Philology Is A Weapon

Quintus Curtius Language , , ,

syria2

Philology is the study of language as it is found in written historical sources.  Words are dense repositories of historical information.  Languages and inflections change subtly in morphology and syntax with the passing of years, and by being attuned to these changes, we can learn a great deal.  Any native speaker of a language can look at a text and discern, even with a casual reading, the general age of the piece.  Specialized techniques can reveal much more.

The British scholar Richard Bentley, writing in 1699, had this to say on the subject:

Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and alteration; some words go off and become obsolete; others are taken in and by degrees grow into common use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense and notion, which in tract of time makes as observable a change in the air and features of a language as age makes in the lines and mien of a face.  All are sensible of this in their native tongues, where continual use makes every man a critic.

Every language is subject to these forces, Bentley reminds us.  But while it can be easy to identify such nuances in one’s native tongue, few reach the level of fluency in a foreign tongue to apply the same level of critical scrutiny.  Bentley was one of the few who could.  He was a towering figure of classical erudition, mastering Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by the age of twenty nine.  Soon thereafter he dared to venture into academic disputes with some of the most learned men of his day.

One such dispute put Bentley’s formidable erudition on display.  It began harmlessly enough, with the publication in 1690 of a pamphlet entitled Of Ancient And Modern Learning by Sir William Temple.  The purpose of the essay was to weigh the comparative merits of ancient and modern literature.  Temple had the misfortune of praising the literary merit of a collection of ancient Greek epistles that tradition had ascribed to a sixth-century B.C. writer named Phalaris.  Many other scholars had come to agree with Temple that the letters were authentic.

Bentley was asked to give his opinion on the matter, and he responded in great detail in his 1699 treatise Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris.  He picked apart the text, using his extraordinary knowledge of the historical phases of the Greek language, and demonstrated that the letters were most likely written in the second century A.D.  In other words, the letters were not written by Phalaris.  Bentley’s arguments were basically unassailable, since he had based them all on a critical examination of the words of the text.

shadow2

But without doubt, the most compelling philological demolition in history was Lorenzo Valla’s exposure of the so-called “Donation of Constantine” as a forgery.  We must first understand the context, in order to appreciate fully the magnitude of his victory.  Tradition had attributed to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great the authorship of a document that gave the Roman Catholic Church title to the lands of Western Europe upon his death.  The document, allegedly written by Constantine shortly before his death in A.D. 337, purported to give Pope Sylvester I this privilege.

The donation had been used by the Church as evidence for the validity of its ecclesiastical and temporal powers in Europe.  It had achieved general, if grumbling, acceptance in the Middle Ages, but had never quite freed itself of the taint of fraud.  Nicolas of Cusa had called it into question, and it is likely that other men who cared about such matters had nursed their own doubts.  But it was Lorenzo Valla, however, who proved the document to be a fraud beyond all doubt.  He was an aggressive, opinionated man, much given to quarrels and vain to a fault.  Yet his knowledge of the Latin language was unsurpassed, and he had the good fortune to be working for Alfonso, King of Aragon and Sicily in 1440, the year in which he wrote his indictment of the donation.  Alfonso was at that time involved in a political dispute with the papacy, and it would have been amusing to him to have a literary bulldog like Valla shred the pride of the papal see in Rome.

Valla did not disappoint.  He examined the text line by line, and wrote out his conclusions in a treatise entitled De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione (On the Forged and Fraudulent Donation of Constantine).  The treatise is not written as we might expect; it takes the form of a rhetorical work, not an explanatory paper.  Valla’s Latin is refined, complex, and of a very high quality.  The content of its speeches do not move our passions today; what makes the work important is that here, finally, is a systematic attempt at philological analysis.  Valla demonstrated conclusively that the donation must have been written at least five hundred years after the date it was supposed to have been written, and thus could not have come from Constantine.

We may judge its effectiveness from the fact that it was placed on the Church’s index of prohibited books in 1559.  The expose of the fraud was embarrassing to the Church, and made Valla a legion of enemies in Rome.  A few cardinals made belated efforts to have Valla retract his conclusions, but predictably he refused.  What man could reasonably be expected to back away from so crushing a victory?

This sample gives a taste of the scorching nature of Valla’s prose, as he attacks the forged donation:

Should I more point out the stupidity of ideas, or of words?  You have heard about the ideas.  And now here is the stupidity of words.  He says that the Senate “should have adorned” [here referencing the language of the donation], as if it were not already decorated; and also “adorned in glory.”  And what may be happening, he wants to have been done.  So he uses “we have promulgated” [promulgavimus] instead of “we promulgate” [promulgamus] as it sounds more majestic this way.  And it is the same thing as he speaks in the present tense and the preterite tense, as “we decree” and “we have decreed.”  And everything is imbued with these tones:  we decree, we adorn, imperial, magisterial, power, glory…he has [even] put “exists” in the place of “is”…and “bedmates” [concubitores] for “companions” [contubernales]: bedmates are those who sleep together and have sex, and must be understood to be whores.[1]

Valla’s abilities are evident from a reading of the passage above.  It is from this point that we can date the advent of modern philology.  Obviously, these feats of detective work require a high level of fluency in a language.  The philologist must have familiarity with texts of varying historical periods in order to be able to spot inconsistencies in phrasing and words that are out of place.

While not all of us are capable of being a Valla or a Bentley, we can still do more than we might believe.  Diligent study of  foreign language will reveal that each historical period generates its own “flavor” of the language.  And even with our own native language, the principle is the same.

Philology is a weapon, and its moving components dance across every page of a written text.  Words have tremendous power, if we know how to mine them for information.  If we attune our sensitivities to these things, words have much to tell us.  They are repositories of knowledge, each and every one of them containing its own hidden secrets.

________________________

[1]  Translation mine.  The Latin text used here is the one provided in the I Tatti edition On the Donation of Constantine, Cambridge:  Harvard Univ. Press, 2007, p. 94.

 

 

Read more in the new translation of Cicero’s Stoic Paradoxes, which also includes the essay The Dream of Scipio:

The Rise And Fall Of Empires: Ibn Khaldun’s Theory Of Social Development

Quintus Curtius History, Thought , , ,

khaldun2

The most remarkable figure in medieval historiography was Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun; his name in Arabic is أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي‎, but this is mercifully shortened to us simply as Ibn Khaldun.  He was an urbane and well-traveled figure, whose life experiences taught him intimate lessons on both rulers and ruled.  He was born in Tunis, North Africa, in 1332 and received the best education of his day; his absorption of knowledge was made easier, he tells us, by his zealous devotion to travel and study.

Continue reading →

U.S. Grant’s Most Personal Victory

Quintus Curtius Biography , , ,

My article this week at Return Of Kings focuses on the little-known but inspiring story of Ulysses S. Grant’s race against the Reaper to complete his memoirs.  I became familiar with the story after listening to the audiobook Grant’s Final Victory by Charles B. Flood, which outlines the drama in detail.

Grant left the presidency in 1876 with little in the way of wealth, but his financial fortune took a catastrophic turn when the investment banking firm (of which he was a partner) imploded in an avalanche of fraud.  Grant was not involved in these matters, but nonetheless lost everything.  Worse still, he was soon diagnosed with terminal cancer.  He was faced with the grim prospect of doing one last deed to restore his family’s fortunes before he passed away.

Our studies of history and character here are meant to serve two purposes:  to entertain, and to provide a source of instruction about what qualities of character are needed in adversity.

You can read the rest of the story here.

On Whether It Is Better To Criticize, Or To Remain Silent

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

100_0851

The great Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457) took great pride in his constant need to attack his forebearers, as well as his contemporaries.  Few escaped the wrathful attentions of his pen.  Yet Valla saw himself as an upholder of the classical virtues, and for him, criticism was a form of moral duty.  He said in 1440 in one letter to Joan Serra:

Continue reading →

Samuel B. Griffith: Warrior And Scholar

Quintus Curtius Biography , ,

war2

One of the more remarkable military men of recent history was Samuel B. Griffith (1906-1983).  Born in Lewiston, Pennsylvania, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.  From 1931 to 1933, he served in Nicaragua with the American forces aiding that country’s Guardia Nacional, in what later became somewhat derisively referred to as the “Banana Wars.”

After this, he was posted to China.  It is not widely known now, but units of the Fourth Marines were posted in Shanghai in the early 1930s to protect American interests.  China at the time was  experiencing one of its periodic descents into chaos and war, and duty there was not without its share of excitement.  Duties there consisted primarily of policing the borders of the international concessions that had been carved out by various foreign powers.

Griffith, however, was assigned at the language officer at the American Embassy in Peking.  From the moment he arrived in China, he devoted himself to the study of the Chinese language.  According to his statements in later interviews, he spent six hours per day, five days per week, in intensive study of this most challenging and subtle language.  Within two years he was able to read a basic newspaper article.  After leaving China in 1938, he was confident that he had gained a working knowledge of modern Chinese. This knowledge would serve him well in his later career.

Griffith also took the opportunity to study the nature of the irregular conflict that was raging all around him.  China and Japan were openly at war; and although the Americans were strictly forbidden from intervening, it was impossible for an observant mind not to be impressed by the tactics of the Chinese insurgents.  Japan had occupied Manchuria in 1931 before launching an all-out invasion of the rest of the country in 1937.  Griffith traveled widely in China, and came to know personally Merrit A. Edson, a language student like himself who would later become famous as leader of a “raider” unit against the Japanese during the Second World War.

The Second World War closed in on him quickly.  After hostilities between Japan and the United States began, Griffith served with the 1st Marine Raiders Battalion (rising to the command of that unit) on Guadalcanal.  He was awarded the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart on Guadalcanal for his part in the fighting at Matanikau River; later, at the island of New Georgia, he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross.  The Navy Cross is the second-highest award for combat bravery that can be issued by the Navy; the Distinguished Service Cross is its equivalent for the US Army.  Without doubt, Griffith was intimately acquainted with combat in a variety of settings.

With the end of the war in 1945, he returned to occupation duty in Northern China in the city of Tsingtao.  The remainder of his career was spent in the United States in a variety of staff and command appointments.  He retired from active duty in 1956 as a brigadier general.

It was at this point in his life that Griffith proved he was no ordinary military man.  Whereas most veterans would have been content to rest on their laurels and seek a comfortable retirement in some government post, Griffith felt the call of other disciplines.  So he exchanged the tunic of the soldier for the robe of the scholar.  He applied for, and was accepted to, a Ph.D. program at Oxford University in the Chinese language.

This was not the colloquial, modern Chinese that Griffith had been exposed to previously:  this was the classical language of ancient China, as different from modern Chinese as the language of Euripides would be to a modern resident of Athens.

war1

Nevertheless, his proficiency in the modern language did give him a huge advantage over other students.  He received his doctorate in 1961, and soon after published translations of two military texts that had interested him for some time.  One was Sun Tzu’s Art of War; and the other was Mao Tse-tung’s On Guerrilla Warfare. 

In the modern era, Sun Tzu has become a familiar fixture of contemporary literature, to the point of almost being a cliché.  This was not the case in the early 1960s.  Sun Tzu was almost completely unknown outside of specialist circles.  The text had been translated into English only a few times previously, none of them satisfactorily; and Griffith’s version remains, in my mind at least, the most authoritative and readable version of the many that have emerged in recent decades.  The translation was begun, he tells us in the foreword to his book, a “considerably revised version of a thesis submitted to Oxford University in October 1960 in part satisfaction of the requirements for the [Ph.D.] degree.”

The translation of Mao’s work On Guerrilla Warfare had actually been done in the 1930s, when Griffith had been in China.  It had appeared in an issue of the Marine Corps Gazette in 1941.  Griffith revised this previous translation before issuing it as a separate volume in 1961.

Griffith thus proved himself to be a man acquainted with both the theory and brutal practice of warfare.  Besides the two works noted above, he has also published later in his life such notable accounts as The Battle For Guadalcanal and The Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

My own acquaintance with Griffith came as a Marine second lieutenant at The Basic School in 1991, where his translation of Sun Tzu was required reading for young officers.  After reading about Griffith’s background, I was impressed by how his career blended both the profession of arms and the labor of the scholar.  There were no other military men like him, and I wondered why he was not more widely known.

His translation of Sun Tzu is packed with the most recondite and detailed information about ancient Chinese warfare and linguistic subtleties.  There are also special sections on the influence of Sun Tzu on Mao Tze-tung and on Japanese military doctrines.  Regarding the latter topic, he makes this grim (and accurate) assessment of his former adversaries:

Both the Americans and their British allies learned important lessons from [their] early defeats and developed successful methods of combating Japanese tactics…During these operations the Japanese showed themselves to be obstinate fighters, but unable to cope with the unorthodox methods their opponents now used against them.  Thus it appears that in spite of devoted study the Japanese understanding of Sun Tzu was not better than superficial.  In the most profound sense, they knew neither their enemies nor themselves; their calculations in the councils had not been made objectively.

Griffith died in 1983 in Rhode Island.  It is unfortunate that he has not achieved the notoriety that he deserves.  He knew warfare not through books, but through actual experience in the field.  He knew the Chinese language intimately, in both the colloquial patois of its bustling cities, as well as in its rarefied classical form.  Few, if any, military men in modern history attaining the rank of brigadier general can claim the same level of combat experience and scholarly distinction.

 

Read More:  Robert Burns:  Scotland’s Greatest Poet

The Practical Wisdom Of Thomas A Kempis

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

inquis1

One of the most enlightening yet now underappreciated books of “personal improvement” is a small volume entitled The Imitation of Christ.  It was written by an obscure cleric named Thomas a Kempis in the late medieval period in Germany.  His name has various spellings, among them Thomas Von Kempen and Thomas Haemerkken.

Continue reading →

The Worst Weapon Ever Made

Quintus Curtius History ,

trench4

The greed and callousness of combat weapons designers have resulted in the deaths of many men.  Nowhere else has this fact been more starkly portrayed than in the story of what may be the worst small arm ever made, the Chauchat (also called the Fusil-Mitrailleur mle 1915, or the CSRG).  It was a French light machine gun designed for use at the squad level on the eve of the First World War.  The story of the Chauchat reveals much about the workings of the military-industrial complex, and how that combination can work to undermine the welfare of an army.

Continue reading →

Invective Has A Distinguished Lineage

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

Acquaintance with the ancient art of invective reminds us just how hypersensitive today’s reading audience can be.  We often hear tiresome complaints from some quarters about how some article or other on the internet “triggered” someone, or how some author is a “horrible person” for upsetting someone’s serenity.  It was not always so.  Invective and personal attack have a long and distinguished history.

Continue reading →

The Traits Needed For Progress In Mystical Studies

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

delusion

In Pantheon, we devoted a chapter (“The Heart Of Plotinus”) to the foundational text of Western mysticism, Plotinus’s Enneads.  That text made it clear that every man possesses within himself the capacity for special knowledge of the world; and every man has the potential for awareness of things outside the realm of accepted cognition.

Some will use and develop this innate and intuitive capacity, and some will not.  The question then arises: what are the attributes of the true mystic?  And for those who seek to embark on a study of this field, what traits mark those with natural talent?  An awareness of these traits will assist us in our own spiritual explorations.

The great mystics of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all seem to have a few core traits in common:

1.  A capacity for concentration.  The ability to master large amounts of recondite and difficult material is a prerequisite for success.  This must happen before the novice can approach the more abstruse doctrines.  Before the great rewards can be reaped, a great deal of effort must first be expended.  Furthermore, without a single minded focus on study, ritual, and recitation, it will not be possible for the student to achieve the correct mental states required for ascension to higher consciousness.

2.  A sincere and pious disposition.  The true seeker is not a chest-beater, a braggart, or a publicist.  He does not wish to be seen to do good, but instead wishes actually to do good.  The open heart carries the additional advantage of not being enmeshed by the nets of jealousy, pride, or preconception; it is willing to give a fair hearing to doctrines that may run counter to its own experience and common sense.  The mystic is a lover, first and foremost:  a lover of truth, divine knowledge, and the wonders of the natural world.

3.  A soaring imagination.  The literature of the best mystics is marked by an intoxicating language derived from the seeker’s imaginative creations.  This is not frivolous vanity, but rather a necessary part of the search for esoteric knowledge.  The fundamental nature of existence is cloaked in ambiguity.  As we delve more deeply into our own imagination and our own dreams, we quickly discover that our imagination serves as a “bridge” (in Arabic, a برزخ or barzakh) between the world of the spirit and the world of the corporeal.

water2

Unless we understand the imagination and how it operates, it is not really possible to grasp the deeper core of mystical doctrines.  The great mystic Ibn Arabi assured us that imagination (خيال or khayal) actually took place on three planes:  in the cosmos, where existence equaled the Divine imagination; in the intermediate world between the corporeal and spiritual realms; and in the individual man, whose soul used it as a means of communication with the body.

Not all of us will be great mystics, but all of us can benefit from a consideration of these matters in a basic way; they will open spiritual doors for us previously closed.

If anyone would doubt the power of imagination, let him consider this unsettling story told by Ibn Arabi in his monumental work The Meccan Revelations.  

When he was but a beardless youth in his early teens, Ibn Arabi had begun to attract attention for his incredible powers of perception, recitation, and cognition of spiritual matters.  His “opening” came at an early age.

The chief judge in Seville, Spain at the time was the famous philosopher and jurist Averroes (Ibn Rushd).  Ibn Arabi’s father was an acquaintance of Averroes, and one day decided to take his precocious young son to meet him.  Averroes had heard about the young lad’s abilities and wanted to take his measure.  We should also note that he was a strict rationalist, and had little use for the imprecise and airy creations of the mystics, whom he doubtless considered to be mostly deluded.

He asked the boy, “How did you find the situation in unveiling and divine emanation? Is is what rational thought demonstrates for us?”

Ibn Arabi replied, “Yes and no.  Between the yes and the no, spirits fly from their matter, and heads from their bodies.”

Upon hearing this answer, Averroes was said to have gone pale and begun to tremble.  He had no further meetings with the young man, whose strange answer had completely disarmed him.

 

Read More:  How Character Can Change According To Circumstances

How Character Can Change According To Circumstances

Quintus Curtius Thought , , ,

delusion1

It may be asked how a man’s character changes according to his circumstances.  Without doubt it does change; there remains an unalterable core of our character, fashioned from our earliest years, but onto this trunk may be grafted or discarded a variety of traits and habits.

On this subject we should be mindful of the following:

1.  It is easier to add character traits than it is to remove them.  The learning of a new set of habits and traits can be accomplished if the incentives and motivations are there.  Far more difficult it is to try to remove some ingrained character feature that may have been with us for years.  It is not impossible, but it is difficult.

Adding is easier than removing.  Being mindful of this, we should endeavor to add character traits, rather than to try to remove ones that may already exist.  The removal of character traits should be reserved for those situations where the trait in question is directly harmful or a serious impediment to future growth.

2.  The true revelation of character comes at moments of difficulty or stress.  If we wish to know our own, or someone else’s character, we should seek out situations in which we can exert pressure on that individual.  The resulting observations will be useful.

3.  The ravages of disease or old age can corrode positive character traits.  It will not corrupt the most important ones, but it can have adverse effects.  As an example of this, Plutarch mentions an incident (Pericles 38) where Pericles, who had contracted the plague, permitted some visitors on his sickbed to lay amulets and charms on him. He had always derided superstition and would never have permitted such conduct had he been healthy.  Thus is it shown that disease may corrode the bulwarks of virtue.

grapes2

Somewhat conversely Plutarch in his Spartan Sayings also relates an anecdote about the Agiad king Cleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas.  The king had suffered greatly from a long bout of illness, and in desperation, had enlisted the aid of practitioners of the magical arts.  When his friends had expressed unease at this development, the king said, “There is no reason to be amazed.  I’m not the same person I was before, so of course what I believe and disbelieve isn’t the same either.”

It is also clear that with the advance of old age come the vices of greed, superstition, and timidity; for these vices flourish in a climate of fear, which old age does much to aggravate.  As a man advances in age, he will acutely feel the hound of fear biting his heels, as he becomes more and more worried about his security and health.

And it is for this reason that we must do all we can when young, so that the advance of old age or sickness will not expose us to these vices.

 

Read More:  Are Omens Real?