The paper on Vico
Many of the theories presented in Vico's, The New Science, pertains to what he calls a project to create a philological and reasonable theological understanding of humanity.1 The New Science may be considered an alternative to the traditional Christian doctrine regarding the origin and evolution of humanity. Although Vico appears to be a devout Christian, many of his suppositions and statements seem to indicate otherwise. Using some of his own ideas from the work in question, it can be shown that Vico is either an atheist or a Christian whose theories do not coincide with traditional Catholic teaching. Vico's ideas of the origin of society and the evolution of man do not need to adduce scripture to be postulated successfully, although the Bible can be used as a rich source of information to supplement his position. Christian doctrine, as it is disseminated by the Catholic Church, can be shown to hinder Vico's propositions, and this may have been the reason for Vico’s revisions of these doctrines to fit his theoretical framework. If Vico is an atheist, he may have shrouded his ideas using a veil of false religiosity to avoid persecution by the Catholic Church.
As the reader first begins his journey through the fabulous pages of The New Science, one gets the impression that Vico is a devout Christian whose beliefs appear to coincide with traditional doctrine. For example, he acknowledges that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth (51). He additionally notes that God gave Adam the power of onomatopoeia (spontaneous naming of animals by what they do) (430). However, this gift becomes theoretically problematic when superimposed on the larger framework of Vico's evolution of language. He believes that humans can only be certain about those things of which they are the creator, such as society (138-140). At best, humanity can possess knowledge about something, but unless they have created it, they are unable to possess certainty. Only God, for instance, can have certainty about trees, since he created them.2 Vico believes it is possible to trace human history to its origins by studying language, theology and philosophy (reason) to understand how humanity was, is, and may become (10, 163, 198, 321, 349, 359, 381, 390). The certainty that Vico relies on to make this type of historical tracing possible is derived from his supposition that language and theology have the same origin and the same creator - humans. Humans judge all things based on what is familiar to them, and since nothing is more familiar than themselves, this becomes the standard by which their universe is measured (122, 181). Therefore, religion (before reason evolves into science (1410)) is a human conception by which humans try to appraise nature.
If God had given Adam onomatopoeia, the words, theology, and language, would have been created and given to humans by God (165, 430, 437). Adam could not have been certain of the names he gave the animals, since it was God's gift, and not Adam’s natural ability, that made this possible. From the idea of onomatopoeia, Vico postulates that all languages stem from Adam, hence all languages must trace their origin to said gift. Adam's onomatopoeic ability was not natural or created by him, and therefore, any language or theology that would evolve from this origin can never be known to humans with certainty. It should be noted that according to the Pentateuch, onomatopoeia was given solely to Adam, and is not universal to the human species (Gen 2:19). Because of this, the origins of language would be alien to all subsequent generations. However, Vico contradicts this idea and ascribes onomatopoeia to human nature (447). According to Vico, therefore, all people are naturally born with this faculty. For Vico's science to work, it would be necessary for humans to have created their first words naturally. This universal language cannot be derived from one person (Adam), but must be considered to originate and exist independently in all people, even if these people are unknown to each other. If language completely originates from a gift that only Adam had, then there is no such thing as a universal language common to humanity, and therefore there could be no virgin languages beyond the original, by which Vico could draw parallels, in order to prove his theories (202-223).
Vico uses the great flood to wash away the world that God created, and establish the fertile Age of the Giants whence humanity fell to its first barbarism (223). Vico uses the Great Flood to establish an environment conducive to the growth of a universal language not based on Adam’s onomatopoeia, but rather on humanity’s common capacity for language, or what Vico would call humanity’s universal gift of onomatopoeia.
He uses the biblical tale pertaining to Noah and the flood, as well as floods from Greek and Roman mythology (171), to prove the existence of this great cleansing event (190, 198). Vico does not justify the historical existence of the flood simply by claiming that it must be true because it was written in the Bible. Rather, he posits that since many different cultures share this same idea or myth of a flood, the legend of the Great Flood must hold some truth3 (144, 172). Myths or theologies are considered by Vico to be a record or testament of a culture's history (198). It is not the Christian belief in the flood, but the Bible's record of this event used as historical proof, coupled with other mythologies, which is Vico's justification for the Great Flood (193-194, 223, 380). Vico could still have justified his theory without the use of the Bible by utilizing various mythologies such as Greek, Roman and Egyptian. Furthermore, to prove the existence of a flood, he claims that Noah's three children deserted him and became scattered around the world, each occupying an area coinciding to the divisions of: 1) Africa, 2) Europe and Near Asia, and 3) Far Asia. Each of these coincides with the three different races of humans: the Blacks, the Caucasians and the Orientals (369). It is interesting to note what Vico twists into the traditional interpretation of this story: that Noah’s children dispersed, wandered around the world, and slept with their sisters, mothers and daughters whenever they found them. Subsequent to each birth, mothers would abandon their children as soon as they could to rejoin their wanderings throughout the ancient forest. For generation after generation, people would grow up without hearing the voice of their mothers, and any civilization or language that may have existed prior to the flood disappeared (223). Hence, the flood washes away the human world God created. This is not the Judeao-Christian teaching concerning the flood. Noah's children did not lose their language, and new dialects were not created by isolated people; rather, the various languages were the punishment of God's wrath against humanity’s attempt to build the Tower of Babel - an artificial mountain built to reach God (see Gen 11:1-9). This concept of gods and mountains will be examined later in this paper. To accommodate his theory concerning humanity’s innate universal language, which isolated cultures would have in common, Vico needs the flood to serve as a natural barrier between those various cultures. However, if, as the Bible states, Noah and his children were the only people to survive the flood, and if Noah’s children wandered away from the same mountain on foot, there is no barrier save distance, which could serve as an isolating factor. The different peoples born of Noah's children would still be capable of encountering each other, and since Vico supposes that early man wandered about aimlessly, these encounters would be more frequent than if they settled on their own continents (13). This interpretation of the biblical rendition of Noah would seem to imply that there was no water barrier to isolate Noah's three sons from each other, and this does not coincide with what Vico believes. During the recourse of nations, or the repetition of the ages after Christ’s birth, Vico uses the analogy of the floods of barbarians as the catharsis of the classical or first course of nations or ages through which humanity passes (1050-1051).
To make Vico's science work in light of biblical teaching, there would have to be an interval between the time Noah and his children knew of the true God, and the time their offspring had completely forgotten Him. To explain the human condition after this loss of humanity’s divine language and knowledge, Vico borrows concepts from different mythologies, such as the Egyptian chronology of the ages of man: the Age of Giants, the Age of Gods, the Age of Heroes and the Age of Man (173). Vico calls these ages the recourses of nations. The reasoning Vico uses to justify the establishment of paganism does not coincide with biblical tradition. At points, Vico claims that, unlike the Gentiles, the Hebrews never experienced a barbaric Age of Giants (172). The question as to whether or not Vico really believes this, or in fact it is a straw-man created to avoid church persecution, can be settled by the eventual proof offered that Vico may be an atheist, and therefore is only masking his secular ideas behind what seems to be a derivation of Christian theology. Vico postulates that due to the excessive moisture that would have saturated the air immediately after the Great Flood, lightning could not occur (192). When the world dried up enough for the first lightning flash to cross the sky, the humans of the Age of Giants looked up for the first time, and became fearful of what sounded like the grumbling of an angry and visually powerful God. In fear they hid themselves in caves, away from the open sky and the false divinity that they would eventually call Jove. This occurred, at some point or another, universally to all humans (377). Vico believes that society, language and theology all began for every culture with a similar flash of lightning. These series of events, as they have been formulated by Vico, do not depend on Judaeo-Christian precepts. He claims that this false divinity was accepted by gentiles after they realized, being downtrodden by nature, that they needed some kind of providence beyond themselves for guidance (10, 188, 301, 382, 385). Inasmuch as the lightning misled humanity to believe in the divinity of Jove, it established the "true" premise that divine providence watched over them. This is a peculiar statement since it seems to claim that man was searching for a god (a divine father) to alleviate the anxiety of mere survival. These anxieties are not caused by other people, but are generated from within the individual as a result of difficulties encountered in nature (381). Early humans availed themselves of the opportunity to believe that the lightning was Jove. Initially it may not have been a conscious decision to embrace the idea of this divinity showing his power (122, 142); however, it was a chance to placate humanity’s everyday fears. The true God did not reveal himself to the early gentiles, instead a false one was concocted by the childlike fertile imaginations of early humans who were driven by fear to accept the false deity as a means of alleviating this fear. There is absolutely no reason why a similar scenario cannot be painted by omitting the flood altogether. In fact, this version would seem to be more plausible than the accommodations Vico makes in order to appear to coincide with Christian theology. Thus, when primitive humans evolved to the point of realizing the ability to attribute divinity to something (181), the lightning flash, because of its apparent power, could have been seen as divine. Before this moment, humanity would have seen lightning in the same manner as animals. In The New Science, Vico utilizes etymology and theology in an attempt to trace how man evolved from their primitive beginnings (237, 240, 301, 348, 1009). Society and humanity developed concurrently, both beginning with the concept of Jove (10). Vico suggests that modern humanity and society are entirely human constructs (198), and therefore people can have certain knowledge of humanity (348).
Vico believes that theology is a record of the human experience in the various ages of time (198). In the Age of Giants, humans would only grunt, e.g., when he was angry or frightened. This is why when thunder occurred, early humans thought it sounded like the grumblings of an angry god (228). "Jove" was the first intelligible word Vico claims would have been uttered by people of the Age of Gods (301) (the accustomed sound primitive man would have made upon seeing the lightning) (191). Like a child, whose imagination is robust, primitive humans would raise their voice in song to praise Jove (211, 228). According to Vico, the first fathers, who had dragged women into the caves they claimed as their property (122, 258, 301, 448), were the first to attempt to read or divine the auspices of the false divinity known as Jove (249-250). In other words, in the Age of Gods, the first fathers attempted, based on their human reason, to understand the divine providence that governed them -- in essence, they tried to understand themselves (181, 204, 218). These fathers became the first human or mortal gods on earth and many assumed the names of gods (449). Hence, human authority originated with the effects of the first lightning strike and this is recorded in the theological records of various societies (122, 390, 942). In the Age of Gods, people spoke the mute language of signs4 along with a few monosyllabic words to express themselves (225-231). These words, as with the first word "Jove", were naturally created by humanity’s inherent faculty of onomatopoeia (447). Vico posits that in the Age of Gods humans spoke in a type of poetic song, since primitive people, like children, were natural poets (187). He claims that the concept of Jove or gods are born naturally in poetry (381). An example of this is the poetic fables of Aesop (even though Vico implies that Aesop marks the end of the Age of Heroes) (438), which describe their subjects symbolically with the use of animals and other worldly images (456, 499). In the Age of Heroes, Vico believes humans used emblems and spoke in heroic verse. An example of a heroic poet Vico uses to justify this claim is Homer. He claims Homer is, in fact, not one person or author, but rather a collection of folk stories -- a testament of ancient Greek theology and life (873-904). Vico justifies this by examining the language which is used in Homer’s writing which includes many different ancient dialects. In Homer’s tales, one finds clues concerning the evolution of customs and reason (or philosophy) in ancient Greece (901). For instance nowhere in Homer is there mention of written language. Since the alphabet had yet to be invented in the time of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey must have originated in oral form5 (66). Vico speculates that The Odyssey was written many years after The Iliad (880). The Odyssey makes mention of luxuries not found in The Iliad, such as more complicated methods of food preparation.
In the Age of Man, human’s spoke a vulgar tongue and wrote in prose (456). Throughout each of these ages, Vico states that as a culture's reason (philosophy) develops, its imagination wanes, and parallels a human's development from an imaginative child to a reasonable adult (185). Extrapolating from this, the false divinity, which relies on imagination, is disempowered by reason, as are the great fathers who had first kept language secret (439), such as in the form of secret hieroglyphics, to maintain their power and authority (435, 953). Philosophy is a necessary tool since it is the development and culmination of human reason (Fl, 359). This faculty can be used to analyze human constructions such as theology and language, in order to trace humanity to its origins and thus prove that humans created society and the conditions in which they now exist (349). Humans can have certain knowledge of things he has created like society, religion and language (Social Sciences) (390). This is a remarkable claim for a Christian to make, since Christians believe true divine providence (God - who makes all things possible) is what makes humans what they are today. Christians also believe that language has its origin with Adam and everyone spoke Adam's language until man began to build the Tower of Babel. This occurred after the Great Flood and in this tale, God, not man, creates the different tongues. According to the scriptures, Vico's evolution of language never occurred. It seems Vico purposely omitted the story of the Tower of Babel in order to have language development fit his theories.
Philology is the philosophic study of theology or the examination of religion by reason (Fl). The rationale behind Vico's need of both philosophy and theology is: given that philosophy is the study of the development of reason and hence the highest evolution of reason and theology is the religious record of human development, then philology can only exist as a dialectic of philosophy and theology. It is a method of using the highest evolution of reason to analyze the record of human development. Using philology (with philosophy) Vico is able to reveal Homer's true identity, and the fact that, like all ancient poetry, Homer is a theological history (873-904).
In paragraph 446 of The New Science, Vico makes the curious claim that all three forms of language existed simultaneously in all three ages. What he maybe interpreted as meaning can be exemplified by the use of the idea of Jove. In the Age of Gods, when humans first spoke the word "Jove", a monosyllabic grunt, the lightning which was symbolic of Jove was Jove. Any emblem of a lightning bolt would have been considered Jove, the name itself spoken out loud represented Jove directly - it was Jove and there was no other way to describe him. In the Age of Heroes, lightning came to be known as symbolic of Jove. Lightning was not Jove but instantly representative of, or was a metaphor for Jove; Vico claims each metaphor is a mythology in itself (404). Zeus tossed the lightning, but was not the lightning in his entirety. When one spoke and used the word lightning it represented a reminder of Jove. When one saw lightning strike one was still silently reminded of Jove, the lightning which originates from Jove is conceptually part of Jove. Humans could now describe Jove using different vocabulary, however, the power of god is immanent in the name Jove, whose mute symbolization continues to exist. In the Age of Man, lightning by itself does not represent Jove, however, when the image of a man holding a lightning bolt is seen, one is instantly reminded of Jove. Although one knows the lightning as lightning, when it strikes, one still recognizes its power, which led to the original mystification of it. The humans of the Age of Man can use various linguistic techniques to describe Jove, and both the image and the name Jove (or Zeus) still conveys the emblematic and mute symbolisms of the previous ages, although not always with the same vigour. In each age all three types of languages exist, although during any given age, one type always dominates. During the Age of Gods, the mute language of symbols dominated, and vulgar humans spoke monosyllabic words and recognized emblems. During the Age of Heroes the language of emblems dominated, and there was a vulgar tongue which had become more prevalent, as well, mute symbolization still had meaning. Finally, during the Age of Man, vulgar language dominates while emblems and mute symbolism continue to carry some meaning, although their richness has waned. Today no one can recreate the power of metaphors the way Homer once did (897, 487).
All three types of languages are necessary constituents of humanity’s inherent universal language, and therefore cannot but exist simultaneously in humans at all times - humans cannot have any language that is not made up of all three types (454). Mute meaning, symbols or metaphors and the spoken word are intrinsically linked to each other: one cannot understand an emblem, if that emblem did not have a mute meaning (symbolism) as much as its idea or concept always coincides with a vocal expression (some not as refined as others). One can speculate that Vico needs to make this claim concerning a universal language, since most of the work in The New Science is justified by using etymological precepts, i.e., Vico deduces justice comes from Jove (the word justice is derived from the name Jove), and therefore law has its beginning with Jove (10, 398). This suggests that, like law, civilized language (based on the universal language) is a created concept originating with the first lightning strike. For one to be able to trace history by using etymological means, Vico must unify modern rational thought with a universal way of thinking shared with primitive man. Vico claims this task is very difficult, since many of the rich meanings of the previous ages have lost their potency - it is hard for us to grasp by reason what we have lost in imagination, although some semblance of the past meaning remains, for instance, the lion continued to be symbolic of natural strength although not in the same way as it did to primitive people. Using philosophy and theology, one can trace both language and religion to their origin to paint a clearer picture of the history of humanity. Also, without a universal language, that is, the same for all people at all times, Vico cannot suggest that all that humanity has created originated with a type of Jove. For all humans isolated in different parts of the world to arrive at the same conclusion about Jove (301), they would all have to have the same universal language and a common way of thinking. Without a universal language, as convoluted as it may become by the evolution of reason, and the particular human-made virgin languages which stem from this universal trait (human nature), Vico could not make the claims for the possible historical tracing of humanity that are essential for the successful justification of his theories in The New Science. One cannot trace the development of human language if the previous age's type of language is completely alien to the new age's way of thinking. As well, no certainty would ever be reached about any tracing, if the analyst's mind does not have any commonality or similarity with those who spoke the language being examined.6
There is absolutely no reason to use Judaeo-Christian precepts in order to embark on a project of tracing humanity’s beginnings; as has been stated before, Vico's theories would work better with the omission of certain aforementioned biblical doctrine (e.g., Tower of Babel). The New Science's "Recourse of Nations" is Vico's attempt to justify his theories scientifically by showing the cycle in which the original human ages reoccur (1046-1096). Christianity ends up playing a similar role to that of the religion of Jove (223). The Dark Ages are the recurrence of barbaric times (the reoccurrence of the Age of Giants), where complex language was almost completely lost and common people began to speak simple language. This simple language has universal qualities (1050-1051). To justify this claim, Vico uses historical proofs, such as the fact that during the Dark Ages, many priests are known to have been illiterate (485). The flood of barbarians acted as the cleansing agent, sweeping away the past (somewhat) and isolating different cultures (1051). The question as to how effective Vico's interpretation of this era was cannot be fully gauged, since Vico admits that the darkness of the second age of barbarians has obscured most knowledge of the occurrences that happened within its time span (146). During the Dark Ages, knowledge retreated to the mountains and hid away in monasteries waiting to be used when language began to re-evolve. The Age of Gods was the period in which Christian priests maintained language in monasteries that Vico calls lighthouses of knowledge (1056). Priests spoke in verse, and the language of mute symbols dominated. The cross was not only symbolic of Christ, but in fact was holy like Christ, and God, like Jove used to be, was considered the source of everything (490, 508). The Bible was read in Latin and by the end of the Dark Ages no one but a few priests and nobles spoke Latin (1051). What is curious about this notion is that, like the Egyptian priests' use of hieroglyphics, Christian priests and nobles used Latin as a secret language to maintain their power and position of authority. Since the common person of this age could not read Latin, this person was forced to rely solely on ecclesiastical interpretations of the Bible, thereby rendering this person subject to the authority of the church. Furthermore, Church leaders are called "fathers" as were the original fathers and the top patriarch of the Catholic Church was called the "Holy Father" taken from a name of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) (1056). In fact, the title Pope is a derivation of a Greek child's term of endearment for his father (pappas). As well, popes change their name to a more pious and holy name upon becoming pontiff, usually that of an apostle or previous pope, such as the Apostle Peter or Innocent I. In this way, Christian fathers named themselves in the manner of the first fathers, who took their names from gods or heroes (mortal gods or previous fathers). Vico claims the first fathers were shepherds of people, resembling the Christian custom of calling Jesus Christ a shepherd of people (1058). In the Age of Heroes the language of emblems became dominant again, and medieval humans began to use insignia on their shields once more (1049). In this age, great works, such as Dante's Divine Comedy, were written in heroic verse, in this case 100 cantos (485). Vico claims that one can analyze Dante in a manner similar to that of Homer, in order to discover some of the history of Dante's time (786). In the Age of Man, following the enlightenment, the vulgar tongue became the dominant type of language amongst the masses, and enlightened monarchs heralded equality amongst people (1066). During the enlightenment, philosophers and other people, using reason, disempower the Fathers (such as the priests), reducing the church's temporal power to that which exists in the modern era. By proving that the recourse of nations is similar to the original course of nations, Vico succeeds in showing the duplicability of his science, and thereby its scientific viability (1046). However, Vico also succeeds in reducing Christianity to a religion that influenced humanity’s development through different ages in a fashion similar to the original "church" of Jove.
To escape the problems posed by the biblical description of the origin of humanity, which is derived from the record of descent from Adam, Vico proposes that the Hebrews did not have an Age of Giants (172). However, at certain points in The New_Science, he alludes to the fact that the Hebrews evolved like the gentiles. If the latter is true, it would prove that Vico did not completely ascribe to the biblical rendition of human development. Vico claims that in the Books of Genesis and Deuteronomy (371), one discovers references to the Hebrew Age of Giants. Furthermore, Vico describes how all nations began with the theology of sky cults (391, 473) then in an almost: sarcastic tone, he claims that the Hebrews, who believed in the "True" divinity, claimed God exists above the sky (481). One cannot help noticing that the sky was mentioned in this Hebrew description of the location of God. Many Christians believe heaven is above them and hell is below them. Vico claims that this is one of the reasons why some Christians become confused and think God and heaven are in the sky (482). What makes this passage even more interesting is that following this, he claims that all religions began as sky cults of Jove (482). Does this not suggest that the Jewish religion also began as a sky cult? Vico’s Claims suggest that the Jewish faith also began in a similar fashion to that of the Gentiles. Vico claims the Book of Job predates the Five Books of Moses, this is proven by its symbolic language which is similar to the language and style used by Aesop (465). Therefore, the Book of Job was, like Aesop was to the Greeks, a product of the Hebrew Age of Gods. Since it had been the practice of some Fathers to take the name of Jove, Job may have come from the name of Jove. In Hebrew Job is pronounced Eove (Yov) and one of the oldest sacred names of God is pronounced Eovae (Yove), which bears a striking resemblance to Jove or Eos, and this may be one of the reasons Vico uses this name more often than Zeus or Dios. According to the Bible, Job was one of the humans to walk with God. To walk with God is to anthropomorphize God and give Him legs, this seems to parallel the early gentile religions' anthropomorphizing of Jove (377). Moses saw God but never saw God's face, meaning God had no human attributes, save the faculty of communication. However, the God of Moses, similar to the depiction of Jove, the Bolt-thrower in the Age of Heroes, showed himself in physical ways, such as the burning bush, and later, after the Exodus, as a pillar of fire. The God of Moses had yet to develop into a god who was all mind, which is the highest evolutionary form God can take (1110-1111).
Vico believes that the early peoples placed their gods as high up into the sky as they could, which was at first the treetops, and then on the mountain tops (64, 473-480). Homer wrote that the ancient Greek gods lived on Mt. Olympus. Moses wrote that he climbed Mt. Sinai and met God, who gave him the Ten Commandments. In both cases, god(s) could be found on mountains. In fact Moses is considered to be one of the first fathers of the Hebrews, and parallels Vico's supposition regarding the original Fathers among early gentiles. In fact, Vico claims that Adam was one of the first diviners on earth and if this is so, Vico seems to suggest: that Adam is an equivalent to the other first Fathers of the gentile nations (381). The Hebrews, like the gentiles, evolved from first Fathers. In the same passage Vico exposes Homer, he equates Moses to Homer and seems to imply by this, that the same analysis made for Homer can be made for Moses (794). If this is so, it can be deduced that Moses is also a collection of an early human culture's thought and history - that of the Hebrews. It is well known that the Five Books of Moses have more than one author. As well, the Pentateuch, like the Homeric works, is written in heroic verse and spans more than a thousand years. One can deduce that the five Books of Moses were written in the Hebrew equivalent of the Age of Heroes. This is substantiated by the fact that the Pentateuch is written in heroic poetic verse. The Ten Commandments, which were given to or written by Moses, are claimed by Hebrews to be so sacred that only the rabbis could read the originals contained within the Ark. Since Moses had been one of the few Hebrews to be educated by the Egyptians, it is not surprising he could read and write when most Hebrews could not. The Jewish priests used scripture (originally based on Egyptian hieroglyphics) as a secret language to maintain their power and position. The scribes and the pharisees were a special class of ecclesiastic Hebrews who restricted the common person’s access to language and laws for their own benefit. Throughout The New Science, Vico praises the Romans' Law of Twelve Tables as a rich source for his work, and claims that the Romans held them to be sacred and legendary (29, 256). Vico has no doubt that the Twelve Tables were devised by humans. One can draw a parallel between the Twelve Tables and the Ten Commandments: the sacred codified laws of the Hebrews. Vico seems to imply that the Ten Commandments are similar to the Law of Twelve Tables, and therefore man-made (585-586). At various points in The New Science Vico mentions the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in prose, and from his example one can conclude that Josephus wrote during the Hebrew Age of Man (54, 438). Actually, Vico seems to imply that Josephus marks the transition between the Hebrew Age of Heroes and Age of Men. Jesus Christ preached of the equality of people and the New Testament, being an amalgamation of Hebrew and Greek thought, can be seen as another mythology of cultural history coinciding with the Hebrew Age of Man. Although Vico might claim that the New Testament is not as good as the Old Testament as it contains more than one people's historic thought (205, 330-331), the New Testament is better in the fact that within it, the realization is made that God is all-mind, compelling humanity to be virtuous rather than forcing them to be so (1111). If the Hebrews developed like the gentiles, the Bible cannot be considered anything more than another testament of mythological theology. It follows that Christianity, which originates from Judaism (a cult of Jove), must also be connected to Jove -- even if the tracing of this fact has become convoluted by time and the evolution of reason. If the cult of Jove is a false religion created by people, then logically, subsequent religions originating from Jove must also be considered a creation of humanity.
After a read of Vico's New Science it seems that he is either an atheist or a believer who did not wholly agree with biblical and Church history. The latter maybe the case since Deists had a radical interpretation of the Bible and, like Vico, they had a strong belief in providence, the passive God who helps people by using nature. However, a close analysis of Vico's own claims seem to suggest otherwise: Vico may in fact have been an atheist. In the conclusion of The New Science, Vico declares that Christianity is the True religion, the most highly evolved, as it believes in the True God who is "all mind". This God compels people by reason to act virtuously, unlike earlier religions that forced people to do so. Curiously, in a previous section, Vico claims that only humans can describe themselves as "all mind", as well as being the only one that can conceive the idea of "all mind". If humans are the only ones able to describe and ascribe the idea of "all mind" to something, then by derivation, this God of "all mind" is created by humans, rather than humanity’s being a creation of God. Vico claims that what comes from the mind is properly human (1098). Humans ascribe to the unknown what is familiar to them, and since nothing is more familiar than themselves, humanity in their ignorance, create gods (122, 181, 184, 189). If this is so, than what is the elusive concept of divine providence in Vico's Science? It could be surmised that when humans realized that they needed someone beyond themselves to govern and blame for their natural misfortunes, in addition to giving their lives a sense of purpose, they embraced a false divinity which allows for the realization of the true divinity, that being the universal nature of humanity, creating a driving force that propels and guides them forward through history (382, 385). True divine providence seems to be an amalgamation of forces that causes all human progress throughout history, and each culture is a piece of the larger puzzle which constitutes humanity in its entirety (human nature, past and present).7 These forces are inherent to humanity and do not need religious justification; a scientific one is sufficient. Vico posits that humans naturally make themselves the rule of the universe and measures all things against or according to themselves (181). Also, Vico postulated that gods were invented by humans so that they could attempt to understand their surroundings using their reason. This is the reason Vico suggests divination, the foundation of human civilization, began being practiced by the first fathers (9). Reading the auspices is a theological attempt, a type of human reasoning, to understand natural phenomena.
Vico supposes that the last level of development for the institutions of reason and knowledge is academia, in which atheism is prevalent (1106). Insofar as Vico claims no culture grew out of atheism, he seems to imply atheism is a natural result of reason overwhelming the imagination (185, 890). For Vico, theology is necessary because it is the spark that begins human civilization. When mankind grows up enough to reason past its childish imagination, it cannot help but become atheistic. Academics, who are known to be quite reasonable, seem to be especially prone to atheism (239, 242). Vico is a social scientist (philosopher), which makes him an academic. Thus, since Vico is an academic, he must have been prone to Atheism. With all that has been brought to light above by analyzing Vico's work using his own methodology, one cannot help wonder if Vico the academic did not also become Vico the atheist. Vico does seem to suggest his imagination has been greatly diminished by his developed reason - he is no longer an imaginative child. Vico posits that a person who has philosophy does not require religion, in other words, the philosopher's virtue is based on reason and not on the fear of punishment from a false god (1101). At points it seems that Vico believes that atheism has a deleterious effect on philosophy, since it fails to take into account the importance of theology for understanding the human condition (138-140). This type of atheism leads to humanity’s return to an age of barbarism (1085, 1106). Vico's remedy for this problem is philology because one can be an atheist and a philologist at the same time, while not ignoring the importance and authority of theology (140, 390). In this way, modern humans can avoid another barbaric age. It might be suggested that Vico intended for such conclusions to be drawn from his work, after all he was, as much as anyone, conscious of his Science's ability to expose the true nature and intentions of written material – which includes the The New Science.
In conclusion, Vico’s almost incidental mention of Jesus Christ could lead one to question Vico's Christian devotion in The New Science. In fact, as has been shown above, Christianity seems to be a continuation of the early religions that humanity created which record human history. The two mentions Vico makes of Christ seem to substantiate this claim. Vico postulates that during an Age of Barbarism when the imagination is robust and enlarged, images of gods and heroes appear larger than those the common person. Vico equates the images of the Eternal Father and that of Mary. During the Dark Ages, these were painted exceedingly large, similar to Greek and Latin depictions of gods and heroes (816). As well, Vico equates Jesus Christ with the great Fathers of Hebrew and the gentile first Fathers. Jesus is a reader of auspices, who brings divine messages from God (948). Jesus, like the gentile first Fathers, is another shepherd of humanity. Overall, Jesus Christ and Christianity are both treated as extensions, or as a higher development of human theology. All theologies can be used to uncover clues related to humanity’s origins and common nature, and therefore the New Testament can also be used as a source or record of human knowledge. Christianity existed before the Dark Ages but did not save humans from becoming barbarians again (816). Vico does not seem to follow Judaeo-Christian tradition, but appears to contradict many of its essential doctrines in his attempts to realize his project. The only way one can use religion of any kind to trace human history and be certain of one’s conclusions is, in Vico's own words, if humans created it. If humans did not create religion, one could never be certain of the conclusions one draws from it. Clearly, this idea of religion is an Atheistic view, not a religious person’s ideal. Vico claims no state begins or develops from atheism, although the disillusionment of academia (a product of increased reason) causes atheism to be endemic amongst academics. In many ways it seems Vico, an academic, might have been an atheist, although he would claim he was a constructive atheist as his use of philology does not ignore the importance of religion and hence does not cause a reoccurrence of barbarism. If it is true that all people, including the Hebrews, created the idea of God, utilizing the false divinity of Jove, there is no God, and since humans created God, humans can be certain God does not exist. The idea that God does not exist and is a human construct is also a tenet of Atheism. Reason and philosophy kill the concept of God, either until God is resurrected in the repeat of the recourse of nations, which is after all "divine providence's" natural course for human evolution, or until, if Vico's Science succeeds, God becomes no more than a tool for philosophic study. Therefore, I have shown that Vico was mostly like an Atheist who shrouded his ideas in religious veils which allowed him to present his ideas without seeming like an Atheist, and thus avoid the persecution of the Catholic Church. As well, his theories would have been rejected by more people as Vico wrote in a time of few academics and many religious people.
ENDNOTES
All scripture references are taken from the following translation of the Hebrew text:
The Jewish Publication Society. Tanakh: the Holy Scriptures. United States: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
1Vico, Giambattista. The New Science, Tran. T.G. Bergin and M.H. Fisch. Cornell University Press, Ithaca N.Y. 1984. Hereafter referred to in the essay by references in parentheses using section numbers. Sec. 385.
2 The above could be said to be an attempt by Vico to settle a philosophical question asked often in his time, that being what one can know with certainty. His postulations limit certainty to the empirical knowledge relating to the mechanics of human constructs. A biologist cannot explain how a tree grows the same way a mechanic can explain the workings of a car. Vico's theory of the certainty of knowledge is better described as expert "know-how".
3 However, if Vico had taken the time to research which cultures in particular had flood stories he would have realized that it was not a universal flood, but universal occurrence of flooding that was common.
4 Although Vico claims this language is mute, he is referring to the mute meaning of the monosyllabic words. "Jove" was the name of God and when uttered everyone in one's culture would understand the meaning of this word, although they lacked the vocabulary to describe their divinity.
5 Homer’s work was not written down until much later in Athens.
6 The only way to explain colour theory to someone is if that person already has a similar understanding or familiarity of what a colour is. Most humans inherently perceive colour in the same way. A colour-blind person can only have knowledge of the colour red, but never certainty.
7 Vico states that it is not Christianity, but Rome which experienced the highest form of divine providence.(1004-1112)
Many of the theories presented in Vico's, The New Science, pertains to what he calls a project to create a philological and reasonable theological understanding of humanity.1 The New Science may be considered an alternative to the traditional Christian doctrine regarding the origin and evolution of humanity. Although Vico appears to be a devout Christian, many of his suppositions and statements seem to indicate otherwise. Using some of his own ideas from the work in question, it can be shown that Vico is either an atheist or a Christian whose theories do not coincide with traditional Catholic teaching. Vico's ideas of the origin of society and the evolution of man do not need to adduce scripture to be postulated successfully, although the Bible can be used as a rich source of information to supplement his position. Christian doctrine, as it is disseminated by the Catholic Church, can be shown to hinder Vico's propositions, and this may have been the reason for Vico’s revisions of these doctrines to fit his theoretical framework. If Vico is an atheist, he may have shrouded his ideas using a veil of false religiosity to avoid persecution by the Catholic Church.
As the reader first begins his journey through the fabulous pages of The New Science, one gets the impression that Vico is a devout Christian whose beliefs appear to coincide with traditional doctrine. For example, he acknowledges that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth (51). He additionally notes that God gave Adam the power of onomatopoeia (spontaneous naming of animals by what they do) (430). However, this gift becomes theoretically problematic when superimposed on the larger framework of Vico's evolution of language. He believes that humans can only be certain about those things of which they are the creator, such as society (138-140). At best, humanity can possess knowledge about something, but unless they have created it, they are unable to possess certainty. Only God, for instance, can have certainty about trees, since he created them.2 Vico believes it is possible to trace human history to its origins by studying language, theology and philosophy (reason) to understand how humanity was, is, and may become (10, 163, 198, 321, 349, 359, 381, 390). The certainty that Vico relies on to make this type of historical tracing possible is derived from his supposition that language and theology have the same origin and the same creator - humans. Humans judge all things based on what is familiar to them, and since nothing is more familiar than themselves, this becomes the standard by which their universe is measured (122, 181). Therefore, religion (before reason evolves into science (1410)) is a human conception by which humans try to appraise nature.
If God had given Adam onomatopoeia, the words, theology, and language, would have been created and given to humans by God (165, 430, 437). Adam could not have been certain of the names he gave the animals, since it was God's gift, and not Adam’s natural ability, that made this possible. From the idea of onomatopoeia, Vico postulates that all languages stem from Adam, hence all languages must trace their origin to said gift. Adam's onomatopoeic ability was not natural or created by him, and therefore, any language or theology that would evolve from this origin can never be known to humans with certainty. It should be noted that according to the Pentateuch, onomatopoeia was given solely to Adam, and is not universal to the human species (Gen 2:19). Because of this, the origins of language would be alien to all subsequent generations. However, Vico contradicts this idea and ascribes onomatopoeia to human nature (447). According to Vico, therefore, all people are naturally born with this faculty. For Vico's science to work, it would be necessary for humans to have created their first words naturally. This universal language cannot be derived from one person (Adam), but must be considered to originate and exist independently in all people, even if these people are unknown to each other. If language completely originates from a gift that only Adam had, then there is no such thing as a universal language common to humanity, and therefore there could be no virgin languages beyond the original, by which Vico could draw parallels, in order to prove his theories (202-223).
Vico uses the great flood to wash away the world that God created, and establish the fertile Age of the Giants whence humanity fell to its first barbarism (223). Vico uses the Great Flood to establish an environment conducive to the growth of a universal language not based on Adam’s onomatopoeia, but rather on humanity’s common capacity for language, or what Vico would call humanity’s universal gift of onomatopoeia.
He uses the biblical tale pertaining to Noah and the flood, as well as floods from Greek and Roman mythology (171), to prove the existence of this great cleansing event (190, 198). Vico does not justify the historical existence of the flood simply by claiming that it must be true because it was written in the Bible. Rather, he posits that since many different cultures share this same idea or myth of a flood, the legend of the Great Flood must hold some truth3 (144, 172). Myths or theologies are considered by Vico to be a record or testament of a culture's history (198). It is not the Christian belief in the flood, but the Bible's record of this event used as historical proof, coupled with other mythologies, which is Vico's justification for the Great Flood (193-194, 223, 380). Vico could still have justified his theory without the use of the Bible by utilizing various mythologies such as Greek, Roman and Egyptian. Furthermore, to prove the existence of a flood, he claims that Noah's three children deserted him and became scattered around the world, each occupying an area coinciding to the divisions of: 1) Africa, 2) Europe and Near Asia, and 3) Far Asia. Each of these coincides with the three different races of humans: the Blacks, the Caucasians and the Orientals (369). It is interesting to note what Vico twists into the traditional interpretation of this story: that Noah’s children dispersed, wandered around the world, and slept with their sisters, mothers and daughters whenever they found them. Subsequent to each birth, mothers would abandon their children as soon as they could to rejoin their wanderings throughout the ancient forest. For generation after generation, people would grow up without hearing the voice of their mothers, and any civilization or language that may have existed prior to the flood disappeared (223). Hence, the flood washes away the human world God created. This is not the Judeao-Christian teaching concerning the flood. Noah's children did not lose their language, and new dialects were not created by isolated people; rather, the various languages were the punishment of God's wrath against humanity’s attempt to build the Tower of Babel - an artificial mountain built to reach God (see Gen 11:1-9). This concept of gods and mountains will be examined later in this paper. To accommodate his theory concerning humanity’s innate universal language, which isolated cultures would have in common, Vico needs the flood to serve as a natural barrier between those various cultures. However, if, as the Bible states, Noah and his children were the only people to survive the flood, and if Noah’s children wandered away from the same mountain on foot, there is no barrier save distance, which could serve as an isolating factor. The different peoples born of Noah's children would still be capable of encountering each other, and since Vico supposes that early man wandered about aimlessly, these encounters would be more frequent than if they settled on their own continents (13). This interpretation of the biblical rendition of Noah would seem to imply that there was no water barrier to isolate Noah's three sons from each other, and this does not coincide with what Vico believes. During the recourse of nations, or the repetition of the ages after Christ’s birth, Vico uses the analogy of the floods of barbarians as the catharsis of the classical or first course of nations or ages through which humanity passes (1050-1051).
To make Vico's science work in light of biblical teaching, there would have to be an interval between the time Noah and his children knew of the true God, and the time their offspring had completely forgotten Him. To explain the human condition after this loss of humanity’s divine language and knowledge, Vico borrows concepts from different mythologies, such as the Egyptian chronology of the ages of man: the Age of Giants, the Age of Gods, the Age of Heroes and the Age of Man (173). Vico calls these ages the recourses of nations. The reasoning Vico uses to justify the establishment of paganism does not coincide with biblical tradition. At points, Vico claims that, unlike the Gentiles, the Hebrews never experienced a barbaric Age of Giants (172). The question as to whether or not Vico really believes this, or in fact it is a straw-man created to avoid church persecution, can be settled by the eventual proof offered that Vico may be an atheist, and therefore is only masking his secular ideas behind what seems to be a derivation of Christian theology. Vico postulates that due to the excessive moisture that would have saturated the air immediately after the Great Flood, lightning could not occur (192). When the world dried up enough for the first lightning flash to cross the sky, the humans of the Age of Giants looked up for the first time, and became fearful of what sounded like the grumbling of an angry and visually powerful God. In fear they hid themselves in caves, away from the open sky and the false divinity that they would eventually call Jove. This occurred, at some point or another, universally to all humans (377). Vico believes that society, language and theology all began for every culture with a similar flash of lightning. These series of events, as they have been formulated by Vico, do not depend on Judaeo-Christian precepts. He claims that this false divinity was accepted by gentiles after they realized, being downtrodden by nature, that they needed some kind of providence beyond themselves for guidance (10, 188, 301, 382, 385). Inasmuch as the lightning misled humanity to believe in the divinity of Jove, it established the "true" premise that divine providence watched over them. This is a peculiar statement since it seems to claim that man was searching for a god (a divine father) to alleviate the anxiety of mere survival. These anxieties are not caused by other people, but are generated from within the individual as a result of difficulties encountered in nature (381). Early humans availed themselves of the opportunity to believe that the lightning was Jove. Initially it may not have been a conscious decision to embrace the idea of this divinity showing his power (122, 142); however, it was a chance to placate humanity’s everyday fears. The true God did not reveal himself to the early gentiles, instead a false one was concocted by the childlike fertile imaginations of early humans who were driven by fear to accept the false deity as a means of alleviating this fear. There is absolutely no reason why a similar scenario cannot be painted by omitting the flood altogether. In fact, this version would seem to be more plausible than the accommodations Vico makes in order to appear to coincide with Christian theology. Thus, when primitive humans evolved to the point of realizing the ability to attribute divinity to something (181), the lightning flash, because of its apparent power, could have been seen as divine. Before this moment, humanity would have seen lightning in the same manner as animals. In The New Science, Vico utilizes etymology and theology in an attempt to trace how man evolved from their primitive beginnings (237, 240, 301, 348, 1009). Society and humanity developed concurrently, both beginning with the concept of Jove (10). Vico suggests that modern humanity and society are entirely human constructs (198), and therefore people can have certain knowledge of humanity (348).
Vico believes that theology is a record of the human experience in the various ages of time (198). In the Age of Giants, humans would only grunt, e.g., when he was angry or frightened. This is why when thunder occurred, early humans thought it sounded like the grumblings of an angry god (228). "Jove" was the first intelligible word Vico claims would have been uttered by people of the Age of Gods (301) (the accustomed sound primitive man would have made upon seeing the lightning) (191). Like a child, whose imagination is robust, primitive humans would raise their voice in song to praise Jove (211, 228). According to Vico, the first fathers, who had dragged women into the caves they claimed as their property (122, 258, 301, 448), were the first to attempt to read or divine the auspices of the false divinity known as Jove (249-250). In other words, in the Age of Gods, the first fathers attempted, based on their human reason, to understand the divine providence that governed them -- in essence, they tried to understand themselves (181, 204, 218). These fathers became the first human or mortal gods on earth and many assumed the names of gods (449). Hence, human authority originated with the effects of the first lightning strike and this is recorded in the theological records of various societies (122, 390, 942). In the Age of Gods, people spoke the mute language of signs4 along with a few monosyllabic words to express themselves (225-231). These words, as with the first word "Jove", were naturally created by humanity’s inherent faculty of onomatopoeia (447). Vico posits that in the Age of Gods humans spoke in a type of poetic song, since primitive people, like children, were natural poets (187). He claims that the concept of Jove or gods are born naturally in poetry (381). An example of this is the poetic fables of Aesop (even though Vico implies that Aesop marks the end of the Age of Heroes) (438), which describe their subjects symbolically with the use of animals and other worldly images (456, 499). In the Age of Heroes, Vico believes humans used emblems and spoke in heroic verse. An example of a heroic poet Vico uses to justify this claim is Homer. He claims Homer is, in fact, not one person or author, but rather a collection of folk stories -- a testament of ancient Greek theology and life (873-904). Vico justifies this by examining the language which is used in Homer’s writing which includes many different ancient dialects. In Homer’s tales, one finds clues concerning the evolution of customs and reason (or philosophy) in ancient Greece (901). For instance nowhere in Homer is there mention of written language. Since the alphabet had yet to be invented in the time of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey must have originated in oral form5 (66). Vico speculates that The Odyssey was written many years after The Iliad (880). The Odyssey makes mention of luxuries not found in The Iliad, such as more complicated methods of food preparation.
In the Age of Man, human’s spoke a vulgar tongue and wrote in prose (456). Throughout each of these ages, Vico states that as a culture's reason (philosophy) develops, its imagination wanes, and parallels a human's development from an imaginative child to a reasonable adult (185). Extrapolating from this, the false divinity, which relies on imagination, is disempowered by reason, as are the great fathers who had first kept language secret (439), such as in the form of secret hieroglyphics, to maintain their power and authority (435, 953). Philosophy is a necessary tool since it is the development and culmination of human reason (Fl, 359). This faculty can be used to analyze human constructions such as theology and language, in order to trace humanity to its origins and thus prove that humans created society and the conditions in which they now exist (349). Humans can have certain knowledge of things he has created like society, religion and language (Social Sciences) (390). This is a remarkable claim for a Christian to make, since Christians believe true divine providence (God - who makes all things possible) is what makes humans what they are today. Christians also believe that language has its origin with Adam and everyone spoke Adam's language until man began to build the Tower of Babel. This occurred after the Great Flood and in this tale, God, not man, creates the different tongues. According to the scriptures, Vico's evolution of language never occurred. It seems Vico purposely omitted the story of the Tower of Babel in order to have language development fit his theories.
Philology is the philosophic study of theology or the examination of religion by reason (Fl). The rationale behind Vico's need of both philosophy and theology is: given that philosophy is the study of the development of reason and hence the highest evolution of reason and theology is the religious record of human development, then philology can only exist as a dialectic of philosophy and theology. It is a method of using the highest evolution of reason to analyze the record of human development. Using philology (with philosophy) Vico is able to reveal Homer's true identity, and the fact that, like all ancient poetry, Homer is a theological history (873-904).
In paragraph 446 of The New Science, Vico makes the curious claim that all three forms of language existed simultaneously in all three ages. What he maybe interpreted as meaning can be exemplified by the use of the idea of Jove. In the Age of Gods, when humans first spoke the word "Jove", a monosyllabic grunt, the lightning which was symbolic of Jove was Jove. Any emblem of a lightning bolt would have been considered Jove, the name itself spoken out loud represented Jove directly - it was Jove and there was no other way to describe him. In the Age of Heroes, lightning came to be known as symbolic of Jove. Lightning was not Jove but instantly representative of, or was a metaphor for Jove; Vico claims each metaphor is a mythology in itself (404). Zeus tossed the lightning, but was not the lightning in his entirety. When one spoke and used the word lightning it represented a reminder of Jove. When one saw lightning strike one was still silently reminded of Jove, the lightning which originates from Jove is conceptually part of Jove. Humans could now describe Jove using different vocabulary, however, the power of god is immanent in the name Jove, whose mute symbolization continues to exist. In the Age of Man, lightning by itself does not represent Jove, however, when the image of a man holding a lightning bolt is seen, one is instantly reminded of Jove. Although one knows the lightning as lightning, when it strikes, one still recognizes its power, which led to the original mystification of it. The humans of the Age of Man can use various linguistic techniques to describe Jove, and both the image and the name Jove (or Zeus) still conveys the emblematic and mute symbolisms of the previous ages, although not always with the same vigour. In each age all three types of languages exist, although during any given age, one type always dominates. During the Age of Gods, the mute language of symbols dominated, and vulgar humans spoke monosyllabic words and recognized emblems. During the Age of Heroes the language of emblems dominated, and there was a vulgar tongue which had become more prevalent, as well, mute symbolization still had meaning. Finally, during the Age of Man, vulgar language dominates while emblems and mute symbolism continue to carry some meaning, although their richness has waned. Today no one can recreate the power of metaphors the way Homer once did (897, 487).
All three types of languages are necessary constituents of humanity’s inherent universal language, and therefore cannot but exist simultaneously in humans at all times - humans cannot have any language that is not made up of all three types (454). Mute meaning, symbols or metaphors and the spoken word are intrinsically linked to each other: one cannot understand an emblem, if that emblem did not have a mute meaning (symbolism) as much as its idea or concept always coincides with a vocal expression (some not as refined as others). One can speculate that Vico needs to make this claim concerning a universal language, since most of the work in The New Science is justified by using etymological precepts, i.e., Vico deduces justice comes from Jove (the word justice is derived from the name Jove), and therefore law has its beginning with Jove (10, 398). This suggests that, like law, civilized language (based on the universal language) is a created concept originating with the first lightning strike. For one to be able to trace history by using etymological means, Vico must unify modern rational thought with a universal way of thinking shared with primitive man. Vico claims this task is very difficult, since many of the rich meanings of the previous ages have lost their potency - it is hard for us to grasp by reason what we have lost in imagination, although some semblance of the past meaning remains, for instance, the lion continued to be symbolic of natural strength although not in the same way as it did to primitive people. Using philosophy and theology, one can trace both language and religion to their origin to paint a clearer picture of the history of humanity. Also, without a universal language, that is, the same for all people at all times, Vico cannot suggest that all that humanity has created originated with a type of Jove. For all humans isolated in different parts of the world to arrive at the same conclusion about Jove (301), they would all have to have the same universal language and a common way of thinking. Without a universal language, as convoluted as it may become by the evolution of reason, and the particular human-made virgin languages which stem from this universal trait (human nature), Vico could not make the claims for the possible historical tracing of humanity that are essential for the successful justification of his theories in The New Science. One cannot trace the development of human language if the previous age's type of language is completely alien to the new age's way of thinking. As well, no certainty would ever be reached about any tracing, if the analyst's mind does not have any commonality or similarity with those who spoke the language being examined.6
There is absolutely no reason to use Judaeo-Christian precepts in order to embark on a project of tracing humanity’s beginnings; as has been stated before, Vico's theories would work better with the omission of certain aforementioned biblical doctrine (e.g., Tower of Babel). The New Science's "Recourse of Nations" is Vico's attempt to justify his theories scientifically by showing the cycle in which the original human ages reoccur (1046-1096). Christianity ends up playing a similar role to that of the religion of Jove (223). The Dark Ages are the recurrence of barbaric times (the reoccurrence of the Age of Giants), where complex language was almost completely lost and common people began to speak simple language. This simple language has universal qualities (1050-1051). To justify this claim, Vico uses historical proofs, such as the fact that during the Dark Ages, many priests are known to have been illiterate (485). The flood of barbarians acted as the cleansing agent, sweeping away the past (somewhat) and isolating different cultures (1051). The question as to how effective Vico's interpretation of this era was cannot be fully gauged, since Vico admits that the darkness of the second age of barbarians has obscured most knowledge of the occurrences that happened within its time span (146). During the Dark Ages, knowledge retreated to the mountains and hid away in monasteries waiting to be used when language began to re-evolve. The Age of Gods was the period in which Christian priests maintained language in monasteries that Vico calls lighthouses of knowledge (1056). Priests spoke in verse, and the language of mute symbols dominated. The cross was not only symbolic of Christ, but in fact was holy like Christ, and God, like Jove used to be, was considered the source of everything (490, 508). The Bible was read in Latin and by the end of the Dark Ages no one but a few priests and nobles spoke Latin (1051). What is curious about this notion is that, like the Egyptian priests' use of hieroglyphics, Christian priests and nobles used Latin as a secret language to maintain their power and position of authority. Since the common person of this age could not read Latin, this person was forced to rely solely on ecclesiastical interpretations of the Bible, thereby rendering this person subject to the authority of the church. Furthermore, Church leaders are called "fathers" as were the original fathers and the top patriarch of the Catholic Church was called the "Holy Father" taken from a name of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) (1056). In fact, the title Pope is a derivation of a Greek child's term of endearment for his father (pappas). As well, popes change their name to a more pious and holy name upon becoming pontiff, usually that of an apostle or previous pope, such as the Apostle Peter or Innocent I. In this way, Christian fathers named themselves in the manner of the first fathers, who took their names from gods or heroes (mortal gods or previous fathers). Vico claims the first fathers were shepherds of people, resembling the Christian custom of calling Jesus Christ a shepherd of people (1058). In the Age of Heroes the language of emblems became dominant again, and medieval humans began to use insignia on their shields once more (1049). In this age, great works, such as Dante's Divine Comedy, were written in heroic verse, in this case 100 cantos (485). Vico claims that one can analyze Dante in a manner similar to that of Homer, in order to discover some of the history of Dante's time (786). In the Age of Man, following the enlightenment, the vulgar tongue became the dominant type of language amongst the masses, and enlightened monarchs heralded equality amongst people (1066). During the enlightenment, philosophers and other people, using reason, disempower the Fathers (such as the priests), reducing the church's temporal power to that which exists in the modern era. By proving that the recourse of nations is similar to the original course of nations, Vico succeeds in showing the duplicability of his science, and thereby its scientific viability (1046). However, Vico also succeeds in reducing Christianity to a religion that influenced humanity’s development through different ages in a fashion similar to the original "church" of Jove.
To escape the problems posed by the biblical description of the origin of humanity, which is derived from the record of descent from Adam, Vico proposes that the Hebrews did not have an Age of Giants (172). However, at certain points in The New_Science, he alludes to the fact that the Hebrews evolved like the gentiles. If the latter is true, it would prove that Vico did not completely ascribe to the biblical rendition of human development. Vico claims that in the Books of Genesis and Deuteronomy (371), one discovers references to the Hebrew Age of Giants. Furthermore, Vico describes how all nations began with the theology of sky cults (391, 473) then in an almost: sarcastic tone, he claims that the Hebrews, who believed in the "True" divinity, claimed God exists above the sky (481). One cannot help noticing that the sky was mentioned in this Hebrew description of the location of God. Many Christians believe heaven is above them and hell is below them. Vico claims that this is one of the reasons why some Christians become confused and think God and heaven are in the sky (482). What makes this passage even more interesting is that following this, he claims that all religions began as sky cults of Jove (482). Does this not suggest that the Jewish religion also began as a sky cult? Vico’s Claims suggest that the Jewish faith also began in a similar fashion to that of the Gentiles. Vico claims the Book of Job predates the Five Books of Moses, this is proven by its symbolic language which is similar to the language and style used by Aesop (465). Therefore, the Book of Job was, like Aesop was to the Greeks, a product of the Hebrew Age of Gods. Since it had been the practice of some Fathers to take the name of Jove, Job may have come from the name of Jove. In Hebrew Job is pronounced Eove (Yov) and one of the oldest sacred names of God is pronounced Eovae (Yove), which bears a striking resemblance to Jove or Eos, and this may be one of the reasons Vico uses this name more often than Zeus or Dios. According to the Bible, Job was one of the humans to walk with God. To walk with God is to anthropomorphize God and give Him legs, this seems to parallel the early gentile religions' anthropomorphizing of Jove (377). Moses saw God but never saw God's face, meaning God had no human attributes, save the faculty of communication. However, the God of Moses, similar to the depiction of Jove, the Bolt-thrower in the Age of Heroes, showed himself in physical ways, such as the burning bush, and later, after the Exodus, as a pillar of fire. The God of Moses had yet to develop into a god who was all mind, which is the highest evolutionary form God can take (1110-1111).
Vico believes that the early peoples placed their gods as high up into the sky as they could, which was at first the treetops, and then on the mountain tops (64, 473-480). Homer wrote that the ancient Greek gods lived on Mt. Olympus. Moses wrote that he climbed Mt. Sinai and met God, who gave him the Ten Commandments. In both cases, god(s) could be found on mountains. In fact Moses is considered to be one of the first fathers of the Hebrews, and parallels Vico's supposition regarding the original Fathers among early gentiles. In fact, Vico claims that Adam was one of the first diviners on earth and if this is so, Vico seems to suggest: that Adam is an equivalent to the other first Fathers of the gentile nations (381). The Hebrews, like the gentiles, evolved from first Fathers. In the same passage Vico exposes Homer, he equates Moses to Homer and seems to imply by this, that the same analysis made for Homer can be made for Moses (794). If this is so, it can be deduced that Moses is also a collection of an early human culture's thought and history - that of the Hebrews. It is well known that the Five Books of Moses have more than one author. As well, the Pentateuch, like the Homeric works, is written in heroic verse and spans more than a thousand years. One can deduce that the five Books of Moses were written in the Hebrew equivalent of the Age of Heroes. This is substantiated by the fact that the Pentateuch is written in heroic poetic verse. The Ten Commandments, which were given to or written by Moses, are claimed by Hebrews to be so sacred that only the rabbis could read the originals contained within the Ark. Since Moses had been one of the few Hebrews to be educated by the Egyptians, it is not surprising he could read and write when most Hebrews could not. The Jewish priests used scripture (originally based on Egyptian hieroglyphics) as a secret language to maintain their power and position. The scribes and the pharisees were a special class of ecclesiastic Hebrews who restricted the common person’s access to language and laws for their own benefit. Throughout The New Science, Vico praises the Romans' Law of Twelve Tables as a rich source for his work, and claims that the Romans held them to be sacred and legendary (29, 256). Vico has no doubt that the Twelve Tables were devised by humans. One can draw a parallel between the Twelve Tables and the Ten Commandments: the sacred codified laws of the Hebrews. Vico seems to imply that the Ten Commandments are similar to the Law of Twelve Tables, and therefore man-made (585-586). At various points in The New Science Vico mentions the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in prose, and from his example one can conclude that Josephus wrote during the Hebrew Age of Man (54, 438). Actually, Vico seems to imply that Josephus marks the transition between the Hebrew Age of Heroes and Age of Men. Jesus Christ preached of the equality of people and the New Testament, being an amalgamation of Hebrew and Greek thought, can be seen as another mythology of cultural history coinciding with the Hebrew Age of Man. Although Vico might claim that the New Testament is not as good as the Old Testament as it contains more than one people's historic thought (205, 330-331), the New Testament is better in the fact that within it, the realization is made that God is all-mind, compelling humanity to be virtuous rather than forcing them to be so (1111). If the Hebrews developed like the gentiles, the Bible cannot be considered anything more than another testament of mythological theology. It follows that Christianity, which originates from Judaism (a cult of Jove), must also be connected to Jove -- even if the tracing of this fact has become convoluted by time and the evolution of reason. If the cult of Jove is a false religion created by people, then logically, subsequent religions originating from Jove must also be considered a creation of humanity.
After a read of Vico's New Science it seems that he is either an atheist or a believer who did not wholly agree with biblical and Church history. The latter maybe the case since Deists had a radical interpretation of the Bible and, like Vico, they had a strong belief in providence, the passive God who helps people by using nature. However, a close analysis of Vico's own claims seem to suggest otherwise: Vico may in fact have been an atheist. In the conclusion of The New Science, Vico declares that Christianity is the True religion, the most highly evolved, as it believes in the True God who is "all mind". This God compels people by reason to act virtuously, unlike earlier religions that forced people to do so. Curiously, in a previous section, Vico claims that only humans can describe themselves as "all mind", as well as being the only one that can conceive the idea of "all mind". If humans are the only ones able to describe and ascribe the idea of "all mind" to something, then by derivation, this God of "all mind" is created by humans, rather than humanity’s being a creation of God. Vico claims that what comes from the mind is properly human (1098). Humans ascribe to the unknown what is familiar to them, and since nothing is more familiar than themselves, humanity in their ignorance, create gods (122, 181, 184, 189). If this is so, than what is the elusive concept of divine providence in Vico's Science? It could be surmised that when humans realized that they needed someone beyond themselves to govern and blame for their natural misfortunes, in addition to giving their lives a sense of purpose, they embraced a false divinity which allows for the realization of the true divinity, that being the universal nature of humanity, creating a driving force that propels and guides them forward through history (382, 385). True divine providence seems to be an amalgamation of forces that causes all human progress throughout history, and each culture is a piece of the larger puzzle which constitutes humanity in its entirety (human nature, past and present).7 These forces are inherent to humanity and do not need religious justification; a scientific one is sufficient. Vico posits that humans naturally make themselves the rule of the universe and measures all things against or according to themselves (181). Also, Vico postulated that gods were invented by humans so that they could attempt to understand their surroundings using their reason. This is the reason Vico suggests divination, the foundation of human civilization, began being practiced by the first fathers (9). Reading the auspices is a theological attempt, a type of human reasoning, to understand natural phenomena.
Vico supposes that the last level of development for the institutions of reason and knowledge is academia, in which atheism is prevalent (1106). Insofar as Vico claims no culture grew out of atheism, he seems to imply atheism is a natural result of reason overwhelming the imagination (185, 890). For Vico, theology is necessary because it is the spark that begins human civilization. When mankind grows up enough to reason past its childish imagination, it cannot help but become atheistic. Academics, who are known to be quite reasonable, seem to be especially prone to atheism (239, 242). Vico is a social scientist (philosopher), which makes him an academic. Thus, since Vico is an academic, he must have been prone to Atheism. With all that has been brought to light above by analyzing Vico's work using his own methodology, one cannot help wonder if Vico the academic did not also become Vico the atheist. Vico does seem to suggest his imagination has been greatly diminished by his developed reason - he is no longer an imaginative child. Vico posits that a person who has philosophy does not require religion, in other words, the philosopher's virtue is based on reason and not on the fear of punishment from a false god (1101). At points it seems that Vico believes that atheism has a deleterious effect on philosophy, since it fails to take into account the importance of theology for understanding the human condition (138-140). This type of atheism leads to humanity’s return to an age of barbarism (1085, 1106). Vico's remedy for this problem is philology because one can be an atheist and a philologist at the same time, while not ignoring the importance and authority of theology (140, 390). In this way, modern humans can avoid another barbaric age. It might be suggested that Vico intended for such conclusions to be drawn from his work, after all he was, as much as anyone, conscious of his Science's ability to expose the true nature and intentions of written material – which includes the The New Science.
In conclusion, Vico’s almost incidental mention of Jesus Christ could lead one to question Vico's Christian devotion in The New Science. In fact, as has been shown above, Christianity seems to be a continuation of the early religions that humanity created which record human history. The two mentions Vico makes of Christ seem to substantiate this claim. Vico postulates that during an Age of Barbarism when the imagination is robust and enlarged, images of gods and heroes appear larger than those the common person. Vico equates the images of the Eternal Father and that of Mary. During the Dark Ages, these were painted exceedingly large, similar to Greek and Latin depictions of gods and heroes (816). As well, Vico equates Jesus Christ with the great Fathers of Hebrew and the gentile first Fathers. Jesus is a reader of auspices, who brings divine messages from God (948). Jesus, like the gentile first Fathers, is another shepherd of humanity. Overall, Jesus Christ and Christianity are both treated as extensions, or as a higher development of human theology. All theologies can be used to uncover clues related to humanity’s origins and common nature, and therefore the New Testament can also be used as a source or record of human knowledge. Christianity existed before the Dark Ages but did not save humans from becoming barbarians again (816). Vico does not seem to follow Judaeo-Christian tradition, but appears to contradict many of its essential doctrines in his attempts to realize his project. The only way one can use religion of any kind to trace human history and be certain of one’s conclusions is, in Vico's own words, if humans created it. If humans did not create religion, one could never be certain of the conclusions one draws from it. Clearly, this idea of religion is an Atheistic view, not a religious person’s ideal. Vico claims no state begins or develops from atheism, although the disillusionment of academia (a product of increased reason) causes atheism to be endemic amongst academics. In many ways it seems Vico, an academic, might have been an atheist, although he would claim he was a constructive atheist as his use of philology does not ignore the importance of religion and hence does not cause a reoccurrence of barbarism. If it is true that all people, including the Hebrews, created the idea of God, utilizing the false divinity of Jove, there is no God, and since humans created God, humans can be certain God does not exist. The idea that God does not exist and is a human construct is also a tenet of Atheism. Reason and philosophy kill the concept of God, either until God is resurrected in the repeat of the recourse of nations, which is after all "divine providence's" natural course for human evolution, or until, if Vico's Science succeeds, God becomes no more than a tool for philosophic study. Therefore, I have shown that Vico was mostly like an Atheist who shrouded his ideas in religious veils which allowed him to present his ideas without seeming like an Atheist, and thus avoid the persecution of the Catholic Church. As well, his theories would have been rejected by more people as Vico wrote in a time of few academics and many religious people.
ENDNOTES
All scripture references are taken from the following translation of the Hebrew text:
The Jewish Publication Society. Tanakh: the Holy Scriptures. United States: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
1Vico, Giambattista. The New Science, Tran. T.G. Bergin and M.H. Fisch. Cornell University Press, Ithaca N.Y. 1984. Hereafter referred to in the essay by references in parentheses using section numbers. Sec. 385.
2 The above could be said to be an attempt by Vico to settle a philosophical question asked often in his time, that being what one can know with certainty. His postulations limit certainty to the empirical knowledge relating to the mechanics of human constructs. A biologist cannot explain how a tree grows the same way a mechanic can explain the workings of a car. Vico's theory of the certainty of knowledge is better described as expert "know-how".
3 However, if Vico had taken the time to research which cultures in particular had flood stories he would have realized that it was not a universal flood, but universal occurrence of flooding that was common.
4 Although Vico claims this language is mute, he is referring to the mute meaning of the monosyllabic words. "Jove" was the name of God and when uttered everyone in one's culture would understand the meaning of this word, although they lacked the vocabulary to describe their divinity.
5 Homer’s work was not written down until much later in Athens.
6 The only way to explain colour theory to someone is if that person already has a similar understanding or familiarity of what a colour is. Most humans inherently perceive colour in the same way. A colour-blind person can only have knowledge of the colour red, but never certainty.
7 Vico states that it is not Christianity, but Rome which experienced the highest form of divine providence.(1004-1112)
posted by val at 6:48 PM
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