Theology Today - Vol 32, No. 3 - October 1975 - BOOK REVIEW - Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas

307 - Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas

Dictionary of the History of Ideas:
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
Edited by Philip O. Wiener
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968-74. 5 volumes. $200.

During the Renaissance, the early book publishers-or rather the greatest among them-were often responsible for launching publishing projects of major importance to the world of scholarship and learning. With the work under review, we return to that great publishing tradition, for Charles Scribner, Jr., was the initiator of the plan for this Dictionary, and without him the project would not have come to fruition.

The conception is both a noble and a useful one, for within the past half century, the history of ideas has become one of the most seminal fields of learning and has achieved scholarly results of the first magnitude. An attempt to bring together and to summarize what is now known of the history of "pivotal ideas" is thus highly desirable. The general editorship was carried out by Philip P. Wiener, the editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas, with the advice of eminent consulting editors who include Isaiah Berlin, George Boas, Harold Cherniss, Wallace K. Ferguson, E. H. Gombrich, Paul O. Kristeller, and Meyer Schapiro. Volume one appeared in 1968, volumes two through four in 1973, and the valuable index volume in 1974.

The challenge of choosing a set of ideas to be used as major entries must have been mind boggling, and some 300 were selected. These include Academic Freedom, Agnosticism, Anarchism, Authority, Catharsis, Causation, Chain of Being, Chance, Christianity in History, Creation in Religion, Demonology, The Problem of Evil, Metaphor in Philosophy and in Religious Discourse, Reformation, Religious Toleration, Satire, Sin and Salvation, Skepticism, Theodicy, The Wisdom of the Fool, and Work, to cite a few examples which may at least indicate the range of consideration. The scholars to whom these ideas were assigned for essays form an impressive list. Of those fifty contributors whose work I had previously known, I should say that only one was a questionable choice and that only two might be referred to as merely competent-while all the rest have well-deserved reputations as leaders in their fields of learning. Of those contributors whom I do not know, the vast majority hold major professorships in universities or equally responsible positions in other learned institutions, and only a very small number are in the early stages of their academic careers. To assemble so outstanding a list of contributors is, in itself, no mean achievement on the part of Scribner and Wiener.

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The essays on subjects with which I am reasonably familiar are, with a few exceptions, on a high plane. Even in a work of this stature, however, errors do occasionally appear and a few symptomatic examples should be cited. Thus, Peter A. Bertocci in his article on "Creation in Religion" comments that "Calvinists … used their worldly accomplishment as an index to their divinely ordained destiny," which is at the very least an oversimplification, misleading both historically and theologically. Such gaffes are fortunately rare. A more pervasive problem is posed by the severe limitations of space within which the contributors perforce had to operate. For the most part, the selectivity is admirable (it could not be impeccable), but again there are a few exceptions. Thus the entry by Elisabeth Labrousse on "Religious Toleration" is indefensibly fragmentary. Roger Williams is never mentioned nor are the other proponents of a growing toleration during the English Parliamentary and Protectorate period of the 1640's and 1650's. The climactic statement by John Milton in Areopagilica, surely the most eloquent of all defenses of toleration, is referred to only in a single rather vague sentence. Although the writers who are referred to are not, so far as I can tell, distorted by Labrousse's references, her whole history is thrown askew by such omissions. After the 1689 work of John Locke, no other proponent of toleration is mentioned by name. It is as though nothing were added to the discussion during the succeeding period of almost three centuries. Surely George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison are worthy of notice in late eighteenth century America, and John Stuart Mill in Victorian England, but of these thinkers we learn nothing either in the body of the article or in the bibliography.

A few articles are unequivocally disappointing, as is that by Helen P. Trimpi on "Demonology," which attempts to deal with the subject without even passing references to such eminent contributors to pneumatology as Dante and Milton, while her bibliographical note ignores virtually all of the leading twentieth century writers on the subject. In contrast to Trimpi, the entry on "The Problem of Evil" by Radoslav Tsanoff is considerably more inclusive, providing references and brief incursions into the thought of major philosophers, poets, and theologians, from which we may then move on in our own analyses.

That this Dictionary is prepared for the educated inquirer, rather than for specialists in each of the fields covered, is at once apparent and proper, but the Labrousse and Trimpi entries raise certain danger signals. Readers who suspect the comprehensiveness and accuracy of an article outside their own specialties must be prepared to read further in other sources, using this Dictionary primarily as a starting point for thought and investigation. Bibliographies appended to each entry almost always give reliable guidance.

The quality of most of the essays is superb. Readers should browse widely in these volumes, rather than simply turning only to subjects that they know are of interest to them, for they will find many rewards

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and some surprises. The subject of "Hierarchy and Order" is not likely to attract some modern students, for example, but in his article on this entry C. A. Patrides deploys his massive learning so as to write what is in effect an epitome of the history of Occidental thought. The essay on "Death" by Jacques Choron is indicative of the coverage generally provided elsewhere. He begins with the unawareness of the inevitability and possible finality of death among primitive peoples, traces the history of our consciousness of death from his first written example in the Gilgamesh Epic (ca. 2500 B.C.), and thereafter treats various considerations, or schools and groupings, and the development of human concern until our own time, covering a vast amount of significant material, including references to poets as well as theologians, philosophers, and scientists.

One of the most fascinating entries is the essay on "Love" by Denis De Rougemont (whose book on the demonic is one of the seminal contributions of this century, but ignored by Trimpi). Beginning with the various distinctive Greek words for different senses of our "love," De Rougemont pursues the subject through philosophy, theology, and history, with the bulk of his article devoted to love between the sexes. The template which he places over history and human experience may be challenged at a number of points, but the whole analysis is sparkling in its brilliance and is immensely heuristic. He closes his essay by recurring to the New Testament conception of agape "With its power to integrate personality in marriage."

One entry in the Dictionary, not precisely an "idea" in the usual sense, is "Christianity in History," which is closer to the usual encyclopedia article on the history of Christianity. It is done with great care and authority by Herbert Butterfield of Cambridge University. It would be difficult to find an equally reliable summary in approximately forty pages.

Four entries are devoted to the Renaissance, and though they vary in quality, they reinforce each other in effective ways. Denys Hay treats the "Idea of Renaissance" from the Renaissance period of Italy in the fifteenth century down to the twentieth century and points out (along with many other interesting observations) that our conception of "humanist" as essentially a secular thinker was a product of the nineteenth century, rather than of earlier periods. The essay on "Renaissance Humanism" by Nicola Abbagnano is of superb quality, though its "Englishing" sometimes yields a confusion of syntax, especially through the use of indefinite references; he deserves a better translator, for no more brilliant analysis can be found in so brief a compass. The entry on "Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man" by Charles Trinkaus is at least equally rewarding, tracing conceptions of human dignity back to the classical and biblical writers and never losing sight of the conjunction of Christian and classical elements in the Renaissance. Herbert Weisinger's "Renaissance Literature and Historiography" is stimulating, but its contribution is not on the same

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high plane as the other essays. By postulating six central ideas for the historiography of the Renaissance period, he is able to organize a considerable mass of material, but in doing so he introduces more oversimplification than is necessary. Furthermore, his bibliography contains no references to nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship on his subject. Readers interested in recent scholarly analyses may, however, turn for assistance to the bibliographies appended to such other entries as those on "Historiography," "Perfectability," and "Progress." The idea of "Reformation" is treated with fine perception by Lewis W. Spitz, who traces the major conceptions through various centuries (including biblical and classical times) and outlines the basic paradigms of development.

In an age when no single scholar can embrace the whole range of human learning, it is obvious that no one reviewer can do a complete appraisal of a work of such encyclopedic range as this one. But as a corollary, it is equally obvious for the same reasons that such a reference work is greatly needed. As a reference work, for those fields which I am competent to judge, it is as nearly authoritative as one could reasonably hope to find and, with a few exceptions, far more so than I would once have thought possible. It will long remain a monumental contribution to humane understanding.

Roland Mushat Frye
The University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania