causes, and rising from a swarm of particular and contingent events draws inductive generalizations which suggest patterns and lessons concerning the behavior of men and political communities. Both Plato and Aristotle drew heavily on the past experience of men and regimes. And there are legitimate questions of great cognitive worth which belong to historical investigation, e.g., What are the causes of the Reformation or the Enlightenment, or How did the Hellenization of the Near East affect the course of Hebrew revelation? However, due to the generally low grade of evidence and certitude involved in historical investigation, considerable caution must be exercised by the historian in his pronouncements.
The study of history is also useful in providing the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman cultural background of the whole system of our western intellectual heritage, which culminates in Christendom. From a certain vantage, the Hebrew mind exemplifies faith, the Greek, speculative reason, and the Roman, practical knowledge. St. Paul, who himself embodied the three cultures that form the basis of Western Civilization, understood the divine plan behind the interplay of those cultures and their ultimate unification in Christianity. He saw, for example, that whereas God worked a supernatural revelation among the Israelites, among the Greeks He worked a natural revelation through reason and philosophy. And the Romans, in their practical aptitude, were held to have established the ways and means by which the message and banner of Christ could go forth, eventually conquering the conquerors so as to give, besides an administrative unity, a spiritual unity to the empire. The Catholic student of history, then, can readily see that it was no accident that Pontius Pilate placed above the crucified Christ the title, written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” for it points to the providential convergence of these three cultures. Thus does history reveal how the confluence of various currents of thought actually produced the cultural matrix of this or that civilization, particularly our own.
Finally, history is important in understanding the practical art and effect of application of ideas to given circumstances. In this sense history forms a great book of casuistry. As a practical and a moral guide, history provides a store of exempla, of great men and instructive works and deeds that can both inspire and edify. As such, history is especially indispensable in the study of the organic temporal development of the Church in her doctrine, discipline, and liturgy. After all, the Church worships the Lord of both eternity and time, who manifested Himself in history and who will complete it.
Consider, for example, the historical event of the Passover which, through divine intervention, brought about the redemption of the Jewish people from slavery to Egypt. The Passover was then perpetuated liturgically by divine command through its celebration as a Solemn Feast that looked back on God’s redeeming action in history while also pointing forward to God’s redemption from our slavery to sin and death in the Paschal mysteries of Christ’s death–and passing over death–as the Lamb of God. This Pascha ultimately finds its fulfillment in the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in the true Promised Land at the end of time. The Catholic Church gives us the gift of the liturgy to study and remember these events not only as something that God did in the past, but also as they are made present to us when time and eternity meet in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as we participate in the Paschal mystery.
Ultimately, our Catholic lives make sense only if we understand more deeply that the final end of history–for each of us and for the whole world–is union with God for all eternity in the heavenly Jerusalem. The study of history at CASJE will enable students to grasp these historical and transhistorical connections so that they can understand and order their lives to that glorious and joyful end for which they have been created.
