from Seneca:
>"I  am  seeking to find what is good for man, not what is good for
>his belly.  Why cattle and whales have bigger ones than he.  As we
>sit at table, let us consider that this is but the dead body of  a
>fish,  that  the  dead body of a bird or pig; and again, that this
>Falernian is only a little grape juice, and this purple robe  some
>sheep's wool died with the blood of a shellfish."
>  [Looks a lot like Veblin's theory of the leisure class.]
>
>One of my impressions of the Bible is that it is full of so many
>personalities that are so remarkable, whereas the men that I see
>alive today seem so unremarkable.  In reading the Greek & Roman
>classics, I see men behaving much as they still do, and for that
>reason see them as more acurrate- assuming of course, that these
>men of ancient times were actually the same as now...
You sound as though making an allusion to the 17th century quarrel
of the ancients and moderns in France.  Let me expand  on  this  a
bit:  Perrault  had  raised  the  issue  in  connection  with  the
foundation of the French Academy of Science in 1666, and took  the
position  that the 'age of the century of Louis the Great' was, or
would shortly be, far superior  to  anything  which  the  ancients
represented  or produced.  Perrault even went so far as to compare
Moliere to Plautus, the latter whom he  thought  was  inferior  in
farce   to  the  works  of  the  best  Modern.   Thus,  Perrault's
philosophical view tended to be general, applying across the board
from the humanities to the sciences, from morals  to  description:
Our human world is superior to that of the ancients.
Boileau responded with an attack against Perrault's arrogance, his
initial  view  being that of the Renaissance--to wit, that our age
is but a decline or deterioration from the light and excellence of
the classical ancient  world.   But  he  changed  his  view  after
Fontenelle  entered  the  debate, expressing views similar to your
position above--the trees of the  ancients  were  no  taller  than
ours,  nor  did  the  ancients  stand  taller than we do, but that
progress depends  upon  the  accumulation  of  knowledge.   Today,
historians  of  ideas often credit Fontenelle with introducing the
doctrine of progress in the West.
Summing  up  the  debate,  Boileau  wrote  in  his  1701 letter to
Perrault,
  What  then  is  the  reason  of  your  complaining  so  of   the
  Ancients?   Is  it  fear of spoiling one's own work in imitating
  them?  But can you deny that it is, on  the  contrary,  to  that
  imitation  itself  that  our  greatest  poets owe the success of
  their writings?  ...  Can you not admit that it  is  in  Plautus
  and  Terence  that  Moliere learned the greatest niceties of his
  art? (p.55)
  ...
Now, here comes where Fontenelle's criticism  of  Boileau's  early
position led Boileau to change his view:
  Your  purpose  is  to show that in our attainments, particularly
  in the fine arts, and in  the  merits  of  our  literature,  our
  century,  or  better the century of Louis the Great, is not only
  comparable but superior to all  the  most  famous  centuries  of
  antiquity,  even  that  of  Augustus.  You are going to be quite
  astonished when I tell you that on this matter I  am  altogether
  of your opinion. ...
  I  would  boldly  maintain  that, taking the century of Augustus
  at its broadest extent--that is,  from  Cicero  to  Tacitus--one
  could  not  find among the Latin writers a single thinker who in
  natural philosophy could be  put  alongside  Descartes  or  even
  Gassendi.
  [Boileau:   Selected   Criticism,  Dilworth  trans.,  New  York:
   Bobbs-Merrill, 1965, pp.57-58]
Thus  Boileau,  the  former defender of the Faith in the Ancients,
had completely adopted the doctrine of progress by  the  beginning
of the 18th century.
One of the good things  about  Christianity  was  that  it  either
directly  or  indirectly  (via  the Arabs) transmitted much of the
classical tradition to the modern world.  During the  Renaissance,
the  printing  of  classical  literature  led to the view that the
ancient world  was  a  golden  age  from  which  Christianity  had
descended.   We recall that Gibbon in the 18th century argued that
the decline and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  Christianity's
fault.   By  the  17th  century  that  descent was beginning to be
regarded as a descent into depravity and barbarism.
Advanced  Renaissance  skeptics such as Montaigne, however, sought
to construct what has come to be called a  'classical  compromise'
with  Christianity.   In  his Essays we find many points where the
author sought to integrate classical points  of  view  (especially
the  Epicureans and the Stoics like Seneca) with Christian values.
However, during the age of the foundation of the great  scientific
academies  of  Europe  (the  second half of the 17th century), the
classical compromise had begun to collapse,  as  the  doctrine  of
progress   was   introduced   and  became  more  and  more  widely
believed.  (Of course, today, the doctrine of progress is  one  of
the  most  certainly  established general principles of historical
development, even though it is still contested).
But the 17th century effort to achieve a classical compromise with
Christianity was only the mirror image of the much earlier  effort
of Christianity to compromise itself with the classics, before the
Dark Ages began:
  While  scholars  and  schoolmasters  in  the  century  following
  [Quintilian] continued to condemn Seneca, early Christians  were
  taking  to  this  kindred spirit among pagan writers, so many of
  whose ideas and attitudes they felt  able  to  adopt  or  share.
  Anthologies  were  made  of  him and he was frequently quoted by
  such writers as Jerome, Lactantius  and  Augustine.   Tertullian
  called  him  saepe noster, 'often one of us'.  The extant set of
  letters purporting to be correspondence between Seneca  and  St.
  Paul  (probably composed by a Christian, but apparently believed
  genuine until quite modern times) led Jerome to include  him  in
  his so called Catalogue of Saints, and no doubt helps to explain
  his reputation in the middle ages, much as the supposed prophecy
  of the birth of the Messiah in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue helped to
  make the latter's name in Christendom.
  [Robin  Campbell, ed.  and trans., Seneca: Letters from a Stoic,
   Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1969, p.24]
Bob
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