Hegel and the Concept of Religion in Greek Tragedy

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Portland State University
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Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses
1975
Hegel and the Concept of Religion in Greek Tragedy
Barbara Scot
Portland State University
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Scot, Barbara, "Hegel and the Concept of Religion in Greek Tragedy" (1975).Dissertations and Theses.Paper 2263.
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AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Barbara Scot for the Master of Arts in
History presented July, 1975.
Title: Hegel and the Concept of Religion in Greek Tragedy.
APPROVED :BY MEMBERS OF THE THESIS COMMITTEE:

Susan Karant-Nmm
Charles LeGuin
David Newhall
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A parallel can be drawn in intellectual development between ancient
Greece and late eighteenth century Eu.rope concerning the secularization
of the religious myth. This parallel is illustrated in a literary mode
in Greece and in a philosophical mode in Europe. In both historical
situations the intellectual development of a society was posited in a
delicate balance of a religious mythical interpretation of human
existence and in a growing assertiveness of the self-consciousness of
the individual. A significant point of analogy is the similarity of the
Greek tragedians' attempt to define man in relation to the gods a.nd
Hegel's fo:rmu.lation of a philosophy which suspended in a delicate
semantic balance the religious tenninology of his Christian heritage and
the intellectual developments of the preceding century.
To develop and research this analogy ·:required an extensive reading
of the Greek tragedies and Hegel's writings on religion. From Aeschylus'
works I chose Prometheus Bound and the trilogy of the Orestia to
illustrate the seeds of humanism. In Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus !i
Colonus heroes have grown to a dignity articulated through suffering
that extends the humanistio view. Euripides completes the secularization
of religious myth by illustrating in the 13a.cchae the retu:rn to an
anthropomorphic representation of myste:r;:y :religion and the problem this
sort of religious myth poses for a society which is based on reason.
In attempting to understand Hegel's :religious thought, it was
necessary to formulate a linear progression by reading ~ Positivity .2!
~Christian Religion, ~Spirit 2!_ Christianity, ~Introduction~
~Lectures £?.!!. Religion, and ~Phenomenology Ef.. Mind. l3y following
this order, I saw an attempt to reconcile the Christian myth to the Age
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of Reason, whioh led to the ultimate statement in the Phenomenology of
an integration of philosophy and ;religion that passes out of any
conventional Christianity.
The most important secondary sou.roes for the interpretation of the
tragedies were F. M. Com.ford, who in his book ~ Religion !2,
traces the evolution of Greek intellectual thought; Werner
Philosop~
Jaeger, who in Paideia: The Ideals S2£. Greek Culture, explores the mind
of Athens through a thorough discussion of the tragedians; and Erle
Voegelin, whose Order History, Volume two, World .9.f. the Polis
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provided the model of comparison for re-occuring intellectual cycles
following a paridimatio set.
E. M. Butler's study 91. Greece Over German..y provided
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the tra.nSition for the analogy I wished to construct by examining the
influence which the Roman.tie concept of ancient Greece had on the
development or intellectual thought in Germany. While her study was
primarily ooncemed with literary figures rather than philosophers, it
was these figures who were most influential on Hegel's thought. Of
these varied literary influences, I dealt briefly with Lessing, Goethe,
Schiller and Holderlin.
The most important interpreter of Hegel is Walter Kaufmann, but
his biased interpre~ation of Hegel as a secular thinker mu.st be balanced
with G. N. Findlay's portrayal of Hegel as sincere in his religious
convictions. The ambiguity in interpretations of Hegel's religious
writings demanded extensive reading of Hegel's works and an occasional
bravery in individual interpretations.
Jaeger's summary of the factors which expidited the transformation
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of myth in ancient Greece provided the basis for an analogy to the
development of atheistic humanism in early nineteenth century Germany.
Bourgeois ideals, rhetoric and philosophy destroyed :religious myth in
ancient Greece, and the same th.l:'ee factors influenced and changed the
Christian myth in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. The drama.tic
statement of ancient G~ece re.fleeted in the tragedians was re-a.rticu
lat ed in another literary form by Hegel, the German philosopher who
created a secular statement of ma.n's capabilities whose religious
semantic framework was no longer able to contain it.
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HEGEL AND THE CONeEPr OF RELIGION
IN GREEK TRAGEDY
- by
Barbara Scot
A thesis submitted in partial .fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
MAffilER OF ARI'S
in
HISTORY
Portland State University
1975
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TO THE OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES .AND RESEARCH:
The members of the Committee approve the thesis of
Barbara Scot presented July, 1975.
Michael F. Reardon, l.:hai:rman
Sus
Charles LeGu.in
David Newhall
.APPROVED:
David Clark, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research
July, 1975
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Introduction • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1
Chapter
I • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 4
II • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 23
III • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 34
IV • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 52
Footnotes • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 55
:Bibliography • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 62
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In the development, flowering, and demise of Greek tragedy, an
artistic statement was made which reflected a significant shift in man's
self-conscious awareness of his place in the universe. Eric Voegelin
concluded that an historical course of events is present "when the order
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of the soul becomes the ordering force of society." Voegelin saw in
the statement of the dramatists, especially Aeschylus, the "historical
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drama. of the soul," or as he also stated, the "order of the soul in
historical evoluti~n."3 An interesting parallel can be drawn between
this position of the soul in its historical evolution in Greek tragedy
and the situati~n which occurred in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century in Ge:rma.n philosophy. In both historical situations,
the intellectual development of a society was posited in a delicate
balance of a religious mythical interpretation or human existence and a
growing assertiveness of the self-consciousness of the individual. To
encompass the entirity of this parallel position, it would be necessary
to discuss both the transformation from religion to philosophy in ancient
Greece and the secularization of Christian thought to atheistic h1lmanism
in modern Europe, a project beyond the scope of this· pa.per. However,
interesting and fruitful comparisons can be made by examining ind.ivid-
uals within the process. It is my thesis that a significant point of
analogy is the similarity of the Greek tragedians' attempt to define man
in :relation to the gods, and Hegel's formulation of a philosophy which
suspended in a delicate semantic balance the religious terminology of
his Christian heritage and the intellectual developments of the
preceding century.
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It is particularly interesting to draw this analogy because of
Hegel's own fascination with classical Greece and his preoccupation with
the form, content, and statement of Greek tragedy. Although Hegel was
:reflecting a fascination that was widespread among the intellectual
circles in the late eighteenth century, he was intensely personal in his
identification with Greek culture, both through his literary associates
· such as Holderlin, and through his identification as the perpetuator of
the Aristotelian tradition in western thought. The major point of my
consideration is that the philosophy of Hegel embodies a humanistic
statement of man's potentialities which contains the very seeds of
destruction to the intellectual viability of the :religious concepts
around which it was framed, and that this paradoxical situation is
analogous to the :religious situation presented in Greek tragedy.
The trans.fomation of religious thought that is re.fleeted in Greek
tragedy from Aeschylus to Euripides is the central statement of the
transfo:rmation from myth to philosophy. According to Eric Voegelin, the
actual transformation was a process o.f the myths being absorbed into a
growing self-conscious awareness based on man's attempt to construct an
order to his experience and existence through the application of reason.
It was a process by whioh "the speculative :reason of the thinker asserts
its autonomy against the mYthopoetic mode of expression."4 Hegel, a
:product of the distinctly Germanic version of the Enlightenment, which
refused to dismiss the Christian "mythopoetic mode of expression",
attempted to traoe the process by which the speculative reason, both of
the individual and the historically evolving society, could achieve
autonomy through the prevailing "mythopoetic mode." His philosophy,