Werner Jaeger reconsidered: proceedings of the second Oldfather Conference, held on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 26-28, 1990 9781555407292, 1555407293

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Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Illinois

Classical

Studies

Supplement

3

Editors

WILLIAM M. CALDER III (Reception)

HOWARD JACOBSON (Latin) JOHN VAIO (Greek)

Camera-Ready Copy Produced by Michael Armstrong

and Daniel J. Kramer

Illinois Studies in the History of Classical Scholarship Volume

2

Editor WILLIAM M. CALDER III

WERNER JAEGER RECONSIDERED PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND OLDFATHER CONFERENCE, HELD ON THE CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, APRIL 26-28, 1990

edited by William

M.

Calder

Scholars Press Atlanta, Georgia

III

©1992 The Board of Trustees

University of Illinois

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form, including electronically, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For classroom or reserve-

library use on a non-profit basis, ten percent (10%) or less of the text, or a single article or chapter, whichever is less, may be duplicated up to thirty times without charge or permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Oldfather Conference

(2nd : 1990 : University of Illinois at Urbana

Champaign) Werner Jaeger reconsidered: proceedings of the Second Oldfather

Conference, held on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, April 26-28, 1990 / edited by William M. Calder III. p. cm. — (Illinois classical studies. Supplement ; 3) (Illinois studies in the history of classical scholarship ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-55540-729-3 (pbk. ) 1. Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm, 1888-1961—Congresses. 2. Classical philology—Study and teaching—History—20th Century—Congresses. 3. Civilization, Classical—Study and teaching—History—20th century—Congresses. 4. Classicists—United States—Biography— Congresses. 5. Classicists—-Germany—Biography—Congresses. I. Calder, William M. (William Musgrave), 1932. II. Title. IN. Series. IV. Series: Illinois studies in the history of classical scholarship ; v. 3.

PA85.J23504 480'.92—dc20

92-15977 CIP Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

For Philipp and Raina Fehl

Preface Werner Jaeger (1888-1961) held the chairs of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and Paul Shorey. A University Professorship, above all departments and requiring small teaching and no

administrative obligations, was created for him at Harvard University.

He

enjoyed the finest education available in the history of classical studies. He founded two journals and what Eduard Spranger first called “The Third Humanism.” He published widely in the fields of Greek education and

philosophy and the Greek church fathers. He stressed Christianity as the continuation of Hellenism rather than its destroyer. His students included men of the rank of Richard Harder, Viktor Pöschl, and Wolfgang Schadewaldt. Today what was acclaimed as his most famous work is read only by dilettantes too naive to perceive its defects. The Third Humanism has become a passing fashion, an aberration of the dying Weimar Republic,

of as little abiding influence as its rival the George Circle.

His name is

rarely cited in the footnotes of the learned. Modern students of his own subject no longer recognize his name. Who was this man? What did he do? Why is he forgotten? Is there a permanent achievement?

With that paragraph I began my life of Jaeger.! In order to answer in part at least the questions that end it, I chose Jaeger to be the subject of the Second

Oldfather

Conference

on

the Modern

History

of Classical

Scholarship, held at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign 26-28 April 1990.? I invited three sorts of scholars. Historians of scholarship sought to see Jaeger within the tradition of German philology of the postWilamowitzian generation and as part of the thirties diaspora. Authorities on the culture of the Weimar Republic examined Jaeger’s ideas in the

context of his time. Finally, modem authorities on the subject matter of Jaeger’s books sought to evaluate them years after their publication and to assess their influence or explain the lack of it from the perspective that distance in time and space allow. C. H. Kahn remarked at the end of the conference “I came admiring

him; I departed pitying him.” This was the feeling of most of us. Similar reactions were evoked at the Eduard Norden conference held in Bad Homburg in June 1991. The gulf between the ideals professed by Jaeger as the prophet of the Third Humanism and the petty compromises and betrayals

that his Sitz im Leben elicited from him caused difficulties for some. ! Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III, eds., Classical Scholarship:

Ten

A Biographical

Encyclopedia (New York/London 1990) 211. ? For the first conference see The Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered, ed. William M. Calder III, Illinois Classical Studies Supplement 2 (Atlanta 1991).

viii

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

years ago when I published with her permission Wilamowitz'

Latin

Autobiography, the nonagenarian Schwester Hildegard von Wilamowitz-

Moellendorff with great wisdom said to me, “Wilamowitz was my father; for you he is a Forschungsobjekt. I understand that.” Many do not, alas, understand the difference between funeral panegyric or a disciple's pietas and

scholarship. Those who do not should deal with the long dead, Homer, Plato, or Aristotle. Jaeger, like his teacher Wilamowitz, is great enough to survive his indiscretions, and, indeed, becomes more interesting because of

them.

The contributors to this volume are scholars not Dorfpfarrer. It is their task to unearth facts not write sermons. Americans who wax self-righteous on the acquiescence of their German colleagues to National Socialism

should pause and recall how their teachers acquiesced to McCarthy’s purges.? Not only his books but Jaeger the man was heatedly discussed. Archives in Berlin, Harvard, and elsewhere yield personal documents for perusal. For the

first time the Berlin call and the mystery of Jaeger's American withdrawal are understood. Wissenschaftshistoriker read books in different ways than experts in their subject matter do. We are not interested in whether the results are “right” or “wrong” but why the questions are posed and how they are answered within the context of the time.

In Paideia I, dated Berlin-

Westend, October 1923, Europe has an “Hellenocentric” past. In Diokles, dated Chicago, September 1937, the Staatsideal des Moses confronts Plato in an almost gratuitous excursus on the Jews. Why? At the conference, which was fundamentally historical, papers were presented chronologically by subject matter. In the interest of most users of this volume the papers have been arranged alphabetically by author's name.

The only exception is Professor Ernst Badian's splendid contribution on Demosthenes, which arrived at the last moment and was added at the end. Apart from contributors I wish to thank those Urbana colleagues who chaired sessions and contributed to the discussion.

They include John

Buckler (History), Phillip and Raina Fehl (Art History), Howard Jacobson (Classics), Herbert Knust (Germanic Languages and Literature), and Miroslav Marcovich (Classics) as well as John Vaio (Classics, University of Illinois/Chicago) and Judith P. Hallett (Classics, University of Maryland,

College Park). One of the questions discussed again and again was why did Jaeger in the United States never assume a position of leadership in the profession comparable to that he had held in Germany. The evidence was

not to hand. Hallett found the answer in a paper written after the conference, which she has generously allowed me to include in this volume.

Michael

Armstrong, whose name deservedly appears on the title page, expertly 3 The unsavory evidence is gathered in Ellen W. Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: and the Universities (New York/Oxford 1986).

McCarthyism

William M. Calder III

ix

prepared the difficult German and English camera-ready copy and composed the Index Personarum. Daniel J. Kramer completed the editing and read

final proof. The Annual Research Fund of the William Abbott Oldfathership of the Classics at the University of Illinois made their participation possible. Mary Ellen Fryer's generous aid throughout the preparation of the volume is gratefully acknowledged. We are all grateful to

those archives that have kindly permitted publication of new material. Special thanks is stated elsewhere. William M. Calder III The Villa Mowitz The 103rd Birthday of Werner Jaeger

List

of

Contributors

Ernst Badian is Professor of Ancient History at Harvard, a leading authority on the age of Demosthenes, and a frequent contributor to Wissenschaftsgeschichte. William

M. Calder III is William Abbott Oldfather Professor of the

Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Illlinois.

He

was a student of Werner Jaeger at Harvard 1953-1958 and has written three lives of him. He has also edited the Wilamowitz-Jaeger Correspondence. Mortimer

H.

Chambers

is Professor

of Ancient

University of California, Los Angeles, California.

History

at the

He has published widely

in the modern history of classical scholarship. He was a student of Werner Jaeger at Harvard 1956-1958. Judith P. Hallett is Maryland at College Classical Caucus of Ph. D. at post-Jaeger

He wrote his dissertation on Thucydides.

Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Park, Maryland. She is member of the Women’s the American Philological Association and took her Harvard in 1971.

Charles H. Kahn is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Plato has long been at the center of his scholarly interests. He once met Werner Jaeger. Paul T. Keyser is Resident Research Fellow at the University of Alberta at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He holds doctorates in Physics and Classics and specializes in ancient science and mathematics. Early Christianity has long interested him. Alessandra Bertini Malgarini is Assistant Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Rome. She has published on the modern

history of Classics in the United States. Beat Naf is Oberassistent in the Historisches Seminar of the University of Zürich. His book Von Perikles zu Hitler? Die athenische Demokratie und die deutsche Althistorie bis 1945 appeared in 1986. Robert Renehan is Professor of Classics and former chair at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was the last assistant of

Werner Jaeger and wrote his dissertation under his guidance.

xi

E. A. Schmidt is Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Tübingen and editor-in-chief of Antike und Abendland. He is part of the team editing the letters of Rudolf Borchardt. Eckart

Schütrumpf is Professor of Classics and chair at the University

of Colorado at Boulder.

He has long worked on Aristotle, most recently

publishing a two-volume commentary on Politics 1-3 (1991). Heinrich von Staden is Professor of Classics at Yale University. a leading international authority on ancient Greek medicine.

He is

Donald O. White is Professor of German and chair at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachussetts. He has long worked on the Georgekreis and on

the Third Humanism. He corresponded with Werner Jaeger.

Contents

12. March 1921: The Berlin Appointment

1

WILLIAM M. CALDER III, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The Historian as Educator: Jaeger on Thucydides MORTIMER CHAMBERS, University of California at Los Angeles

The Case of the Missing President: Werner Jaeger and the American Philological Association

25

37

JUDITH P. HALLETT, University of Maryland at College Park

Werner Jaeger’s Portrayal of Plato

69

CHARLES H. KAHN, University of Pennsylvania

Werner Jaeger’s Early Christianity and Greek Paideia

83

PAUL T. KEYSER, University of Alberta at Edmonton

Werner Jaeger in the United States: One Among Many Others

107

ALESSANDRA BERTINI MALGARINI, University of Rome

Werner Jaegers Paideia: Entstehung, kulturpolitische Absichten und Ri i BEAT NAF,

125

Historisches Seminar der Universität Zürich

Werner Jaeger: The Oxford Classical Text of Aristotelis Metaphysica (1957)

147

ROBERT RENEHAN, University of California at Santa Barbara

Werner Jaeger and Rudolf Borchardt: Correspondence 1929-1933

161

E. A. SCHMIDT, Universität Tübingen

10.

Einige wissenschaftliche Voraussetzungen von W. Jaegers Aristotelesdeutung ECKHART SCHÜTRUMPF, University of Colorado

209

ll.

Jaeger’s “Skandalon der historischen Vernunft": Diocles, Aristotle, and Theophrastus HEINRICH VON STADEN, Yale University

12.

Werner Jaeger's “Third Humanism” and the Crisis of Conservative Cultural Politics in Weimar Germany

267

DONALD O. WHITE, Amherst College

13.

Jaeger’s Demosthenes: An Essay in Anti-History ERNST BADIAN, Harvard University

INDEX PERSONARUM

289

317

12 March 1921:

The Berlin Appointment

WILLIAM M. CALDER III “,..der kann aber durch zu viel Sonnenschein verdorben werden.” “...too

much

sunshine

can ruin him."

—Wilamowitz to Paul Wendland on Werner Jaeger (16 January 1913)

I. Hintergrund The naval mutinies at Kiel culminated 4-5 November 1918. The November Revolution occurred in Munich and Berlin on 9 November. On that day

Wilhelm II abdicated and fled to Dorn. Scheidemann proclaimed the Republic at 2 PM. Two hours later Karl Liebknecht proclaimed the Socialist Republic. Armistice came on 11 November. The Spartacist Uprising took place in Berlin 5-12 January 1919. The following month saw the Inauguration of the National Assembly at Weimar. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June.

The Kapp Putsch occurred 13 March

1920 in Berlin. Wilamowitz and Eduard Meyer were involved.! The Prussian Kultusministerium had flourished under the autocratic and thoroughly admirable Friedrich Althoff (1839-1908), architect of the System Althoff. That he trusted the judgment of Theodor Mommsen and Wilamowitz proves that he placed the uncompromising quest for excellence above politics. His immediate successors do not concern us here. The

holder of his office in 1921 does. Carl Heinrich Becker (1876-1933),2 son of a banker and Konsul, studied in Lausanne, Heidelberg, and Berlin.

took his doctorate in 1899, aged 23.

He

He traveled 1900-1902 in Spain,

! For Wilamowitz' involvement sec J. Erger, Der Kapp-Lütwitz-Putsch (Düsseldorf 1967) 94 with n. 5. I owe the reference to Professor A. Wasserstein (Jerusalem). 2 See Erich Wende, C. H. Becker Mensch und Politiker: Ein biographischer Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte der Weimarer Republik (Swttgart 1959), henceforth cited: Wende, Becker. The briefest facts are at Adolf Grimme, NDB 1 (Berlin 1953) 711. Of special

importance is his son's memoir: see Hellmut Becker, “Porträt eines Kultusministers: Zum 100. Geburtstag von Carl Heinrich Becker (12. April 1976)," Merkur 30 (1976) 365-76, reprinted with some revisions as "C. H. Becker—Porträt eines Kultusministers (1976),” Auf dem Weg zur lernenden Gesellschaft: Personen, Analysen, Vorschläge für die Zukunft (Klett—Cotta 1980) 31-44. Frl. Anneli Schawe (Marburg/Lahn) is completing a dissertation on Becker's Hochschulpolitik (Professor Bemhard vom Brocke).

2

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Egypt, the Sudan, Greece, and Turkey. He was habilitated in Semitic philology at Heidelberg in 1902, where in 1906 he became AuBerordentlicher Professor. In 1908, aged 32, he went to Hamburg as Ordinarius for the History and Culture of the Orient. In 1913 he became Professor for Oriental Philology at Bonn. He was seduced to administration in 1916, when he entered the Prussian Kultusministerium in Berlin as Vortragender Rat. He became Staatssekretär in 1919 and in 1921 Kultusminister in the Stegerwald Cabinet; in autumn 1921 he was again

Staatssekretär, and in 1925 he again assumed the office of Prussian Kultusminister, which he held until his retirement in 1930.

Upon his assumption of office in 1919 and even more clearly in 1921, Becker discovered who his enemies were, the enemies of what he thought necessary reform.’ Seine bedeutendsten

Gegner

waren

hierbei hervorragende

Berliner

Professoren... Männer wie Eduard Meyer, Lubarsch, Stutz, Hermann Schumacher, fachwissenschaftlich hoch angesehene Gelehrte,

mit Becker einig in dem Bestreben, die auf höchste Leistung gegründete innere Selbständigkeit der Universität zu erhalten, fürchteten doch, daß

der von Becker beschrittene Weg ins Unheil führen werde.

One might add “Männer wie Lüders, Roethe, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.”

Diels was working class and different.

Rectors like Reinhold Seeberg

(1918/1919), Eduard Meyer (1919/1920), and the Roman lawyer, Emil Seckel (1920/1921) were not devoted to making matters easier for Becker.

Professors in Prussia were appointed for life. Becker’s support flourished among the young. The solution was unavoidable.

become law by 15 December 1920.

Zwangsemeritierung had

Ninety-six professorships in Prussia

became available overnight.

II. Werner Jaeger in March 19214 His university career had been meteoric: promotion at Berlin on 5 July 1911, aged 23; habilitation there in 1914 (inaugural lecture at Berlin, 14 June 1914); briefly Dozent; never Assistent. In August war began. Jaeger assumed the chair of Friedrich Nietzsche in neutral Switzerland. In the same epochal year he married (28 March 1914) Theodora Dammholz, daughter of a

good family.

Her father was Geheimrat and lived at Nürnbergerstraße 63,

3 Wende, Becker, 112-13.

“For the most recent life of Jaeger see William M. Calder III, “Werner Jaeger: 30 July 1888—19 October 1961,” Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclope dia, ed. Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III (New York/London 1990) 211-26 with a bibliography of works about Jaeger (225-26), to which add Ruth Jaeger, “Wemer Jaeger,” Germans in Boston (Goethe Society of New England 1981) 19-22. I owe this reference to Professor J. P. Hallett.

Willliam M. Calder III two houses alway from Diels.

3

We know now that a mysterious Berlin

widow, Margarete Stücklen,* had supported him financially through the doctorate.

Now she had been replaced.

Before his assumption of the Basel

Chair he had published, apart from the obligatory Latin specimen eruditionis from his dissertation, three books, all of which must be consulted to this

day:

1. Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles (Berlin 1912). This was the full version of the specimen eruditionis

published in Latin the year before. 2. Aristotelis de animalium motione et de animalium incessu; Ps.Aristotelis de spiritu libellus (Leipzig 1913). He owed the edition to the

intervention of Diels with Teubner, who invited him 23 February 1912 to do the Teubner text. This proved that he was a philologist, not a fraud

given to ideas. 3. Nemesios von Emesa: Quellenforschungen zum Neuplatonismus und seinen Anfüngen bei Poseidonios (Berlin 1914). This was the Habilitationsschrift. There were as well fourteen outstanding articles and reviews. For Jaeger in 1914 we have the opinion of the highest authority.

Wilamowitz recommended him to Walter F. Otto to be his successor at

Basel in a letter of 25 February 1914:7 Jüger ist unsere groBc Hoffnung:

ein Talent, wie ich (und Diels ebenso)

es bisher unter unsern Schülern nicht gehabt haben.

Es genügen ja

5 See Margarete Stücklen to Hermann Diels (Berlin 10 November 1911). In later life Jaeger never mentioned his carly patroness. See Diels to Jaeger No. 10 (Berlin, 23 February 1912): “Nun aber eine Aristotelische Frage! Haben Sie Lust in der Bibl. Teubn. die Schriften de animalium motu u. de animalium spiritu zu bearbeiten? nicht um kritische Ausgaben vollendeter Arı, sondern

Es handelt sich, wie Sie wissen, um verständige Revisionen der

Bekkerschen Ausgaben, ev. mit Revision der wichtigsten Hss.” Martha Nussbaum's complaint at JHS 95 (1975) 207 that Jaeger reproduced incorrect readings and ignored significant omissions in Bekker's apparatus, while not untrue, is unfair because Jaeger was

never asked nor sought to control thanks him for his "Verwendung with Teubner to do the edition. "See William M. Calder III Moellendorff on the Basel Greek

Bekker. In his letter of 11 March 1912 to Diels, Jaeger für mich beim Teubnerschen Verlag." He has arranged and Christhard Hoffmann, "Ulrich von WilamowitzChair," Museum Helveticum 43 (1986) 258-63 (here

260). In a letter to Werner Jaeger dated (Harvard Nachlaß, unpublished):

Erlangen,

3 May

1931, Otto Stáhlin

writes

*Der andere Brief ist von Wilamowitz (vom 14.7.1913); seine Worte lauten: 'Jaeger, den Wendland und Schwartz von einem Besuche kennen, halten Diels und ich allerdings wohl für das bedeutendste Talent, das wir unter unsem Schülem gesehen haben. Sinn für

Philosophie mit Sinn für Form gepaart. Er hat sich in diesen Wochen hier habilitiert. Aber er ist sehr jung, die Flamme des Seelenfeuers flickert und schwelt . . . noch stark. Weil ich ihm das Beste wünsche, wünsche ich ihm eine Weile Ruhe. Aber das kann mich nicht verhindern, über das Talent meine wahre Meinung zu sagen.'" He continues to cite Wendland, who calls only Wilamowitz and Jaeger genial.

4

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered - seine Bücher, dh. Habilitations-schrift,

die Dissertation, Nemesios. Neben

der Aristoteles, der constructiven

und die Phantasie

steht eine solide Sprachkenntnis. Wie sich schickt, hat er sich mit Feuereifer auf das Ediren geworfen—um zu lernen. Aber natürlich ist alles noch in Gärung. Er ist persönlich so gut wie ganz mittellos—und heiratet doch eben jetzt; wir tun alles ihm die Existenz zu ermöglichen,

aber natürlich wünschen wir ihm alles beste, er kann ja auch gar nicht lange warten. Wie sich solche Jugend entwickelt, kann niemand sagen: aber ich glaube, er wird, mag er auch noch unsicher gehen, keinen Schüler verderben.

Hermann Diels agreed.

schaft zur Zeit."

Jaeger was “die grösste Hoffnung unserer Wissen-

Expectedly Jaeger was chosen.

He served only a year.

Basel's policy had long been the best that a small and provincial university can have. Better a brilliant young man for three years than a Null for 30. Jaeger, who later extolled military heroism in Homer, like Nietzsche, did

not serve his country in war. All three brothers of his wife fell. Jaeger lived and retained until his death the medical documents that had disqualified him for service. Siegfried Sudhaus (1863-1914), the papyrologist, also served. He fell on 23 October 1914 at Bixschote at the head of his company. A post in

Greck thus opened at Kiel. The faculty on 3 March 1915 drew up their list:? 1. oProfessor Werner Jaeger (Basel)

2. Oberlehrer Ludolf Malten (Wilmersdorf)!° 3. oProfessor Johannes Mewaldt (Marburg)!! 8 [bid., 262. 9 See

Karl

Jordan

and

Erich

Hofmann,

"Klassische

Philologie,”

Geschichte

der

Christian-Albrechis-Universität Kiel 1665-1965: Geschichte der Philosophischen Fakultät Teil 2 (Neumünster 1969) 121-65 (here 159). By 8 May 1915 Jaeger in a letter to Diels from Basel had decided for Kiel. Decisive were 1) retum to his fatherland, 2) ten times as many students, 3) popular public lectures, 4) increase in salary. He regrets only that with his leaving Basel “Deutschtum” will cease to play a role there. He will miss his students, among whom are three doctorandi. No friends are mentioned. This will remain typical for Jaeger, who rarely had friends of his age: see infra. For the deaths of Jaeger’s three brothers-in-law see Mensching, 69. 10 For the Berliner Ludolf Malten (1879-1969) see Wolfhart Unte, “Das Werk Ludolf Maltens," Jahrbuch der Schlesischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau 21 (1980) 319-36. He was a lifelong admirer of Wilamowitz. This may have been a factor in his dislike of Jaeger, attested now authority of Eduard Fraenkel).

by F. Solmsen,

GRBS

30 (1989)

138 n. 11 (on the

1! For Johannes Mewaldt (1880-1964) see Herbert Hunger, Gnomon 36 (1964) 524—

26. Solmsen alleges that he "in 1936 recommended himself as Jaeger's successor, stressing his political qualifications" and that like Kórte and Malten he was “jealous of Jaeger's influential position": see Friedrich Solmsen, GRBS 30 (1989) 138 n. 11. But in 1935 he directed the dissertation of a Jewish student (A. E. Raubitschek), which suggests that Solmsen is mistaken about his politics. Professor Raubitschek observes to me per litt. (25 April 1990):

Willliam M. Calder III

5

The negotiations for Jaeger’s appointment lasted from 24 April until 1 October 1915. That is, he began to work on his Kiel appointment only

several months after he had accepted the Basel chair. He remained at Kiel six years.

In July 1919 he declined a call to Hamburg, a post which in

1931 his detractor, Bruno Snell, would gain. A postcard to Diels dated 10 (7) July 1919 explains his decision: Es drängt mich nach unserem eingehenden Gespräch am Freitag Nachmittag Ihnen von dem Ausgang der Angelegenheit, die mich seit 2 Wochen geistig beschiftigt hat, Kunde zu geben. Ich habe mich zu dem Entschlusse der Ablehnung Hamburgs durchgerungen, um unter den übrigens auch äußerlich sehr günstigen Bedingungen, die Preußen mir stellte, lieber in Kiel der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit zu leben u. mir das weitere "Fortkommen"—im Doppelsinne dieses Wortes—erst selbst zu verdienen. Daß ich dabei das Gefühl haben konnte, auch in Ihrem Sinne zu handeln, hat mich moralisch sehr gestärkt zu meiner Entschließung.

He had consulted Diels. A letter from Unterstaatssekretär Becker dated Wilhelmstraße 68, Berlin, 23 April 1919, clarifies Jaeger’s decision: Es kursieren hier so allerlei Gerüchte,

als ob Sie mit dem

spielten, einer Berufung nach Hamburg Folge zu leisten. Ihnen

doch

sagen,

daß

ich

das

außerordentlich

Gedanken

Ich möchte

bedauern

würde.

Materielle Gründe dürfen Sie keinesfalls dazu bestimmen. Ich gönne Ihnen von Herzen den Ruf; lassen Sie sich nur günstige Bedingungen machen, aber dann bleiben Sie bei uns. Jedenfalls würde ich mich freuen, Ihnen auf Grund eines Rufes Ihre materielle Existenz erheblich bessern zu können.

The publications of the Kiel period were surprisingly meagre in comparison with his earlier production. But they are not indicative of his labors. He had completed by August 1918 an edition of Aristotle, Metaphysica. In a letter of 11 August 1918 to Diels he remarks:

“About Mewaldt, I do not know anything about his trying to get Jaeger’s chair in Berlin, nor do I really know that he and Jaeger were friends. He did praise the Aristotle and Paideia I. I knew Mewaldt quite well, and I admired him as a scholar and a teacher. He was an Epicurean, but he was also a Nazi—an aesthetic onc, that means he liked to look at the

clean-cut Storm troopers marching, in contrast to the dirty and disreputable communists and socialists. He lectured enthusiastically about the Classical *Hoch-zeit' but made disparaging remarks about the ‘totalitarian’ Republic of Plato. I leamed a lot from him and he was always very kind and generous to me ... He never discriminated against any student on race, sex, politics, and I only guessed that he was a Nazi, and I never saw him

wearing a party button. Put it differently, before the invasion of Austria by Hitler I had no evidence that Mewaldt was a Nazi except for some favorable remarks of a general nature, and afterwards everybody was or claimed to be or to have been a Nazi.”

6

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Meine fertiggestellte neue Ausgabe der Metaphysik will Teubner nicht drucken, ich habe sie also zu den beiden dicken Volumina des Gregorius Nyssenus in den Schreibtischkasten gelegt, die ja auch seit Jahr und Tag der Auferstehung vergeblich harren.

He omits the reason. They had no paper. There had been no injustice done Jaeger. His disappointment was a very small part of the national catastrophe. Jaeger already thought practically. There was time for published panegyrics of both Wilamowitz and Diels. Earlier there had been

the laudatory review of another Berlin professor.!? In 1921 there appeared at last a philological masterpiece of enduring value, the two-volume critical

edition of Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium. Wilamowitz had suggested the task to him in 1908. Much of the Wanderjahre had been devoted to collation in the libraries of Italy. The war and its aftermath had delayed publication. Jaeger wrote revealingly of his edition to Stroux on 9

March 1921:13 Der Wert liegt gewi8 nicht in der Wirkung, sondern ist ein rein transzendenter, ein idealer, also unabhängig von der Wirkung auf Menschen und nur in sich selber gegründet.

The doubt persisted. He asks “whether it would not have been better to have used the time to write a history of Greek philosophy or to have taught in the Volkshochschule.” The appearance of the volumes coincided with an

unexpected and welcome event.

The most prestigious chair of classics in

the world was free.

12 “Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 58 (1918) 648 (here the most embarrassing misprint in Jaeger’s published work is to be found) and “Hermann Diels. Zum goldenen Doktorjubiläum,” Internationale Monatschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik 15 (1920) 133-46 = Humanistische Reden und Vorträge JI (Berlin 1960) 31-40. Eduard Norden, Agnostos Theos, was reviewed at GGA 175 (1913) 569-610 = Scripta Minora I (Rome 1960) 115-61. -

13 This is most explicit in an unpublished letter of Jaeger to Kirsopp Lake dated 16

January 1942 (carbon copy in Jaeger Nachlaß, Harvard): “The idea of editing Gregory and if possible some other fathers of the Post-Nicene period goes back to Wilamowitz, who dedicated a large sum of money collected in his honor for his sixtieth birthday to this purpose and announced this plan in his gratiarum actio to the givers of the money. That was in 1908 ... I had come to Greek philosophy from the theological interests which had developed early in my life and consequently it was quite organic from my point of view to make Wilamowitz’ plan my own and to agree, when I was invited, to edit Gregory’s main work, the books Contra Eunomium. I started the work in 1911 and edited the two volumes containing that work in Berlin (1922-1923)." In fact both volumes appeared in 1921. For a history of the Gregory project see Hadwig Hömer, “Über Genese und derzeitigen Stand der grossen Edition der Werke Gregors von Nyssa,” Ecriture et culture philosophique dans la Pensée de Gregoire de Nysse. Acts du colloque de Chevetogne (22-26 Septembre 1969), ed. M. Harl (Leiden 1971) 18-50. For Jaeger to Stroux on Gregor see Mensching, 62, 64.

Willliam M. Calder II

7

III. The Published Sources Indubitably

the most important single event in Jaeger's life was his

appointment to Wilamowitz' chair. Both the prestige of the post and that he was 32 years old made him world famous. Jaeger once in print alluded to

his call:!* Als das neue Emeritierungsgesetz in Kraft trat, wurde der Verfasser

dieses Aufsatzes, der jüngste Schüler von Wilamowitz und Diels, auf Vorschlag der Fakultät berufen (1921). Ich kam offiziell als Nachfolge von Wilamowitz nach Berlin, wozu Diels lächelnd bemerkte, daß ich ja in Wahrheit sein Nachfolger würe.

Ich hatte von allen gelernt, soviel

ich konnte, aber es war mir eine tróstliche Definition, was ein alter freundlicher Kollege mir sagte: der rechte Nachfolger würe stets, wer seinen eigenen Weg ginge.

In 1978 I published the Wilamowitz-Jaeger correspondence.!5 The official call is dated Berlin, 12 March 1921, and signed by Geheimer

Regierungsrat Wende, the later biographer of Becker:'®

Dem Auftrage meines Herrn Ministers entsprechend beehre ich mich, Ihnen die Nachfolge des Herrn Geheimrats von Wilamowitz von der hiesigen Universität mit dem Ausdruck meiner aufrichtigen Glückwünsche ganz ergebenst anzubieten. Es würde dem Ministerium eine besondere Freude sein, wenn es mit Ihrer grundsätzlichen Geneigtheit, diesen Ruf zu folgen, rechnen dürfte.

Jaeger is invited to Berlin for a discussion in the near future.

Three days

later he wrote from Kicl to Wilamowitz with information not in Wende's

letter:!

14 Werner

Jaeger,

"Die

1945," Studium Berolinense: Geschichte

klassische

Philologie

an der Universität

Berlin

von

1870-

Aufsätze und Beiträge zu Problemen der Wissenschaft und zur

der Friedrichs-Wilhelms-Universität

zu Berlin, ed. Hans

Leussink,

Eduard

Neumann, and Georg Kotowski (Berlin 1960) 479. 15 William M. Calder III, "The Correspondence of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff

with Werner Jaeger," HCSP 82 (1978) 303-47 = Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Selected Correspondence 1869-1931, ed. William M. Calder III, Antiqua 23 (Naples 1983) 167-347, 307-08 (henceforth cited: Briefe-Jaeger).

16 Briefe-Jaeger 200. Wolfgang Buchwald, Albert Henrichs, and I read Wend.

Emst

Vogt (200 n. 178) Wenk. It is clear from more legible references in the new sources that the name was Wende. Mensching (86 n. 6) queries my dating of the call to 12 March 1921 on the grounds that in a letter to Stroux dated 26 March 1921 Jaeger writes that he had accepted the call "in der vorigen Woche." I prefer the date of Wende's offering the post to the date of Jaeger's accepting it. 17 Briefe-Jaeger 200-03. The citation is on 200-01. We now know that knowledge of the list comes from Becker's letter of 12 March 1921 to Jaeger, sec infra.

8

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Das Ministerium hat mich auf den Berliner Lehrstuhl der Philologie berufen, den Sie bis zum Inkrafttreten des Pensionsgesetzes verwaltet haben und mich unterrichtet, dass ich nach Schwartz u. Arnim sowie Boll an dritter Stelle genannt worden sei.

Jaeger continues to say what Wilamowitz wanted to hear. He will not use the opportunity to express himself on the nonsense of strictly applying the law in Wilamowitz’ case. Wilamowitz still lives and works “in der Kraft eines Heros.” His position in the world and at the university does not depend on his title. “No one understands more profoundly than I the feelings that must fill your heart, although for the average university teacher

I consider some sort of mandatory retirement age desirable.” He then thanks Wilamowitz and the faculty for the honor and trust that caused them to place him directly after von Arnim and Schwartz, who are decades older than he. No one, even they, could be a successor of Wilamowitz. Everyone knows

that. Wilamowitz had only reluctantly left Göttingen for Berlin. Jaeger has very serious reservations.

He was third, and Wilamowitz presumably

preferred the first two, but the Ministerium for no good reason passed them over. He also admits that “meine Berufung nach Berlin eine Friihgeburt, die

kaum glücklich für das Kind ablaufen wird.”

His third reservation is the

serious one. Who will his colleague be? Boll was ideal but will certainly stay in Heidelberg. Jaeger means that he must have the decisive say in the choice of his collega proximus.

Wilamowitz replies on 17 March 1921 with tact and intelligence to “your letter, which is precisely what I expected from you.” Schwartz was named honoris causa. Either von Arnim or Jaeger was acceptable to the faculty. There was small chance for Boll. The man appointed should have a say in the choice of collega proximus. Youth should not deter Jaeger. Böckh became Ordinarius in Berlin at age 26. Wilamowitz understands Becker’s distaste for his politics. He will continue to lecture. In two further letters to Wilamowitz, Jaeger discusses the Berlin appointment. In a letter of 12 April 1921 Jaeger thanks Wilamowitz profusely for a copy of Griechische Verskunst. Jaeger is still bargaining with the Ministerium. Boll will surely decline. In his letter of 30 April, Jaeger is in the last stages of discussion concerning his salary. He will join the Berlin Faculty 1 October 1921 and clearly is unhappy that a list for Boll’s place may be drawn up without his participation. The Berlin call is never discussed again in the preserved letters between Jaeger and

Wilamowitz. Two new sources have become available to me since 1978. They clarify ambiguities in the Wilamowitz correspondence, and they add new information. These sources which must now be considered are the Diels— Jaeger letters and the Becker—Jaeger letters. I shall turn to these. A word should be said about a third source, namely the letters between Jaeger and

Eduard Norden.

Some 80 letters of Norden to Jaeger survive (22 July

Willliam M. Calder II 1909—30 October 1939).

9

I hope very much that Professor Dr. Bernhard

Kytzler (FU Berlin) will edit them. Of these, relevant to the Berlin call are certainly No. 52 (9 March 1921) and for the replacement for Boll Nos. 53-

56 (15, 19, 24, 26 May 1921).

Two further letters, Norden to Becker (15

January 1921) and Becker to Norden (6 January 1921), probably concern Jaeger’s appointment. The strain between Norden and Jaeger is evident from

No. 53, which begins: Mein lieber Freund, ich weiB freilich nicht, ob diese seit Jahren unter uns übliche trauliche Anrede noch Widerhall bei Ihnen findet, aber ich

möchte sie doch— vielleicht als letzter—noch einmal gebrauchen, und sei es auch nur um einer schönen Illusion willen.

In 1989 Eckart Mensching published selections from the letters of Werner Jaeger to Johannes Stroux today in the possession of Dr. L. Stroux

in West Berlin: see Eckart Mensching, “Über Werner Jaeger (geb. am 30. Juli 1888) und seinen Weg nach Berlin,” Nugae zur Philologie-Geschichte I (Berlin 1989) 60-92. Stroux’ letters to Jaeger are at Harvard. The whole correspondence deserves publication with commentary. IV. The Diels-Jaeger Letters The Diels-Jaeger Letters are preserved in the Jaeger Nachlaß at the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Sixty-seven letters and postcards survive: 31 of Diels to Jaeger and 36 of Jaeger to Diels. Jaeger’s letters were returned to him after Diels’ death on 4 June 1922. They cover the

period 8 March 1910 until 30 May 1921. I doubt that even five letters need be lost. Communication by telephone rather than letter is already attested in

the correspondence. All 67 letters, plus the letter of Margarete Stöckler to Diels of 10 November 1911, were accurately transcribed in January 1990 by Dr. Dietrich Ehlers (Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR zu Berlin), the

world authority on the handwriting of Hermann Diels, to whom I express here my lasting gratitude.

This correspondence is not only more extensive than Jaeger’s with Wilamowitz (18 preserved letters against 31 of Diels). There is an Diels—Jaeger letters. Jaeger calls väterlichen Lehrers.” Wilamowitz

of Wilamowitz to Jaeger by June 1922 intimacy, even affection, apparent in the it (9 May 1918) “diese Freundschaft des was a heros and a god, adored from afar,

too remote and Olympian to be bothered with requests for placing articles and finding jobs and arranging publishing contracts. A good part of the difference may have been class. Diels’ father was a minor rural railroad

Official. Wilamowitz’ was a Junker; his brother was President of Posen and Kammerherr of the Kaiser. Jaeger told me once that when he attended Wilamowitz’ Wednesday evening soirees, Tycho would enter late with Ernst Kapp and pointedly ignore Jaeger. “I know why,” Jaeger said; “it was

10

Wemer Jaeger Reconsidered

because my father was a tradesman.” This was said without bitterness. But it is revealing and not unexpected that although often the flatterer, Jaeger is far more candid in his letters to Diels than to Wilamowitz. I edit here in chronological order those parts of the Diels-Jaeger Correspondence that concern the Berlin call. 1. The earliest reference to an opening at Berlin occurs in Jaeger’s letter of 9 March 1921. Jaeger tactfully avoids any suggestion that he is available. In fact he had long known that he would be considered. Ihr Brief zu Neujahr schöne Gelingen der mein Fehlen, das ja schwer gemacht. Veränderungen durch

hat mich herzlich erfreut, die Nachrichten über das Feier Ihres goldenen Doktorjubiläums haben mir kein freiwilliges war, noch hinterher besonders Nun stehen Ihnen auch äußerlich starke das Altersgesetz bevor. Niemand bedauert es tiefer

als ich, daß Männer wie Sie oder auch Wilamowitz zurücktreten.

Wir

haben doch überhaupt keine Persönlichkeiten, die, ich rede gar nicht

von Ersatz, für eine Nachfolge in Frage kämen.

Die mittlere Generation

ist unschöpferisch, die jüngere unfertig und ein unbeschriebenes Blatt. Und “was ist heute Berlin für eine Attraktion”? sagte mir Norden wiederholt in letzter Zeit. Er mag Recht haben, gleichviel wie er es gemeint haben mag. Ich sehe der kommenden Ära nicht ohne Gruseln

entgegen. 2.

This elicited the reply for which Jaeger presumably had hoped. Diels writes him on 12 March 1921, not coincidentally the day of Wende’s official letter and, as we shall see, a letter from Becker. Diels had not violated confidentiality. Inzwischen haben wir in den letzten Sitzungen unserer Fakultät mit den Nachfolgern uns beschäftigt.

Es stellte sich leider betrüblich heraus,

daß eigentlich kein einziger Philologe seine Vertrautheit mit der Poesie der Hellenen durch anerkannte Werke dargetan hat. Ein Nachfolger von Wilamowitz war also nicht zu finden. Denn selbst Schwartz und v. Arnim, die als erste von der Fakultät genannt wurden, haben ihre Schwerpunkte in der Prosa und sind eminent dafür begabte Köpfe. Auch Boll, der dann als der bedeutendste Philologe erschien, hat sein Schwergewicht nicht im Homer oder den Tragikern. Kurz es stellte sich heraus, daß unsere moderne Philologie ihren wissenschaftlichen

Schwerpunkt nicht in der klassischen Poesie hat.

Da die beiden primo

loco genannten Philologen schon jenseits der 60 stehen, ist zu fürchten, was die Regierung bereits bei Besetzung des astronomischen Lehrstuhls ausgesprochen hat, daB sie von den sexagenarii absieht. Boll ferner ist so ausgesprochener Süddeutscher und hat in Heidelberg eine so hervorragende Stellung, daB er gewiB sehr schwer für Berlin zu gewinnen sein wird. So hat unsere Kommission—es ist cin offenes Geheimnis—ebenso wie unsere Regierung eigentlich nur eine Hoffnung: daß Sie, lieber Jäger, der als letzter und jüngster auf dieser

Willliam M. Calder II Liste erscheint, uns keinen Korb geben. wissenschaftlich

nur

die

Prosa

11

Sie haben zwar auch bisher

vertreten,

aber

wir

haben

die

Überzeugung, daß wenn die Entwicklung Ihrer Anlage gemäß fortschreitet, Sie die Provinz der großen Poesie Sich erobern werden. Sie werden, wie ich glaube, die Probleme z. T. anders auffassen als Wilamowitz, aber ich hoffe, daB Sie in dem Streben, dies groBe Kulturgebiet allseitig nach Form und Inhalt zu erfassen, hinter ihm nicht zurückbleiben werden. Möge Ihnen nur die körperliche Kraft und Gesundheit vorreichen, Sich bald dieser hohen Aufgabe mit allen Ihren Kräften zu widmen!

Ob Sie es über das Herz bringen, falls man Ihnen

Berlin anbietet, einzuschlagen, wag’ ich nur zu hoffen. Es würde meine letzten Lebenstage vergolden, Sie hier zu haben. Aber für Sie und für die Wissenschaft wäre es wichtig, wenn Ihr Lebensweg den gewünschten Gang gehen würde, gleichviel hier oder wo anders.

This amiable letter presumably elicited a telephone call. This is easier

than to assume that Jaeger lost or destroyed letters from Diels. He went ca. 21 April to Berlin for discussion with the Ministry and visits both to Diels and Wilamowitz. Two further problems arose: 1) successor at Kiel, which will not be treated in this of Jaeger’s collega proximus. The new sources imperfectly known so that we learn that Boll and succeed Diels and Wilamowitz respectively. They

Boll declined.

the problem of Jaeger’s paper, and 2) the choice clarify what was earlier Jaeger were intended to were not in competition.

Jaeger would not become a Berlin professor until 1 October

1921 and so legally could not share in the debates of the Berlin Faculty concerning Diels’ successor. His interest in the appointment extended to the degree that he covertly threatened to go to Heidelberg if his wishes were not followed. He could not bear a rival and needed a colleague whom he could bully but who was not too obviously inferior. There seems to be a number

of candidates whom he does not want but no one whom he is pushing. His Situation grew from his youth. His students were all men in their twenties, and he distrusted his contemporaries.

The following negotiations.

correspondence

A decision was not made until 1927.

and that with Becker document

the

3. Jaeger writes Diels on 15 April 1921 that Professor Boll will decide at the latest by Sunday 17 April. Boll declined. Jaeger visited Berlin. He returned to Kiel and writes to Diels 24 April 1921. Because of its

importance I edit the whole letter: Lieber, hochverehrter Herr Geheimrat,

nachdem ich bei Ihnen war, bin ich noch zu Wilamowitz gegangen und habe dort den Eindruck empfangen, daß er an eine Liste Kórte-Jensen-

12

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Schöne-Mewaldt!® denkt und wünscht, sie bald einzureichen, um keine Zeit zu verlieren und selbst dabei noch mitsprechen zu können. Unter der Voraussetzung, daß Sie und Wilamowitz bei den Beratungen jetzt Sitz und Stimme haben, was mir im Interesse der Fakultät unbedingt erforderlich erscheint u. ganz in der Hand der Fakultät liegt, wäre ich dafür, daß die Liste möglichst schon jetzt gemacht würde u. hoffe, daß sie im Wesentlichen so ausfallen wird, wie ich sagte. Nur wegen

Schöne schien Wilamowitz noch im Zweifel. Ich

sagte

Möglichkeit,

Ihnen

nach

telephonisch

Heidelberg

neulich,

ich

hätte

noch

die

zu kommen,!? u. würde davon ev.

Gebrauch machen, falls man einen zweiten in Berlin nähme, der mir für die gedeihliche Zusammenarbeit ungeeignet schiene, möge er an sich

auch in Frage kommen.

Inzwischen bin ich von der Seite Jacobys??

hier unausgesetzt bearbeitet worden nach Heidelberg zu gehen, was mich nach dem vorher mit Norden Erlebten natürlich nicht sonderlich

aufregt u. vor allem gar keinen Eindruck auf mich macht. Ich lege Ihnen nur als Stilblüte, die aus diesen Norden-Jacobyschen

Bestrebungen

erwächst, den beifolgenden Brief?! ein mit der Bitte um Rücksendung, u. zwar um

Ihnen

anschaulich

zu zeigen, daß die Aussicht,

mich nach

Heidelberg loszuwerden, leicht auch auf das Verhalten bestimmter Kreise bei Aufstellung der Liste einwirken könnte. Ich bitte Sie daher,

niemand etwas davon zu sagen, daB mich ev. die Wahl Kórtes?? zu einem solchen Schritt bewegen könnte, Wirkung haben müsste. Es wäre lassen oder höchstens schriftlich gern bereit, eine Äußerung über Herren abzugeben, möchte mich

Vorschlägen beteiligen.

da dies in gerade die gegenteilige besser, mich ganz aus dem Spiel zu anzufragen: ich wäre natürlich stets die von der Fakultät zu nennenden aber grundsätzlich nicht mit eigenen

An einer raschen Erledigung läge mir deshalb,

18 Wilamowitz' list was Alfred Körte (1866-1946): see T. B. L. Webster, Gnomon 21 (1949) 179-80; Christian Jensen (1883-1940): see Wemer Hartkopf, Die Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR: Ein Beitrag zu ihrer Geschichte: Biographischer Index (Berlin 1983) 212; Hermann Schöne (1870-1941): see M. Wegner, “Altertumskunde,” Die Universität Münster 1780-1980, ed. H. Dollinger (Münster 1980) 416; Johannes Mewaldt:

see above, note 11.

19 The Heidelberg call at precisely this moment greatly strengthened Jaeger’s hand with the Berlin Ministry. He also had Becker on his side. He does not hesitate to threaten.

20 Felix Jacoby (1876-1959), his Kiel colleague:

see Mortimer Chambers, “Felix

Jacoby: 10 March 1876-10 November 1959," Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, ed. Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III (New York/London 1990) 205-10. Chambers is preparing a book-length biography. 2! A letter of Norden to either Jaeger or to Jacoby: see Diels’ reply, infra. There are other examples of Jaeger sending private letters of colleagues written him to others to be

read and retumed. 22 Körte’s jealousy of Jaeger in the 1920s is attested by Friedrich Solmsen on the authority of Eduard Fraenkel: see GRBS 30 (1989) 138 n. 11. He may have leamed that Jaeger had intervened against Wilamowitz to deny him a Berlin chair. In Wilamowitz' extant letters to Körte there is no mention of the matter. Jaeger may as casily have been jealous of Körte. In 1917 the alternative Korte or Jaeger was discussed at Leipzig. Korte won: see Mensching, 86 n. 5.

Willliam M. Calder III

13

weil ich im Herbst schwerlich noch den Ausweg nach Heidelberg haben

werde. Bis dahin warten die Heidelberger sicherlich nicht. Mit besten GrüBen stets getreulich Ihr ergebenster Werner Jaeger

1 Einlage!

4. Diels replies to Jaeger 28 April 1921 and returns Norden's letter to him. Der Brief, den ich Ihnen hier wieder zurücksende, wirkt sehr aufklärend. Ich hatte den Verf. [Eduard Norden] für klüger gehalten. Aber es ist ja gut, daß Sie so durch seine Naivität in seine Karten sehen.

Ich hatte

heute Gelegenheit mit den beiden Kollegen [Norden und Wilamowitz]?? die Situation zu besprechen. (Von dem Inhalte Ihres Briefes sagte ich

natürlich nichts.)

Sie meinten, wenn der Minister auffordere zu neuen

Vorschligen, so müsste Ihre Annahme feststehen. Sonst kónnten sie keine passenden Vorschläge machen, da ja doch eine passende Ergünzung erwogen werden müsse. Auch würde der Minister offenbar an die Fakultät erst schreiben, wenn Sie Sich entschieden hätten.

Es wird

also nichts anderes übrig bleiben, als daB Sie nun die Entscheidung treffen.

Wie ich und Wilamowitz wünschen, daB die Entscheidung falle,

wissen Sie.25 Daß sie rasch falle, wünsche ich auch um dessentwillen, daB bis jetzt wir unseren Sitz und Stimme in der Facultiit nicht verloren haben. Das kann aber anders werden, wenn der neue Minister die Sanktion seiner Vorschläge durch die Kollegen erlangt hat.

5. The next preserved letter is that of Diels to Jaeger of 26 May 1921. Diels had meanwhile visited Kiel and spoken with Jaeger there. Hans von Arnim, originally before Jaeger on the list but passed over by the Ministerium, is now the leading candidate for Diels' chair declined by Boll. Norden teilte mir eben mit, daß Sie mit dem gefaBten Commissionsbeschluß

nicht

zufrieden

seien,

weil

Sie mit v. Arnim

Sich

zu nah

berührten. Ich sprach mit Ihnen darüber schon in Kiel und hatte den Eindruck, daB diese Unbequemlichkeit, die Sie fast mit allen andern móglichen Candidaten teilen, nicht ausschlaggebend sei. Bequemer ist es natürlich Alleinherrscher in Graecis zu sein, aber da nun einmal seit

23 The names are written in the left margin by Jaeger. [Eduard Norden] with brackets is inserted into the text by Jaeger. These insertions suggest that he had others read the letter. 75 Diels was willing to deceive his Du-Freund of over fifty years in collusion with the thirty two-year-old Jaeger! Sc. that you come to Berlin. Jaeger has underlined “ich und Wilamowitz” and added in the right margin an exclamation point in brackets.

14

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Gründung der Universität (Böckh und Heindorff 2 Gräzisten die Regel sind und die Facultät mit Rücksicht auf den ungeheuren Umfang und die

Bedeutung des Hellenismus gewis [sic] nicht 2 Latinisten berufen wird, so ist die Berufung

Verlegenheit.

von

Amim

der z. Z. einzige Ausweg

Arnim wird 6 Jahre fungieren.

aus der

Macht denn da die

mógliche Concurrenz in Platonicis (das ist doch die Hauptsache) soviel

aus?

Ich habe nie Plato lesen kónnen, da Vahlen und Wilamowitz dies

taten, und ich mich

auch ohne ihren besonderen Wunsch

zurückhielt.

Dergleichen kommt bei Doppelbesetzungen natürlich immer vor. Wir haben 2 alte Historiker. Sie vertragen sich ausgezeichnet, und die

Universitat hat den Vorteil 2 ausgezeichnete Vertreter in ihrer Mitte zu haben.

Lehnen Sie aber einen anerkannten Meister wie Arnim ab oder

beeinflussen Sie die Regierung in diesem Sinn, die bereits, ich weiB nicht auf wessen Anregung, die zu nahe Berührung von Amim mit Ihnen als Grund der Nichtbefragung angegeben hat, dann wird voraussichtlich Kórte

gewühlt

werden

müssen,

denn

Wilamowitz,

der

wegen

des

C.I.Gr.?* einen jüngeren Nachfolger mit Befähigung dieses in der Akademie zu leiten haben móchte, findet wol keinen andern Candidaten.

Er denkt ja die 6 Jahre noch die Sache leiten zu kónnen,

falls v. Arnim berufen würde. Dagegen wenn diese Möglichkeit wegfällt, müßte der Jüngere wol eine derartige Qualität haben. Also bitte überlegen Sie die Sache noch einmal!

26 For August Lebensbeschreibung 1901);

Bernd

Bóckh (1785-1867) see Max Hoffmann, August Böckh: und Auswahl aus seinem wissenschaftlichen Briefwechsel (Leipzig

Schneider,

August

Boeckh:

— Altertumsforscher,

Universitdtslehrer

und

Wissenschaftsorganisator im Berlin des 19. Jahrhunderts. Ausstellung zum 200. Geburtstag 22. November 1985—18. Januar 1986 (West Berlin 1985); and Helmut Klein (editor),

“August

Boeckh

(1785-1876)

[sic!]

Forscher,

Hochschullehrer,

Zeitzeuge,”

Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 36 (1987) 1-70. For Ludwig Friedrich Heindorf (1774-1816) see Wolfhart Unte in Berlin und die Antike: Aufsätze, ed. Willmuth Arenhövel and Christa Schreiber (Berlin 1979) 11. Heindorf, the editor of Plato, whose name Diels misspells on the false analogy of Moellendorff, was

appointed professor for Greek at the newly founded University of Berlin in 1810, but in 1811, against his will and to the regret of his Berlin friends, was transferred to Breslau; for

his brief work there see Richard Bestehens der Universitat

Foerster, Festschrift

Breslau,

ed. Georg

zur Feier des hundertjährigen

Kaufmann,

II:

Geschichte

der Fácher,

Institute und Amter der Universität Breslau 1811-1911 (Breslau 1911) 381. He was already a dying man when he reached Breslau. For Eduard Meyer (1855-1930) see Christhard Hoffmann, "Eduard Meyer 25 January 1855—31 August 1930," Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia , ed. Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III (New York/London 1990) 264-76, and Eduard Meyer: Leben und Leistung eines Universalhistorikers, ed. William M. Calder III and Alexander

Demandt, Mnemosyne Supp. Vol. 112 (Leiden 1990) passim. His younger colleague was the Alexander-historian, Ulrich Wilcken (1862-1944): see Alexander Demandt, Berlin und die Antike: Aufsdtze, 87-88. 25 For Wilamowitz’ direction of the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum see Wolfhart Unte in Wilamowitz nach 50 Jahren, ed. William M. Calder III, Hellmut Flashar, and Theodor Lindken (Darmstadt 1985) 744—55.

Willliam M. Calder II

15

Diels is impatient. Jaeger will brook no rival young or old. There have always been two Berlin Hellenists. If he does not want von Arnim, he is going to get Kórte, whom he also does not want. If Eduard Meyer can work with a colleague, Jaeger can learn to. Diels' impatience was not lost on Jaeger. He replies by return mail and backtracks. 6. The letter is dated Kiel, 28 May 1921. ... einen bedeutenden Latinisten zu berufen habe ich nur aufgrund einer ÁuBerung Nordens (19.5) vorgeschlagen, wonach man keinen geeigneten Grücisten finden kónne. Die Berufung eines Lateiners schien mir immer noch besser als eine endlose Vacanz. Von der Möglichkeit, Arnim oder Schwartz nochmals zu nennen, wußte ich zwar durch Sie, da aber Norden nichts mehr davon schrieb, glaubte ich, dieser Gedanke sei aufgegeben worden. Inzwischen sehe ich aus einem Brief Nordens vom 24.5, daB meine Voraussetzung nicht richtig war u. daB

Schwartz u. Arnim nochmals genannt natürlich ganz einverstanden bin.

werden

sollen,

womit

ich

Der Irrtum, als wolle ich nicht mit Arnim zusammenwirken, ist dadurch entstanden, daß ich an N. schrieb, Reitzenstein?? u. Heinze?" würden sich mit ihm noch weniger decken als Arnim mit mir, womit gemeint war, daß ich ihm nichts Unmögliches zumuten wolle. Denn daB ich gegen Arnim kein Veto erheben würde, hatte ich Ihnen wie der Regierung gesagt u. auch an Arnim geschrieben. Ich bitte dies Mißverständnis durch nochmalige Einsichtnahme in meinen Brief aufzuklären, da es mir im hohen Maße peinlich ist. Nur in der

Annahme, daß man auf Arnim nicht zurückkommen wolle, habe ich Latinisten vorgeschlagen.*! Natürlich liegt mir weit mehr Erhaltung der Professur für das Griechische, wenn die Fakultät können glaubt. Es bedarf auch keines Wortes, daß ich Arnim vorziehen muß, der in einem 55jährigen Leben bewiesen hat,

an der dies zu Körte daß er

nicht die Kraft hat, etwas Großes zu schaffen, trotz aller Rührigkeit.?? Daß ich mich mit Amim

schreiben.

decke, ist zwar nicht zu leugnen, wie Sie

Auch im Ministerium hob man das sogleich hervor.

Unser

Zentrum ist Plato u. Aristoteles, unsere Kollegs waren bisher auch sonst die gleichen. Er hatte mich in Frankfurt für den Fall seines Fortgangs

auch

als Nachfolger

29 For Richard Reitzenstein (1862-1931)

in Aussicht genommen, see Wolfgang

Professor der klassischen Philologie 1914-1928," an der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen: Eine Göttinger Universitätsschriften Serie A: Schriften 39 For Richard Heinze (1867-1929) see Hellfried bio-bibligraphy and F. Klingner, Gnomon 6 (1930) 31 Not a convincing Erklärung. Everything we that he could not tolerate a rival.

was

gewiß

Fauth, “Richard Reitzenstein,

Die klassische Altertumswissenschaft Ringvorlesung zu ihrer Geschichte = 14 (Göttingen 1989) 178-96. Dahlmann, NDB 8 (1969) 447-48 with 58-62. know about Jaeger at this time shows

32 The fundamental Menander editions of 1910 and

1912, made under the close

supervision of Wilamowitz, are “nothing great.” Jaeger’s judgment is colored by his unspoken assumption that Menander is Trivialliteratur.

16

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered besser oder natürlicher gewesen wäre als eine Zusammenarbeit an derselben Fakultät. Aber alle diese Schwierigkeiten lassen sich wohl überwinden, wenn beide Teile elastisch genug sind, sich nicht auf gewisse Stoffe zu kaprizieren, sondern sie in gleicher Weise in

angemessenem Abstand voneinander behandeln.

Ich

möchte, falls A.

berufen wird, schon jetzt Ihre gütige Vermittlung in diesem Sinne erbitten. Sollte seitens des Ministeriums trotzdem nicht Arnim berufen

werden, so ist es für mich natürlich um so erwünschter, die Stelle vorläufig offen zu lassen, als ich dann später meine Meinung bei der Wiederbesetzung als Mitglied der Fakultät vertreten kann.

Jaeger delays until his last sentence what he really wants. It is neither Körte, whose work he underestimates, nor Arnim, of whose work he says not a word. His colleague should be chosen when he is able to dictate the

decision.

He will be the only Hellenist.

Diels and Wilamowitz will after

1 October no longer have a vote. Norden will do as he is told. 7. Jaeger writes his last preserved letter to Diels on 30 May 1921. reply survives.

No

...ich habe im Anschluß an unseren Briefwechsel über Arnim noch länger über die Gründe des Mißverständnisses nachdenken müssen, das in betreff meiner Stellungnahme durch Nordens Auffassung meines Briefes aufgekommen war. Sie wissen ja, daß Nordens letzte Absicht

keineswegs auf Arnim gerichtet ist, sondern auf Jacoby.?? Er wünscht daher Offenlassung des Lehrstuhls auf längere Zeit, bis die Historikerfragmente”* vorliegen.

An der Gewinnung Arnims ist ihm

33 Norden wished Felix Jacoby to succeed Diels.

for both Breslau. 1961) to “In jetzigen

The reason was not Judensolidarität,

were fully assimilated anti-semites. Jacoby had habilitated under Norden at Norden's choice of Jacoby explains a passage in a letter of Emst Bickel (1876Jaeger dated 28 July 1933: der Philologie aber sind Sie, lieber Jaeger, unser Führer, und gerade angesichts der Bewegung denke ich mit tiefer Dankbarkeit daran, wie Sie mich vor Juden und

Judenknechten jetzt vor 12 Jahren [sc. 1921) in Kiel errettet haben.

Ausserdem ist es Ihr

geschichtliches Verdienst, daß Sie die Berliner Philologie vor der Verjudung in der entscheidenden Stunde gerettet haben, die durch die Einfilzung Jacobys in den Berliner Lehrkörper und die Berliner Akademie rettungslos von statten gegangen wäre.” Bickel means that thanks to Jaeger he became Ordinarius at Königsberg on 30 July 1921: see Hans Herter, Gnomon 33 (1961) 637. He was thus saved from his archenemy, Jacoby, but also from Eduard Fraenkel, who became Ordinarius at Kiel in 1928. The

Judenknecht in the sense “servant of a Jew” rather than “Jewish servant” possibly is Julius Stenzel (1883-1935), a student of Jacoby at Breslau, who was married to a Jewess and became Ordinarius for philosophy at Kiel in 1925. Bickel seems not to know that Jaeger’s second wife was half-Jewish. In the same year that Jaeger removed Bickel from Kiel he prevented Norden from placing Jacoby in Berlin. For these acts the sycophantic Bickel thanks him in 1933.

¥ The first volume of FGrHist was published in 1923.

project at the Berlin Historical Congress on 6 August 1908:

Jacoby had announced the

correct Mensching, 90 n. 37.

Willliam M. Calder II

17

dagegen gar nicht gelegen, er kann nur nicht von sich aus dagegen sprechen. Ich werde den Gedanken nicht los, daß er aus meinem Brief jenes Misverständnis nur darum so eifrig aufgegriffen hat um “mir zuliebe” noch eine weitere Sitzung der Kommission zu veranlassen, wo beschlossen werden soll, die Offenlassung des Lehrstuhls als den vielleicht relativ glücklichsten Ausweg noch etwas stärker zu unterstreichen. Jedenfalls hat die irrige Vermutung Nordens, ich sei

gegen

Amim,

ihn in seinem Briefe von 26.5 zu folgendem

Satz

inspiriert: “Daß mir an Arnim, den ich so gut wie gar nicht kenne, nicht das Geringste gelegen ist, erwähnte ich neulich schon. Aber nennen Sie einen Besseren.” Ich teile Ihnen das nicht zu weiterer

Verwertung mit, sondern damit Sie die Stellung Nordens zu der Frage richtig sehen. Ich kann, wie ich schon schrieb, gewiß nicht von mir sagen, daß mir mit Amims Berufung ein Herzenswunsch befriedigt würde; aber das darf ich doch sagen, daß ich sachlich mit Freuden bereit wäre,

mit ihm

bereits

in

zusammen

anderem

zu wirken,

Sinne

wenn

festgelegt

die Regierung

hat,

mag

sich nicht

auch

manche

Unbequemlichkeit für ihn und mich dabei sein. Ich fürchte nur, daß bei der einmal vorhandenen Stimmung Nordens ein jeder von uns dreien seinen Weg für sich allein gehen würde. Aber daran ist wohl wenig zu ändern. Auf jeden Fall möchte ich nicht, daß die Kommission irgend etwas “mir zuliebe” beschließt, was ich nicht selbst klar und deutlich als meine Meinung ausgesprochen habe. Ich wollte, ich wäre schon in Berlin

u. könnte

selbst

die

Ansicht,

die

ich

habe,

vertreten,

dann

brauchte ich Ihnen nicht so große Mühe zu machen. Solange das aber noch nicht der Fall ist, vertraue ich mich Ihnen vollständig an und weiß, daß bei Ihnen meine Interessen am besten aufgehoben sind.

V. The Becker-Jaeger Letters

The Carl Heinrich Becker-Werner Jaeger Briefwechsel consists of 31 letters (11 of Becker; 1 im Auftrag von Becker; 19 of Jaeger) dated 24 September 1918 to 10 October 1932. The letters are in the possession of his son Professor Dr. h.c. Hellmut forschung, West Berlin. I am all and to my friend Professor first drew my attention to the

my behalf.

Becker, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsgrateful to him for sending me copies of them emeritus Ulrich K. Goldsmith (Colorado) who existence of the letters and then interceded on

The letters parallel the Althoff-Wilamowitz Briefwechsel.?5

There is, however, an intimacy between Becker and Jaeger not found

between Althoff and Wilamowitz. There one finds courteous respect. Even the Anrede is different: from the beginning "Lieber Herr Becker." This is not only because they are written a generation later. I do not know when 55 See William M. Calder III and Alexander Kosenina, Berufungspolitik innerhalb der Altertumswissenschaft im wilhelminischen PreuBen:

Die Briefe Ulrich von Wilamowitz-

Moellendorffs

(Frankfurt/Main

an Friedrich Althoff (1883-1908)

1989),

with

the

invaluable review articles of Edgar Pack, Quaderni di storia 33 (1991) 191—241 and W. A.

Schróder, GGA 242 (1990) 211-36.

18

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

they first met, but they were friends before Becker’s political apotheosis. As early as 20 December 1918 in a partially published letter to Stroux,

Jaeger describes? die herzliche Annäherung an den ganz vortrefflichen Personalreferenten Prof. Becker,

einen groBen

Hochschulreformer,

einen Menschen, der

dies Wort zu Ehren bringt.

He further notes that at this time he was invited “... in einer einfluß-

reichen Stellung ins Ministerium einzutreten.

Was natürlich abgelehnt

wurde." Who invited him, how official the invitation, we are not told. Becker, however, soon trusts him and even sends him documents to read

which he knows he should not send. In Steglitz they became neighbors and Shared a garden. Jaeger in his letters to Becker has quite a different political stance than in his letters to Wilamowitz. He writes Becker from Kiel on 1 December 1918: "Ich kann versichern, daB ich Ihr politisches Ethos ... vollkommen zu teilen glaube. Ich bejahe den Sozialismus, über die

Nuance bin ich freilich noch im Unklaren u. neige zur Skepsis gegen jeden Doktrinarismus." Jaeger in general was apolitical. This is clear in his historiography. Politics rarely appear in his letters. On 20th December he

wrote Stroux:?? Deutschlands

Zukunft hüngt

an der Sozialdemokratie.

Vaterland, Staat, Ehre hieB, haben wir verloren.

Was

bisher

Wir Jungen kónnen

aber bei diesem Weheruf nicht lange verweilen, wir müssen anfangen, aufzubauen, was wir im Herzen als Bild eines besseren Deutschland [sic] getragen haben.

The principal new texts are the following.

1. Ina letter of great importance dated 30 June 1919, almost two years before the offer was made, Becker promises Jaeger the Berlin chair. He

writes to discourage him from leaving Kiel for Hamburg:?* Wie die Dinge einmal liegen, kann es sich doch nur noch um einige Jahre handeln, bis Sie dauernd nach Berlin übersiedeln und es ist wirklich nicht empfehlenswert, noch einmal von neuem mit den Aufbau

zu beginnen, wenn man doch sicher weiB, dass er nur von kurzer Dauer sein wird.

36 Sce Mensching, 70. 37 [bid, 35 Cf. Mensching, 61: “...doch Jaeger bleibt in Kiel, möglicherweise im Blick auf die zu erwartenden Berliner Vakanzen..."

Willliam M. Calder II

19

The highest authority assures (“sicher”) Jaeger that he will in a few years be called to Berlin. Shortly thereafter Jaeger conferred with Becker in Berlin and visited him in his home. Jaeger was never adverse to flattery. ends do not justify the means, what do?

If the

2. Jaeger writes Becker 23 July 1919: Schon alle die Tage hatte ich Ihnen schreiben wollen, um noch einmal schriftlich meine tiefe Freude auszusprechen Uber das, was ich in Berlin in den zwei Tagen meines Dortseins erlebt habe. Ihnen so ganz

persönlich durfte ich eigentlich nur für die erhebenden Stunden des Aufatmens und der inneren Berührung danken, die Sie mir so unverdient in Ihrem Heim beschert hatten, aber was ist letzten Endes auch die große Τύχη in meiner beruflichen Arbeit, welche die Berliner Verhandlungen mir offenbart und mir zugesellt haben, anders als eine Epiphanie Ihrer persónlichen Ansicht und Einschützung meiner Wexgkeit. Die Griechen nannten das Göttliche, soweit sie es im eignen Schicksal wahrnahmen und aufs eigne Wohl und Wehe bezogen, Aaipov. Nur daß ich den Aaípov in der Begegnung mit ihnen so unleugbar empfinde, macht mich heiter und schenkt mir zu dem fast zu hohen MaB des Dankes, den ich Ihnen gegenüber dauernd fühle, die notwendige Unabhüngigkeit. Ich móchte lieber noch sagen: die Unabhängigkeit des Notwendigen.

The high point of Jaeger’s visit to Berlin was the epiphany of the God Becker. He did not decline Hamburg because of rumors of a new retirement

law.” He had a promise. 3. On 12 March 1921 not only Diels and Wende Jaeger. Becker did too:

wrote letters to

Lieber Herr Jaeger,

Sie werden mit gleicher Post die offizielle Berufung als Nachfolger von Wilamowitz durch Geheimrat Wende erhalten.“ Ich kann es mir aber nicht versagen, gleichzeitig auch meiner persönlichen Freude darüber Ausdruck zu geben, dass die Fakultät Sie mit dem wärmsten Worten dem

Ministerium präsentiert hat.*! In der Vorschlagsliste sind honoris causa an der Spitze Eduard Schwartz und Amim genannt, aber man merkt dem ganzen Tenor an, dass die Fakultät diese eigentlich für zu alt hält. Dann wurden Boll und Sie mit grösster Wärme vorgeschlagen. Es ist also 39 For details of the Hamburg call see Mensching, 70-75. 49 See above, note 16.

41 The contrast with Wilamowitz’ call in 1897 is obvious.

20

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered diesmal genau nach unsern*? Wünschen gegangen, und Boll und Sie

werden gleichzeitig berufen. Mit Ihrer Uebersiedelung nach Berlin erfüllt sich für mich ein grosser persónlicher Wunsch. Ich heisse Sie hier von ganzem Herzen willkommen,

und

ich

weiss,

dass

Sie

kommen

werden,

wenn

sich

vielleicht auch mancherlei innerlich bei Ihnen gegen Berlin strüubt.** Immerhin werden Sie hier auch noch die Ruhe zur Arbeit finden. Was am Ministerium liegt, Ihnen die Forschertitigkeit zu erleichtern, soll geschehen. Ueber das Wissenschaftliche hinaus freue ich mich aber

auch als Mensch ganz besonders, mit Ihnen in Zukunft in órtlicher Gemeinschaft leben zu dürfen, und ich bitte Sie nur schon heute, recht

oft den Weg zu mir zu finden. vom ganzen Herzen. In bekannter Gesinnung aufrichtig der Ihrige [Becker]

Ich freue mich auf Ihr Kommen wirklich

Jaeger has a friend at the top whose office door is always open. 4. The last preserved letter in the Becker-Jaeger Correspondence concerning

the Berlin appointment is Jaeger's reply. Kiel d. 15.3.1921. Adolfplatz 10/I Lieber Herr Becker!

Gestern erhielt ich mit gleicher Post zwei inhalt- und entscheidungsschwere Briefe aus Ihrem Ministerium, den offiziellen Ruf nach Berlin von Geheimrat Wende und Ihren freundlich warmen Begleitbrief, für den ich

Ihnen

ganz

besonders

herzlich

danke,

weil

er nicht

nur

den

Schlüssel zur Situation enthält und mir die Überlegung schon vor einer Rücksprache im Ministerium ermóglicht, sondern vor allem auch, weil er Imponderabilien von groBen Wert bereits jetzt in die Wagschale legt. Wenn trotz starker Bedenken doch auch manches für Berlin spricht, so ist darunter der Gedanke, von Ihrer Nühe ófter etwas zu haben, für mich besonders tróstlich: ich würde von dieser Gelegenheit sicher soviel Gebrauch machen, wie Ihnen nur eben recht ist. Was die Sache angeht, so ist sie freilich keine reine Freude. Der

Gedanke an eine solche Beschrünkung des natürlichen Willens zum Leben, wie sie Berlin für jeden Menschen von feinnerviger 42 Unless the pluralis majestatis, Becker and Jaeger had planned it this way. 43 This clears up once and for all the earlier ambiguity. The list was for two posts, the chairs of Diels and Wilamowitz. There were two candidates for cach. The seniores were there honoris causa. The lists was: 1. Schwartz and von Amim; 2. Jaeger and Boll. “ This was a topos familiar to classical scholars from Wilamowitz: see e. g., Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Erinnerungen 1848-1914? (Leipzig 1929) 239.

Willliam M. Calder II

21

Konstitution bedeutet, an die unerfreuliche Fakultütspolitik, die dort zuletzt getrieben worden ist, u. schließlich die näheren Umstände der

Berufung selbst machen mir die Annahme recht schwer. In ersterer Hinsicht enthält Ihr Brief nun ein wesentliches Moment des Trostes wenn Sie mir ein besonderes Entgegenkommen des Ministeriums in Aussicht stellen, um mir die Forschertätigkeit zu erleichtern. Aber die Schrecken der Fakultätsstreitigkeiten sind für mich sehr groß, da ich nicht in dieselbe Kerbe hauen kann wie Gustav Roethe. Endlich ist zwar die Liste ganz ehrenvoll für mich, wenn sie nach Männern von europäischer Autorität wie Ed. Schwartz und v. Arnim und einem so hervorragenden Mann wie Boll unter Umgehung einer ganzen Generation von lebenden Forschern—ich meine des mittleren Alters—

sofort mich den 32jährigen nennt, aber es ist doch nicht natürlich, daß sich ein Junger in Bresche stürzen soll, der, wenigstens nach eigener

Einschätzung,

wohl

hoffen

könnte,

messeneren Alter als erster berufen zu werden.

in einem

etwas

ange-

Es wäre mein Wunsch,

meiner Natur gemäß mich weiter zu entwickeln und keine mir fremden Aufgaben mehr auf mich zu laden. Berlin ist für eine solche Entwicklung sicher nicht der geeignete Ort. Unter diesen Umständen, deren offne Darlegung grade Ihnen gegenüber mir ein inneres Bedürfnis ist, schon bevor ich zur Verhandlung komme, muß ich mein Augenmerk besonders auf die Frage

der Besetzung des anderen Lehrstuhls richten.

An Boll einen Kollegen

in wahren Sinn des Wortes zu finden, würde einer der wenigen positiven Gewinne sein, der mit der Berufung für mich verbunden sein könnte. Leider ist die Aussicht nicht groß, daß er kommt, so weit ich a priori sagen zu können glaube. Ich habe ihm vertraulich u. offen geschrieben, wie ich über seine Berufung denke. Sobald ich weiß, wo ich ihn sprechen kann, werde ich hinreisen, ich habe ihm Berlin vorgeschlagen. Falls er meinen Brief vor seiner Abreise nicht mehr erhält, bitte ich mich

telegraphisch,

zu

über

seine

Anwesenheit

benachrichtigen.

Bis

in Berlin,

dahin

wenn

bin

ich

nötig

mit

verehrungsvollen Grüßen stets aufrichtig der Ihrige Jaeger

VI. How it Happened My study of Wissenschaftsgeschichte has convinced me that although merit, that is, influential publications of value, is indispensable, it is rarely decisive in academic appointments of importance. Walter Burkert has observed per litt. that the Wilamowitz-Althoff letters support the 45 For Gustav

Roethe

(1859-1926),

Berlin Ordinarius for Germanistik,

neighbor

and

former Göttingen colleague of Wilamowitz, see Briefe-Althoff, 79 n. 340, and Peter Miiller, “Mobilisierung der Wissenschaft: Über die Zusammenführung von Germanistik und Politik bei Gustav Roethe,” Zeitschrift für Germanistik 9 (1988) 558-71. Jaeger knew that his German nationalist politics had not endeared him to Becker.

22

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

unwelcome truth that departments and faculties require a ruthless tyrant devoted to excellence in charge to make them great.

Wilamowitz would

have been forgotten in Greifswald were it not for Althoff. Jaeger’s books certainly did him no harm.

Decisive for his Berlin appointment were three friendships. He may have lost a fourth. I wish at the end to summarize briefly what happened. The documents edited above, most for the first time, provide the

evidence for Jaeger’s greatest victory in his professional career. From this victory all his subsequent success derived, not least his Berkeley, Chicago, and Harvard appointments. On 12 March 1921 Jaeger secured for himself at age 32 the most prestigious chair of classics in the world. From his arrival

in Berlin in autumn 1907 he played his cards right. He made no student friends. Students were distractions and rivals. Good students like Karl Reinhardt were potential enemies.

War 1.46 The reason is simple.

Therefore, no friend of his fell in World

Jaeger was too selfish to have friends.

Women were different. They were not rivals and could be used.*7 Rather, Jaeger cultivated people in high places who could help him. This meant Diels and Wilamowitz and a lesser being, “a kind of mediator between us

and the semi-divine Dioscuri,”*® Norden. They got him grants and contracts with publishers like Teubner and Weidmann.

They placed his articles.

They secured for him the Basel chair in 1914, the Kiel chair in 1915, and the Berlin chair in 1921.

He had less respect for Norden.

Wilamowitz he

flattered, feared, and respected. Diels was closest. By 1921 he had also won Becker. The young Jaeger could be extraordinarily charming. And, much to his credit, he had no enemies that mattered. The hatred that Ernst Curtius, Kirchhoff, and Vahlen had borne Wilamowitz in 1896 was the obvious contrast. Curtius died at the right moment.

Althoff literally had to

form a new Institute for Diels and Wilamowitz and order Vahlen to write

Wilamowitz a Liebesbrief before the appointment was final.59 46 See Mensching, 68-69. Contrast how

the loss of sons drew Wilamowitz,

Diels, and

Eduard Meyer together, a loss all the more poignant because the war was lost. /nvictis victi victuri! “7 See Wemer Jaeger, Paideia I? (New York 1945) 22: “The real arcte of woman is beauty—naturally enough: men are valued by their intellectual and physical excellence." When Jaeger met a woman who was ugly and intelligent (Eva Sachs), he could not cope; see ICS 12 (1988) 206-07 with n. 16. 48 Jaeger, Five Essays (Montreal 1966) 63. His contempt for Norden is proven by his betrayal of his confidence to Diels. 49 See Friedrich Solmsen, GRBS 30 (1989) 128: “Once for all it must be said that to those not personally acquainted with Jaeger, it is impossible to convey the magnetism and charm of his personality." 50 For the details of Wilamowitz' call to Berlin see William M. Calder IIT, “Die Rolle Friedrich

Althoffs

bei den

Wissenschaftsgeschichte Althoff

Berufungen

von

Ulrich

von

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,"

und Wissenschafispolitik im Industriezeitalter:

in historischer Perspektive, ed. Bernhard vom

Brocke (Hildesheim

Das

in

‘System

1991) 251-66.

Willliam M. Calder III

23

Semper idem. The Berlin professor, as earlier the student, could not abide a rival. While we have no evidence that anyone at Berlin opposed his appointment (Boll was intended for the second chair), Jaeger opposed Arnim, Jacoby, Körte, Malten, Mewaldt, and Schöne and apparently every other candidate suggested between 1921 and 1927 for the second Greek chair. Diels died some eight months after Jaeger began to teach in Berlin. Norden

was a Latinist and so did not matter. With Wilamowitz there was a growing estrangement documented in the letters to Drachmann, Rehm, and others.

This certainly cannot be attributed entirely to Jaeger, who was always diplomatic. Seneca told Nero that no matter how many men he murdered, he could never murder his successor. Wilamowitz liked centerstage. In 1927 Jaeger at last agreed to the appointment of Ludwig Deubner (18771946)! He was older and less threatened. One sees this also in the fact

that his students became his friends in a way his fellow students never could. One thinks only of Richard Harder, Viktor Póschl, and Wolfgang Schadewaldt. Deubner could be dismissed as an archaeologist who knew Latin and specialized in Attic cult, a thoroughly antiquarian part of the

Greek past. That is: what he did was trivial. I suggest, although I cannot yet prove it, that there may have been pressure by the Government, to which Jaeger thought best to yield, to take Deubner. Nilsson notices that the Riga German was fluent in Russian and received the iron cross for his service in World War L5? Jaeger spoke to me once about favoritism shown Deubner at Berlin. The reason was not a scholarly one but because he had broken the Russian military code and

thereby insured the German victory at Tannenberg (26-30 August 1914). This victory saved Germany from foreign invasion during World War I and assured the political career of the victorious commander-in-chief Paul von

Hindenburg.

Deubner certainly received his Berlin appointment during the

Hindenburg Presidency. Jaeger's fifteen years in the Berlin chair will be treated by others, his Aristotle books, Paideia, and the Third Humanism. So will his subsequent

American period. He resigned his Berlin post effective 1 September 1936, rather than divorce his second wife, who was half Jewish. He received a letter of thanks dated 12 November 1936: Ich entlasse Sie auf Ihren Antrag seit Ende September

preußischen Landesdienst.

1936 aus dem

Ich spreche Ihnen für Ihre akademische

Wirksamkeit und dem Reich geleisteten Dienste meinen Dank aus.

5! For Deubner see Martin P. Nilsson, Gnomon

the necrology. 52 Ibid.

12 (1949) 87-88.

Jaeger did not write

24

Wenner Jaeger Reconsidered

It is signed by Adolf Hitler. Another name is there. I wonder if Jaeger ever

knew that it belonged to the cousin-in-law of Wilamowitz.5? It is Hermann

Goring’s.4 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

53 For prosopographical details see CP 66 (1971) 115. This note is not known because Mde J. Emst forbade its inclusion in L’AnnPhil. 541 cite the transcription of Daniel Ramseier (Basel). On 26 April 1991, when Dr. Anton Bierl sought to copy the letter, it “could not be found.” For the special preference granted Jaeger by the Nazi government see Volker Losemann, “Nationalsozialismus und Antike: Studien zur Entwicklung des Faches Alte Geschichte 1933-1945," Historische Perspektiven 7 (Hamburg 1977) 43. I wish to express my gratitude to Herr Ramseier for detailed information concerning the Jaeger Nachlaß at Harvard. I hope that his catalogue will soon be published. I thank again Dr. Dietrich Ehlers (Berlin), whose transcriptions of the Becker, Diels, and Jaeger letters I have used.

The transcriptions from the Stählin-

Wilamowitz letter (n. 7) and the Norden letter are my own. Dr. Anton Bierl (Munich) has carefully read my penultimate draft. Mr. Michael Armstrong has saved me from error. I thank both scholars.

The Historian as Educator:

Jaeger on Thucydides

MORTIMER CHAMBERS I. An Approach to Thucydides Jaeger’s Paideia, volume I, is a survey of elite thinkers and writers within Hellenism from the beginning—that is, from Homer—onward. As is right, the book has a strong historical orientation. Jaeger had not yet reached his discussion of Plato, the great intellectual figure of the fourth century, so it is also fitting that he ended his first volume with a chapter on Thucydides, whose life practically closes out the fifth century.! T. B. L. Webster found this chapter one of the best, if not the best, in the whole book:? it combines exact analysis of the text with sweeping treatment of philosophical and political thought, and it concludes with several lofty pages on the leader in whom Jaeger could find an elite social standing, humanistic intellectual training, and the kinds of discipline and enterprise that have always appealed to German scholars—Pericles. We are fortunate that the chapter on Thucydides is written by such a great Hellenist, who could effortlessly bring to bear a connoisseurship of all

Greek literature and, even more, was looking beyond the merely historical dimension toward underlying themes of Greek thought in the widest sense. It may be that War, suffer a contemplative Thucydides, we

the historical information, the facts of the Peloponnesian little from Jaeger's attention to other things in his survey; but one could argue that, when we turn to are on the whole less interested in the events of the war than

in his enhancement of them through the judgments, analyses, and debates that surround the story itself. Moreover, Jaeger keeps his eye perceives as the historian's larger purposes, to construct philosophy and to make his book an education for readers centuries, even as his orator Pericles called his city an education

on what he a political through the for Greece.

! Thucydides lived until at least 399 B.C: he summarizes the career of Archelaus of Macedon (d. 399) in language that suggests that Archelaus was no longer ruling: 2.100.2. Perhaps the historian lived for a few years after writing these words. ? CR 48 (1934) 177; cf. R. G. Austin: “an admirable chapter on Thucydides as a political thinker,” JHS 55 (1935) 259.

26

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

By concentrating on such broad themes, Jaeger can with justice leave the study of military, diplomatic, and chronological facts to others. II. The Historian and His Purpose Jaeger first raises a basic problem, seeking the process by which Thucydides became a historian. He finds it unlikely that Thucydides had been studying

history like a young scholar who then found his theme, the topic for his dissertation, as we say to our students, when the war broke out. Jaeger would seem to be right in finding such an explanation more suitable to a modern historian than to a politician and admiral of the fifth century. It must indeed be, as Jaeger says, the war that made Thucydides a historian. Therefore the historical digressions in his work are not like those of a modern historian, constructed to make the narrative more nearly complete; rather, they are essays that explain the importance of certain past events as seen from the present.

The “Archaeology,”? the review of the earliest Greek history at the

opening of book 1, is an example of this kind of interpretation of the past from the vantage of the present. As Jaeger points out, the analysis is built on a Series of inferences drawn by a man of the fifth century. With sharp insight, Jaeger refers to Minos of Crete, who supposedly cleared the seas of piracy so he could bring in his tributes more securely, and recognizes that Thucydides divined Minos’ motivation from the action of the Athenian fleet of his own day.* Most important, in the Archaeology, is the question of power. The only interesting thing about those far-off ancient societies, which were hardly “states” in Thucydides’ eyes, was whether they had the ability to wage war: a criterion that a modern reader may find restricted and perhaps even depressing, but Jaeger rightly observes that Thucydides looks

at the past through the eyes of a fifth-century Athenian politician.5 Jaeger draws a pregnant distinction between Ionian and Attic thought. Ionian scientists practiced disinterested theoria, contemplation; but no Athenian saw any purpose for knowledge but as a guide “to right action,” “zum richtigen Handeln.” This key to Thucydides’ thought would lead Jaeger, later in his essay, to emphasize the historian’s attention to political realism, stark power politics. Only effective decisions count, and a state can survive as a leader in external affairs only through the efficient, dispassionate management of power. Jaeger refers to Thucydides’ theory that future events will resemble those of the past, in accordance with the unchanging nature of to

anthropinon, even if they do not repeat them; his first proclamation of this 31.1-19. * Thus he could receive his tribute more securely, just as the Athenians wanted to. 5 Paideia

I (ed. 2, Berlin

Auflage”) 484.

1935;

I have used the reprint, Berlin

1959, called “vierte

Mortimer Chambers

view occurs in the “Programm” chapter.®

27

For Jaeger, this idea is the

absolute opposite of the modern historical attitude, since the modern historian tells us that history never repeats itself. I am far from wanting to make Thucydides a colorless imitation of a modern historian, or to remove him from the Greek intellectual context in which Jaeger skillfully places

him, but I think Jaeger overlooks the most profound similarity of views between historians across the ages. The historian pays attention to individual events, and for this was criticized by Aristotle, who said that poetry was more philosophical than history precisely for this reason, that poetry tends to speak of universals and history of particulars. Yes, historians need particulars to tell the story, but they are interested in particulars only so far as they have something general about them, or something that can potentially be part of a generalization. As a great modern historian perfectly expressed it, “The historian is not really interested in the unique, but in what is general in the unique." There is every reason to apply this statement to Thucydides, who constructed his work to be a paradeigma to historians, politicians, indeed all future readers. As Jaeger said, this gives the work its attraction, because it is imperishably

contemporary.$ The Jaeger is unless it work as

kind of instruction Thucydides wanted to give was political: again perfectly right. Mere historical understanding would remain inert led to political action. Thucydides' emphasis on the utility of his a guide to the future would even lead Collingwood to wonder

whether Herodotus, who was interested in the past for its own sake, was

perhaps the truer historian. One of the supreme examples of a political leader in action was Themistocles. In his discussion of Themistocles, Jaeger says that Thucydides describes him as a new type of man, "als neuen Typus." Now Thucydides does not really say this,’ despite his praise for Themistocles' ingenuity and lightning-fast ability to master and expound any situation—praise that he does not award even to Pericles. Rather than portray Themistocles as a new kind of man, Thucydides simply says that he surpassed all other men of his time. Jaeger was too accurate a scholar, we might well think, to import something into a Greek text that is not there: so why does he do so? It is clear that he wanted political thought and theory to contribute to the shaping of behavior. Certainly that is what Plato and Aristotle, two of his intellectual heroes, thought they could do if thcir laws ever became

active and efficient in the world. $ 1.22.4. 7 E. H. Carr, What is History? (reprint: 8 Gilbert

Highet's

translation

(Oxford

They too would have created a new

New York: 1939,

Vintage Books, 1961) 80.

etc.), through

which

I came

to know

Paideia, is excellent in turning Jaeger’s Germanic prose into idiomatic English, but his “actuality” (p. 389) does not quite render Jaeger’s Aktualität (p. 487): “contemporaneity.” 1.138.3-6.

28

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

“Typus” of human being. It would seem that Jaeger was influenced here by the motive that inspired the subtitle of his book in the original German, “Die Formung des griechischen Menschen,” surely a more powerful and heavily fraught phrase than Highet’s rather innocent “The Ideals of Greek Culture.” Jaeger later declared his allegiance to the principle of “forming” people, saying that “the promethean urge to fashion men, which comes to us from antiquity, is and remains the root of all classical scholarship.”!°

The aim of all the Greek thinkers in all three volumes of Paideia is to shape, mould, train other human beings; something, he evidently thought, had performed this kind of “forming” work on Themistocles and had thus made him a new kind of man. III. The Speeches and their Function

On the perennial problem of the speeches in Thucydides, Jaeger adopted a clear and radical position, perhaps impatient with the never-ending debate among those who think they have at last found the only right interpretation. It was, for him, a hopeless task to search the speeches for traces of what was

actually said. More dogmatically, he assured us that many of the speeches given us by Thucydides were never delivered at all, and most of the genuine ones were delivered in completely different style, "ganz anders," from their present form. Perhaps he was also reacting to a recent book on Thucydides

in Germany:

Fritz Taeger!! had found in the speeches the actual record of

the thoughts of the various speakers.

For this, and for other reasons, he was

slaughtered in Gnomon by Eduard Schwartz, who convicted Taeger of lacking all understanding of Greek historiography.!? The speeches, Schwartz stated, bore only the most distant relation to reality. A. W. Gomme, a British scholar whom some might find too positivistic, came to

Taeger's defense a decade later,!? pointing to Thucydides' pledge to stick as closely as possible to the general sense of what was really said on each

occasion.!4 Jaeger would probably have had little of Gomme’s theory. He did not deny that the speeches contain an “approximate general sense,” but they are above all the mouthpiece of Thucydides the politician—or, better, political thinker. Yet I think Jaeger did not express himself with perfect clarity. He goes on to say that Thucydides thought one could perceive the principles and motives of each party and could portray them in speeches to the assembly or even within four walls, as in the Melian dialogue. He made each actor or 10 Jaeger, Five Essays (Montreal 1966) 42 (from the Introduction to his Scripta Minora [Rome 1960]).

H Thukydides (Stuttgart 1925).

12 Gnomon 2 (1926) 65-82.

13 Essays in Greek History and Literature (Oxford 1937) 156-89. 1.22.1.

Mortimer Chambers

29

party speak in accordance with his or its political attitude and point of view. I find this position wholly persuasive, but it seems to mean that the thoughts in the speeches are not Thucydides’ own ideas, rather his conception of the ideas of others—his speakers and characters. I would therefore venture this small adjustment of Jaeger’s words. Thucydides said, “I have made my speakers say ta deonta”; and to Jaeger ta deonta means neither “the best possible arguments” nor “what they must have said,” but

what the character and policy of a speaker in the given situation logically demanded; this formulation can hardly be improved. IV. The Development of Thucydides’ Thought An

important part of Jaeger’s essay concerns

the “Thucydidean

Question,” the one discovered by F. W. Ullrich!5 and taken up by many another German scholar: the problem of the stages in which the historian composed his work. Early in book 1 Thucydides raises the question of the causes of the war and far outstrips Herodotus in the complexity and subtlety of his explanation. war-guilt—which

Where Herodotus had worked with simple questions of party had committed an offense that called for

retaliation—Thucydides raises the treatment of the question to an entirely new level.!6 He borrows part of the notion of deeper causation language of medicine (using the much-discussed word prophasis), medicine that first distinguished between symptoms and underlying Jaeger sees the war as arising, not from matters on which

from the for it was causes. guilt or

innocence can be declared, but as “the result of a process, extending over years, that was both irresistible and conditioned by a higher necessity.”!? This sentence, with its Hegelian overtones, could have been written only by a German. And we may well ask whether the judgment expressed in it is right. Nowhere, in my opinion, does Thucydides say that the outbreak of war was inevitable. He does say that the “truest explanation”!® was that the Spartans feared the growth of Athenian imperialism and were finally

compelled to make war; but he also clearly sets forth the immediate causes (the alliance with Corcyra; the siege of Potidea), the last straws, as it were, that finally made Sparta ready to accept war. A state may reach a point of tension with another that allows no alternative but to threaten or declare 15 Beiträge zur Erklärung des Thukydides (Hamburg 1846). 16 The differences between Herodotus and Thucydides as analysts of the causes of war are

excellently studied by R. Sealey, CQ n.s. 7 (1957) 1-12. 17«

das Ergebnis eines unaufhaltsamen und von höherer Notwendigkeit bedingten

Prozesses," Paideia 1, 492. 18 In my opinion, Thucydides

is giving, with the famous

phrase

ἀληθεστάτη

πρόφασις (1.23.6), his own personal explanation for the basic cause of the war; I have

tried to justify this view (which has been put forth by others) in a paper, "Comford's Thucydides Mythistoricus," The Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered, ed. William M. Calder

III, Illinois Classical Studies Supplement 2 (Urbana 1991) 61-77.

30

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

war; at that moment, owing to the decision of the state to stand firm, war

can be called inevitable. But this is something quite different from being driven by irresistible forces, higher necessity, and the like. There is nothing in Thucydides’ account of the causes of the war that cannot be explained in the everyday language of political and diplomatic history. Jaeger next determines the time when Thucydides reached his final judgment about the causes of the war. This must have been late in his writing career, after the whole war was over and he could look back on it

with proper perspective. The same ought to be true of the Pentecontaetia,!? the powerful, compressed essay in which he surveys the founding of the

Delian League and its ruthless transformation into the Athenian empire. Jaeger allows that Thucydides must have included the “immediate” causes of the war, extensively narrated in 1.24-88, in an early version of his work; this seems to him guaranteed by the “remarkable structure of this section"29 as well as by the high probability that the historian must have paid attention to the causes of the war in his first draft. The Pentecontaetia, by

contrast, mentions the destruction of the Athenian long walls in 404,2! which ought to show that it was written late. Even more, Thucydides refers

to the Atthis of Hellanicus as already written; indeed, it was partly to improve on Hellanicus' account, he says, that he wrote his excursus on the Pentecontaetia.~ Two fragments of Hellanicus show that he dealt with events as late as 407/406,” and it would be a safe guess that Thucydides

could not have read his Atthis until he returned to Athens after 404. Therefore several bits of evidence and reasoning combine to support Jaeger's solution to this much of the problem of the composition.” 19 1,89—118. ?0^die merkwürdige

Form

der Komposition,” Paideia I, 492—Jaeger at his most

obscure; this looks like a passage that itself lacks the final revision.

21 1,117.3; Jaeger cites (n. 36 to the chapter: the notes appear first in the second English edition, Oxford 1945) 1.93.5, which does not strictly refer to the destruction of the Long Walls (these ran from the city down to the harbors), rather to the visible thickness of those around the Piraeus.

22 1.97.2.

23 p, Jacoby, FGrHist 4 F 171-72. 2 A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides (with A. Andrewes and K. J.

Dover [Oxford 1945-1981]) 1.362 n. 2, 363 n. 1, cf. 6 n. 3, offers an interesting and subtle discussion of the relative dates of Thucydides and Hellanicus. He wants to believe that an “early 'cdition'" of Hellanicus appeared, that the Pentecontaetia excursus is “early, provisional, unfinished," and that the reference to Hellanicus (1.97.2) was not necessarily

written after 406. His points do not all seem equally convincing, but he does make one suggestion that should be probed. "Thuc. 1.89-96, within the Pentecontaetia, is much fuller in detail than the following chapters, 97-118, and is, to Gomme, the beginning of an unfinished rewriting of the whole excursus.

With

1.97.1

we come, on this theory, to

the original beginning of the excursus. On several of these points sce further H. D. Westlake, CQ n.s. 5 (1955) 53-67. Also for the “late” composition of the Pentecontaetia: E. Badian, Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views n.s. 7 (1988) 290 n. 2.

Mortimer Chambers

31

Having identified the Pentecontaetia as a late essay on the external causes of the war, Jaeger suggests that Thucydides added it to the fascinating scene in Sparta where not two, but four, speeches are delivered.> They include the one in which a Corinthian envoy contrasts Spartan sluggishness and torpor with the buoyant dynamism of the Athenians, and the Athenian reply in which an equally nameless speaker defends Athens’ acquisition of its empire. The debate in these chapters presents the psychological basis for

the rise of Athens, a sketch of the Athenian national character given by a reluctantly admiring enemy, and the defiant stance of the Athenian diplomat. Particularly striking, as Jaeger points out, is the Athenian’s insistence that

the city’s imperialism needs no justification, since it is only the working of inescapable necessity, laws of human nature. We know well, says the Athenian, that you Spartans would act the same way as we have done in the

same situation; we have done nothing remarkable in seizing an empire when it was offered to us; we have only obeyed a law of nature that we did not invent, a law that we found in the world and will leave to exist after us.” Thucydides says that the Spartans generally had the advantage in public opinion at the beginning of the war as they proclaimed that they intended to liberate Greece.7 But Jaeger shows that the role of tyrant and liberator had nothing to do with any permanent moral quality. You would do the same as we, say the Athenians, and so it proved at the end of the war, when

the

Spartans became the tyrants and threw away whatever good will they had:

another indication that this section was composed with the long perspective Thucydides had gained after 404.

The Spartans’ action, fulfilling the

Athenian prediction (as Jaeger might also have pointed out), confirms the prophetic sentence in Thucydides’ program-chapter, that events in history will be repeated, if not exactly, at least in much the same way. V. Power and Leadership The narrative of the war interested Jaeger less than the principles of Thucydides the educator. But one theme persists like a ground bass in music, the maintenance and use of political power. In interstate affairs the only standard is might, not right. The supreme example of Thucydides’ recognition of this necessity is, of course, the Melian dialogue. The Athenians coolly turn aside every appeal by the helpless Melians to justice

and compassion. Jaeger finds here the first frank statement of the principle that might is right, a principle discovered in the fifth century through the realism of Sophistic thought. He does not raise the question, which admittedly would be hard to answer but is still of supreme importance: Thucydides’ speakers recognize and state that it is naturally ordained that the 25 168-86. 26 1.75-76. 27.8.4.

32

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

strong will rule the weak, but did the historian himself think this was right, did he approve of this order in the world? The great student of Thucydides, Arnold Gomme, asked this question: he tried to make of Thucydides something other than a might-makes-right pupil of the Sophists, but (he

said) “I have not found many to agree with me.”

The final pages of the discussion treat the problem of leadership in the war. Here Jaeger mildly rebukes Hegel, who might have said that Athens’ defeat in the war was due to “eine tiefe historische Notwendigkeit,” because (as Thucydides shows) the generation of Alcibiades was carried away by individualism and lacked the discipline to master the problem.” But for Thucydides, in Jaeger’s opinion, the war was a problem for the politician to sort out through intelligence. His standard for leadership was the great

statesman who would have won the war, Pericles. There follows a highly respectful encomium to Pericles, along traditional lines. He could “hold down the rabble,” he had a sound and moderate foreign policy, he was a skillful orator. The whole picture of Pericles was, for Jaeger, worked up late in Thucydides’ career, when he could see the great leader in just historical perspective. Jaeger’s language here rises into clouds of sublime German rhetoric. The balance between an “überragender Einzelmensch" and the “politische Gemeinschaft" requires the existence of a “genialer Fiihrer.” Athens never again had “einen solchen Führer” after Pericles. And so on. The reader of the post-Nazi period simply cannot react with scholarly neutrality to such a vocabulary. Nor was the vocabulary itself only by accident heavily loaded with political meaning. Under the Weimar Republic

there was considerable discussion in right-wing circles (and among students and youth groups as well) about the need for a Führer who would rule with high authority and redeem Germany from its paralysis and impotence.? The word Führer, which Jaeger used throughout these pages, was immensely more powerful than the English "leader." It was not Jaeger's fault that this term had taken on such resonance; but his constant praise of Pericles, the

Führer, echoes with perfect harmony the right-wing thought of his epoch.?! 28 Op. cit. (above, note 24), 3.373, cf. 3.385.

® Paideia I, 505.

30 Among many discussions, see for example Walter Laqueur, Weimar: A Cultural History 1918-1933 (London 1974) 78-109 (the chapter "Thunder from the Right"). Quotations from various authors, all calling for a Führer and describing the virtually unlimited powers he should have, are assembled by Kurt Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik (Munich 1968), chapter 9, "Der Ruf nach dem Führer,” pp. 214-22.

31 In Italian journalism and television, a man like Libya's Khadaffi is called “il leader”; the word “duce” is not used. Hitler exploited the near-mystical power of the name Führer: not even old comrades called him Adolf or Du—simply "Mein Führer": Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer (Boston 1944) 368. In the late D.D.R., a driver's license was a “Fahrerlaubnis,”

while in West Germany it was a "Führerschein."

Mortimer Chambers

Even more:

33

Jaeger's essay in the journal Das Volk im Werden?? was

published in 1933, just as Paideia was going through the press. As Professor White points out in his paper, it would require an exact chronological knowledge of the events of 1933, including whatever went

through Jaeger’s mind during the year, to understand fully the relationship among this quasi-Nazi journal, Jaeger’s paper in it, and the elitist portrait of Pericles in Paideia. The paper contains phraseology deeply tinctured with Nazi rhetoric: “der Neubau der deutschen Erziehung,” “das historische

Geschehen unserer Zeit,” “die Grundeigenschaften einer Volksrasse.”?? The aesthetic development of the individual, which has (in Jaeger’s view) unfortunately held sway in education, is pejoratively contrasted with “das Leben der Gemeinschaft.” But the individual in Germany was, Jaeger thought, not sufficiently connected with society. The reason for this failure in education lay not in the classical authors studied in schools; it lay “in

dem gänzlich unpolitischen Charakter unserer Zeit.”*4 Now, therefore, just as classical Greek paideia led to the moulding of the Greek citizen, so now must German eduation mould the modem German: “Die besondere Aufgabe, die die Geschichte heute dem deutschen Volke stellt, ist die Formung des

politischen Menschen”:35 a phrase heavy with meaning, recalling the words that Jaeger used in this same year, 1933, as the subtitle of Paideia, “Die Formung des griechischen Menschen.”

Fortunately, the “third humanism” was there to leam the right lessons from the classics. It must seem strange to us that this patriotic, elitist approach to the classics should have been criticized by “der Nationalsozialismus,” but Jaeger reports such criticism and seems to have

written at least partly to show that the third humanism and its vision of Greek antiquity were reconcilable with the new political movement: thus it was “überflüssig, dafür alle die klaren Ausspriiche seiner Führer [i.e., Nazi

spokesmen] ausdrücklich zu zitieren.” The third humanism shared Plato’s conviction that the results of scholarship and the human

spirit are “zugleich immer politisch.”

The

dialogue between this humanism and right-wing theory of its time is documented by Gisela Müller in her dissertation at the Humboldt 32 “Die Erziehung des politischen Menschen und die Antike,” vol. 1, 43-49.

This

journal, which later called itself Zeitschrift für Geistes- und Glaubensgeschichte, is difficult to consult in America; the Union List of Serials registers a complete set, and the important first volume, only in the New York Public Library. 33 Here and there in Paideia 1 are blatant salutations to the force of “Rasse.” The "eingewanderte Herrenrasse" of Sparta (p. 139) is trivialized by Highet into “the conquering invaders.” 34 Op. cit. (above, note 32), 44. Here too Jaeger's German rhetoric is not clear: instead of “classical German culture” he must have meant simply German culture, as trained partly through classical studies, but without the proper political interpretation.

35 Op. cit. (above, note 32), 47.

34

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

University.3° Despite the author's mechanical Marxism, she brings together considerable material that is relevant to an understanding of Jaeger’s position. True political education was evidently for the elite; Plato had also contrasted elite education with the mere technical knowledge of shopkeepers. Even beyond Plato and his ideal state, the “Führergestalt” of Pericles was another model of statesmanship. Jaeger also pointed to Oxford and Cambridge, where the study of the

classics led to a useful political education; on average, British students had a better

grasp

of political

Fachstudenten,”

although

education

than

these latter were

the more

“unpolitisch

deutsche

skilled in “fachlicher

Ausbildung” than their British contemporaries. Not that the whole nation could be put through an Oxford-and-Cambridge discipline: it was the duty of the German Gymnasium, training a limited number, through the study of the two ancient languages, to lead the state to the proper kind of political education. So Jaeger’s paper was in some ways a rather conventional—and actually somewhat woolly—defense of classical education. One is willing to believe it was an effort to stake out a position for the classics in an uncertain

political climate: for no ordinary citizen in 1933 could have known just what direction the new regime would take—certainly not the crimes it would

commit.”

Yet the tentative willingness to support the revolution is

unmistakable. Nor was Jaeger alone among intellectuals in accepting the proclaimed program of the Nazis at face value. Felix Jacoby, a man whose Jewish ancestry made the Nazis much more dangerous to him than they were to Jaeger, also supported them in their early years and (according to good

information I have obtained)?® even encouraged his students before 1933 to join the Party in order to bring the right kind of people into it. My own memories of the kindly Werner Jaeger make it impossible for me to believe he was more than a tentative sympathizer with an announced—a professed—program to bring better organization and discipline to Germany in the 1930s. As the brutal truth about the Nazis' real intentions emerged, he went into exile, partly indeed to protect his Jewish wife, even though he continued to publish in Germany during the Nazi era. Thus in his essay on Thucydides he expressed his admiration for the military-political historian as a political educator: who can disagree? And, 36 Die Kulturprogrammatik des dritten Humanismus als Teil imperialistischer Ideologie in Deutschland zwischen erstem Weltkrieg und Faschismus (Berlin 1978, Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät), a work written in a delightfully quaint, now old— fashioned, style with obligatory quotations from Lenin and references to the "Reaktion gegen den revolutionären Weltprozess” and to "konservative bürgerliche Ideologen.” 37 Gisela Müller reasonably concludes that he wanted to show the regime "daß sein Humanismus akzeptabel sei, er vielleicht nur falsch verstanden wurde.

schon

bald zutage...kam.)”

(Da irrte er sich, wie

(Op. cit., 104.)

38 A letter from the late Gerhard Müller, a student of Jacoby in Kiel, later professor in Miinster and Giessen.

Mortimer Chambers

35

as a good German academic, he saw Thucydides and Plato as the supreme educators of the fifth and fourth centuries. His hope that they might

contribute to the “formation” of German youth in the 1930s now seems naive, but it is all too easy for us to criticize his lack of Thucydidean prescience. And we should temper our criticism with the memory of our own experience: American universities and their professors by no means set superhuman standards of political insight, justice, and courage during our far less threatening crisis in the late 1940s and the McCarthy era of the

1950s. University of California at Los Angeles 3 The sad story of how academics accused of communist sympathies were abandoned by their colleagues is told by Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York 1986).

The Case of the Missing President: Werner Jaeger and the American Philological Association JUDITH P. HALLETT In his study of refugee scholars in America, Lewis A. Coser concludes his chapter on the classics and Werner Jaeger by contrasting Jaeger’s German and American professional personae. Coser observes that “Jaeger at Harvard

showed no trace of the firebrand of his Berlin days. He was quiet, withdrawn from the public arena . . . Even though he was revered by his students and

influenced a number of them and was apparently much at ease in the Harvard Yard, Jaeger never attempted to reenact his previous public involvements.

He became a Stubengelehrter who rarely attended academic conventions unless they were held in Boston, and was never elected to the presidency of

the American Philological Association.”! William M. Calder III, to whose personal communications

and

published work Coser acknowledges a large debt at the beginning of the chapter on Jaeger, has recently made the same point about the difference between Jaeger in Germany and Jaeger in America. In his life of Jaeger in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Calder refers to Jaeger at Berlin as excelling in “popularization of his subject on a national scale.” Calder goes on to comment that “His energy, his organizational skill, his ability to delegate work to others..., and his flair for showmanship

worked wonders.” Yet Calder maintains that Jaeger, once at Harvard, “quickly learned that there were . . . great differences between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Berlin, and expectedly accommodated. From the start he was denied any political influence of the sort he had wielded from his Berlin throne. E. K. Rand informed him on arrival that Americans expected

Americans to run their departments .. . Within the profession he went

from leader to outsider."? The paper by Alessandra Bertini Malgarini in this volume, first presented at the international Jaeger colloquium in April 1990, not only 1 "Werner Jaeger (1888-1961) and the Impact of European Refugees on American Classical Scholarship," in Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Experiences (New Haven and London 1984) 276. ? "Werner Jaeger,” in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, ed. Ward W. Briggs and William M. Calder III (New York and London 1990) 218-19, 221.

38

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

shares this view of Jaeger’s professional conduct in America. It also attempts to place Jaeger’s behavior and attitudes in a larger historical context. Noting that “Jaeger enclosed himself (or let himself be closed?) in

his Harvard Ivory tower,” she then contrasts Jaeger with such fellow émigrés as Ludwig Edelstein, Kurt von Fritz, F. W. Lenz, P. O. Kristeller, and F. Solmsen, who “tried to understand and get closer to the new environment and fo take advantage,” citing him as one of the “others” who “did not even

try.’

A major Jaeger’s life: of career and had brought immediately

assumption, therefore, informs all three assessments of Werner that upon his arrival in the United States Jaeger pursued a type adopted an academic persona quite different from those which him renown in Germany. Such accounts assume that he (or at least immediately after taking the University

Professorship at Harvard in 1939) abandoned his former interest in what we might refer to as “academic politics,” not only inside his own department and university but also, and more importantly, outside. And at least one of these assessments finds Jaeger’s American professional conduct different from the behavior of other German classical scholars who found refuge in America. Furthermore, by remarking that Harvard University had invited Jaeger to deliver a lecture, in English, on “The Problem of Authority and the Crisis

of the Greek Spirit” at its Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences in 1936, Bertini Malgarini acknowledges that Harvard had itself recognized Jaeger’s distinctive strengths as an “extra-mural” academic politician prior to appointing him.* For Jaeger did not owe that invitation merely to his philological learning. Jaeger’s selection additionally testified to his experience and success at providing leadership to the larger German classics community—a group that numbered schoolteachers and the educated laity as well as university colleagues—and at serving in a public role as spokesperson for the values of classical humanism. Are these accounts justified in surmising that Jaeger sloughed off his former identity, an identity recognized and valued by Harvard itself, as soon as he obtained a secure academic footing on U.S. shores? Do they accurately infer that from the time of Jaeger’s arrival he was eager to take advantage of his situation as a newcomer largely unacquainted and

unconnected with his fellow professionals, with the aim of embracing a 3 Alessandra Bertini Malgarini, “Wemer Jaeger in the United States: One Among Many Others,” in this volume.

* Bertini Malgarini, in this volume. As Ruth Jaeger notes in her biography of her husband, “Werner Jaeger,” in Germans in Boston (Goethe Society of New England 1981) 19-20, Jaeger was officially invited to Harvard as one of “65 scholars from many parts of the world” to whom it was awarding honorary degrees; when Jaeger “made the hard decision to leave his native country, his friends and students and move his family to the United

States to take the position at Chicago,” “Harvard, which had also planned to appoint him, was disappointed.”

Judith P. Hallett secluded scholarly

existence rejected by him

39 in Germany?

That he

additionally differed from his fellow German émigrés, none of whom could lay claim to his former record of distinction as a public champion of the classics, in opting for an insistently non-public existence? In the discussion which follows I would like to dispute the contention that Jaeger underwent an immediate professional “sea-change” when he emigrated to America. I will particularly call into question two assertions: first, that “from the start he was denied any political influence of the sort he

had wielded from his Berlin throne”; second, that he, unlike many similarly situated émigrés, did not try “to understand and to get closer to the new environment and to take advantage.” I will do so on the basis of statements and correspondence from individuals who knew and worked with Jaeger during his first seven years as an American academic, of Jaeger’s own letters

and writings, and of official reports from the American Philological Association. My thesis will be that Jaeger’s transformation did involve a conscious decision to abandon several of his earlicr professional goals and interests, but that this decision did not coincide with his emigration to the University of Chicago in 1936 or even with his arrival at Harvard in 1939.

Rather, this transformation occurred several years after he joined the Harvard faculty.

What is more, Jaeger’s decision seems to have been prompted by

an unfortunate experience with the hierarchy of the American Philological Association, with American-style electoral politics and American-style prejudices, and with events that were completely beyond his control. I. Background: The Pancl at the Spring 1989 Meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States; the Letter from T. R. S. Broughton The issue of Jaeger's relationship with the American Philological Association first arose in connection with a panel which Lee Pearcy and I organized for the spring 1989 meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States in College Park, Maryland. Entitled "Nunc Meminisse

Juvat: Classics and Classicists Between the World Wars,” it featured personal reminiscences by seven classicists, for the most part from institutions in the mid-Atlantic region. All had been eye-witnesses to and participants in the changes which occurred in our discipline and profession in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. As part of our panel proposal, we prepared a brief narrative about this historical period and sent this proposal, along with a request for critical comments, to our prospective panelists. In the same mailing we enclosed

two items on which the proposal had drawn heavily. One was an obituary of Vera Lachmann of Brooklyn College, which had originally been written in German for an international audience of German émigrés. The other item

consisted of Coser's chapter on “Werner Jaeger and the Impact of European Refugees on American Classical Scholarship" and a footnote, containing a

40

Wermer Jaeger Reconsidered

letter written in 1919 to Harry Caplan of Comell University, from the

introduction to Coser’s book.5 After we learned that our panel had been accepted, we sent a follow-up letter both to our prospective panelists and a variety of individuals both

within and outside of the CAAS region. In this second letter we also asked for comments on our panel proposal, the Vera Lachmann obituary, and the excerpts from the Coser book, as well as reactions to several other questions. Among the individuals who responded to this second mailing was T. Robert S. Broughton, Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and formerly of Bryn Mawr College. In a letter of

April 7, 1989, he wrote, in response to a statement in Coser’s chapter: It is true that Professor Werner Jaeger “was never elected to the presidency of the American Philological Association.” In 1944, while the war was still on, he was nominated for the presidency in the regular fashion by the Nominating Committee of the Association. A number of members, who disliked having a man of German birth in that office

at that time, started a campaign to elect a rival (the election at that time was by mail ballots because so few could attend the annual meeting under war conditions) and persisted even against appeals from the leading senior members. To my great dismay and that of a large number

of us, they were successful in securing the election of Professor George D. Hadzsits of the University of Pennsylvania instead of the regular nominee.

The matter of Jaeger’s candidacy for the APA presidency did not come up for discussion at the actual CAAS panel session on April 29, 1989. But several months later, upon meeting the Jaeger researcher Daniel Ramseier at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., I inquired about this episode to see if Ramseier had acquired any information which might 5 The edited proceedings of this panel session, with introduction and conclusion by myself and Lee Pearcy, are forthcoming in CW 85 (1991-1992). Our panelists were Coleman

H. Benedict, Gabriele Hoenigswald, Henry Hoenigswald, Paul L. MacKendrick,

Mary E. Norton, James Poulmey, and Ethyle R. Wolfe. Thanks to the generosity of CW, the entire session was recorded on videotape: copies are available for the cost of the tape itself from the CW editors, Jerry Clack and Lawrence Gaichas, of Duquesne University. Jaeger is referred to in the contributions of Gabriele Hoenigswald (who points out that as a university student in Berlin she "attended Jaeger’s lectures on the early Plato"), Henry Hoenigswald (who comments that “though on the whole given a friendly welcome, newcomers like Jaeger, von Fritz, Solmsen, and Hermann Fraenkel remained at some distance from most American classicists, at least until they had developed students of their

own”), MacKendrick (who reflects, “It was my good fortune to be in touch with foreign scholars before World War II, and to benefit greatly—ironically enough—from Hitler’s unkindness to German Jews which brought me in touch with men like Frankel, Jaeger, and Solmsen [for many years my colleague at Wisconsin]”), and Wolfe (who recalls that the attempts by her émigrée colleague Vera Lachmann “to secure assistance from her former Berlin teachers and fellow students found Jaeger unresponsive”).

Judith P. Halles

41

substantiate or cast further light on Broughton's recollections. If I understood Ramseier's reply correctly, he answered that Jaeger's nomination had been aborted on grounds of its “irregularity,” since Jaeger could not

claim a record of APA membership or service which was as long or as distinguished as those of several American colleagues. Ramseier could not, however, explain why Jaeger had been nominated in the first place and did

not mention whether or not Jaeger had been defeated in the APA balloting. Nor did he consider the issue of wartime prejudice against individuals of German birth. At the Jaeger colloquium in Urbana, during an informal discussion about Jaeger's disinclination to sustain the high professional profile of his

Berlin days after his emigration to the U.S., I asked William M. Calder III, Robert Renehan, Alessandra Bertini Malgarini, and other participants about

this episode as well. None of them seemed aware of it, and several were surprised when I reported what Broughton had detailed in his letter. After returning from the colloquium and re-reading the Broughton letter, I decided to emulate my (and now my daughter's) childhood literary heroine, Nancy Drew, and investigate the matter further on my own. II. The "Official Story": Information on Werner Jaeger in the Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological

Association I first consulted the volumes of Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association beginning in 1936, the year of Jaeger's arrival in Chicago, to establish what this journal has recorded about Jaeger's involvement in the sponsoring organization, and to determine if these records corroborated Broughton's recollections about Jaeger's unsuccessful

bid for the association's presidency. Jaeger's name first appears in the Proceedings of the volume for 1936 (67) under the listing of the program for the annual meeting

in Chicago.

The

first session, held on Monday,

December 28, at 2 P.M., over which President George L. Hendrickson presided,

concluded

Humanism.”

with a paper by Jaeger entitled "Philology

and

Jaeger’s name and three of his writings, including “Paideia:

Die Formung des griechischen Menschen, 2nd edition," are found later in the Proceedings, in a section which lists the publications of each member

during 1936; later still, Jaeger is listed in the directory section as at “U. of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. (4554 Greenwood Avenue)" and as having joined in “1936. $ Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 67 (1936) xxviii, liv, and lxxviii. To be sure, a substantial number of APA members during that

period published little or not at all.

Nevertheless, the submission of a bibliographical

entry to the publications section, which Jaeger continued to do in subsequent years, seems to have been far from a routine practice even among the APA members who presumably did

42

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

The Transactions section of the same volume contains Jaeger’s paper, retitled “Classical Philology and Humanism.” It is an article of an extremely general nature, without any Citations of ancient texts or modern scholarship. The sole footnote states “I am greatly indebted to Professor

G. L. Hendrickson of Yale University for his extraordinary kindness in revising and condensing my article for publication. It owes much of its present form to his generous assistance.” Jaeger begins, moreover, with an unmistakable reference to the situation in his native Germany: “The

disruption of Western civilization which we are witnessing, with the rise of the doctrine that culture and knowledge are nationalistic possessions,

dividing group from group, rather than expressions of kinship binding the heirs of a common heritage into closer union, dismays not only disinterested

philosophers and educators, but men of foresight and good will in all walks of life...” The section on members’ bibliographical contributions in the 1937 Proceedings has seven items under Jaeger’s name.

translation of Paideia,

In addition to an Italian

a German book published in Berlin and Leipzig

(Humanistische Reden und Vortrdge), a review of Siegfried Reiter’s threevolume biography of F. A. Wolf in the Deutsche Literaturzeitung, and his editorship of “Neue Phil. Untersuch.,” these items include three written in English which appeared in American publications: the TAPA article on “Classical Philology and Humanism,” the Harvard Tercentenary lecture (in a

volume called Authority and the Individual), and a review of a book by Harold Cherniss in the American Journal of Philology. In 1938 his four bibliographical items include not only a German book published in Berlin (Diokles von Karystos) and a German article on the same topic but also two items published in and for the English-speaking world: the Sather lectures on Demosthenes, from the University of California Press, and “Greeks and Jews: The First Greek Records of Jewish Religion and Civilisation” [sic] in

the Journal of Religion.® publish: of the 37 individuals listed on Jaeger’s page in the directory example, only 7 have bibliographical entries in the earlier section.

7 TAPA 67 (1936) 363-74.

section, for

On p. 368, Jaeger notes that “In Germany the periodical

Die Antike has for the past dozen years presented in non-technical and attractive form the results of philological and archaeological research,” thereby referring to a publication which he had himself founded, in Calder’s words (218) “for pastoral work among the educated laity.” Clearly one of the purposes of this talk was to acquaint the American classical community with Jaeger's past achievements as a public spokesperson for classics

and the humanities. 3 TAPA 68 (1937) xlix and 69 (1938) Ixii-lxiii; the entry for Jaeger's Kurt von Fritz on xlvi of TAPA 68 shows a similar publication pattern: items are in English and in American joumals (CW and AJP); the other four in Philologus, Blaetter f. Deutsche Philos. and RE. By way of contrast, listed on xlvi of TAPA 68 under the name of Hermann Fränkel— who, unlike Fritz, was Jewish—are in English and in American publications:

course, was as a Jew forbidden publication in Nazi Germany.

fellow émigré two of the six in German and all four items Jaeger and von

CW and AJP.

Frankel, of

Judith P. Hallett

43

After only two ycars in America, then, Jaeger had not merely joined the APA. He had presented a paper at the very first annual meeting which he attended as a permanent faculty member of an American university. He had subsequently published the revised version in the official APA journal in such a way as to emphasize his gratitude to the 1935-1936 APA president. In the revised version he had called attention to his former successes in promoting classics to a wider public. While continuing to publish in

German and in Germany, and thereby availing himself of an opportunity denied to his fellow émigrés of Jewish background, Jaeger was, like his fellow émigrés, publishing in English. What is more, he was informing the American classics community about both his scholarly activities and his

longstanding commitment to promoting classics in the public arena through the professional vehicle of the APA.

Not surprisingly, Jaeger’s involvement in the APA soon intensified. The APA Proceedings for 1941, from the year before the United States declared war on Germany, list him as a member (with a term running from 1940 to 1945) of the Committee on Materials for Research. They also list him as one of the seven members of the Board of Dircctors. Jaeger’s fellow directors in 1941—-Walter R. Agard, Harold Cherniss, Cornelia Catlin Coulter, Benjamin Dean Meritt, Rodney Potter Robinson, and C. Bradford

Welles—were all American-born.

In those years the APA Nominating

Committee was composed of the five most recent former presidents still living. Those responsible, therefore, for Jaeger’s nominations to these posts included not only George Lincoln Hendrickson (APA President in

1935-1936), but also Hendrickson’s Yale colleague Austin Morris Harmon (president 1938-1939), William Abbott Oldfather of the University of

Illinois (president 1937-1938), Jaeger’s Chicago colleague Berthold Louis Uliman

(president

1934-1935)

and Jaeger’s

Harvard

colleague

Arthur

Stanley Pease (president 1939-1940). Henry Arthur Sanders of the University of Michigan, the APA president in 1936-1937, also served on

this committee after his term as president.? While the APA Proceedings for 1942 list Jaeger as a member of the

Committee on Materials for Research, they do not list Jaeger as a Director. The Minutes of the 1942 meeting, however, report that the meeting was

held in the Hall of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, adding in parentheses: “(The plans of holding a more elaborate meeting, comprising several sessions, at Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 28 and 29, were cancelled by vote of the Directors in conformity with a request,

addressed to learned societies generally, from the Office of Defense Transportation.)”

After noting that “twenty-three members were present, and two hundred and twenty proxies had been received from members not attending the 9 TAPA 72 (1941) iii and xi.

44

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

meeting” and summarizing the appointments to four APA Committees, the

Minutes state: The meeting then proceeded nominations were as follows:

to

the

President: Marbury Bladen Ogle First Vice-President (one to be elected): Second Vice-President (one to be elected):

election

of

officers.

The

George Depue Hadzsits John Garrett Winter Werner Jaeger

John Garrett Winter Secretary-Treasurer: Lucius Rogers Shero Editor: Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton

After listing those elected to the Board of Directors (a list which does not include Jaeger), to two Committees, and as Representative to the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Classical League, the Minutes state: The names with an asterisk had been placed in nomination by means of the procedure specified in the second sentence of the second paragraph of By-Law 29; the others had been submitted by the Nominating Committee. A communication from four members of the Nominating Committee, stating their belief that alternative nominations should be resorted to only in very exceptional circumstances, and a telegram from Werner Jaeger, one of the nominees for the office of Second VicePresident, expressing a desire to be allowed to withdraw his name, were read; and G. D. Hadzsits, one of the nominees

for the office of First

Vice-President, presented a statement explaining how it was that, after his name had been placed in nomination without his knowledge, he had been prevailed upon to allow it to stand... After the ballots of the members present at the meeting and the proxies had been counted, it was announced that the following had been elected: President, Marbury Blandon Ogle; First Vice-President, George Depue Hadzsits; Second

Vice-President, John Garrett Winter; Secretary-Treasurer, Lucius Rogers Shero; Editor, Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton . . .1°

Later in the same volume, the Report of the Committee on Materials for Research announces that “Groundwork is being laid for

a monumental

critical edition of the complete works of St. Gregory of Nyssa at the Harvard Institute for Classical Studies under the direction of Professor Werner Jaeger.” The Proceedings for 1943 also list Jaeger as a member of the Committee on Materials for Research. The volume later contains the announcement that “The Institute for Classical Studies at Harvard, under the direction of Professor Werner Jaeger, has prepared a complete catalogue of 19 TAPA 73 (1942) xii-xiii.

Judith P. Hallett

45

the printed catalogues of manuscripts. This has been reproduced by the authorities of the Treasure Room of Widener Library, where it is available

for scholars who may wish to consult it.” It next reports on the progress of the projected edition of Gregory of Nyssa mentioned in the preceding volume; it then states that “if it develops that any important European libraries have been destroyed during the war” the earlier suggestion to make “a census of photographs, photostats and microfilms of manuscripts and collations of manuscripts in American libraries will be all the more

pertinent... .”!! Nevertheless, Jaeger’s name does not figure in the roster of APA

Directors or in lists of APA Committees again. After his 1936 article on “Classical Philology and Humanism,” Jaeger never published another in the Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.\? Another curious detail warrants mention as well. The 1942 APA Minutes indicated that Hadzsits had been elected First Vice-President and Winter Second Vice-President, with the implication that Hadzsits would succeed to

the office of President and Wintcr the office of First Vice-President in the following year. Furthermore, the 1941 Minutes indicate that Winter had been clected Second Vice-President in that year: in other words, Winter

anomalously ran, and won, for Second Vice-President for two years in a row.

Nevertheless, the 1943 Proceedings list Winter as President and

Hadzsits as First Vice-President, restoring Winter to the place in the APA cursus

honorum which the 1941 Second Vice-President was ordinarily

expected to occupy two years later.!? Writing from memory almost fifty years after the actual events, then,

Professor Broughton had dated an episode which occurred in 1942 to 1944. He had referred to Jaeger and Hadzsits as candidates for APA President when in fact Jaeger and Winter had been nominated for, and Winter had been

elected to, the office of Second Vice-President. Broughton had implied, or so it seemed, that Jaeger had lost the election when he had withdrawn his name from the balloting. But Broughton had accurately represented the "gist" of the episode: Jaeger's nomination to a post in the APA cursus honorum which would assure his eventual assumption of the presidency; the

extraordinary circumstances of wartime which led to the meeting, with few in attendance, in Philadelphia; even the bizarre fact that whilc Hadzsits had not opposed Jaeger in the 1942 election, and had indeed defeated Winter for the office of First Vice-President, Hadzsits nonetheless switched places with

Winter and ended up occupying the office to which Jaeger, if victorious, 11 TAPA

73 (1942) xxi and 74 (1943) xv.

For the Institute see also Virginia Woods

Callahan, "The Harvard Institute for Classical Studies," CB

19.7 (1943) 49-50.

1? See H. Bloch, Supplement to the Index of the Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Volumes 1—100, 1870—1969, p. 49. 13 TAPA 72 (1941) iii, 73 (1942) iii, xii-xiii, and 74 (1943) iii.

46

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

would have succeeded in 1943.

Had Jaeger been elected Second Vice-

President in 1942, Jaeger would have been APA president for 1944-1945. An

issue

clarification.

raised

by

Professor

Broughton’s

letter

still required

As the excerpt from the 1943 Report of the Committee on

Materials for Research illustrates, throughout the war years the APA Proceedings make frequent reference to the political circumstances in Europe. The 1942 Proceedings report that the APA Directors unanimously approved “That anyone engaged in war service may, at the discretion of the

Directors, be continued in full membership without payment of dues, it being understood that only years in which dues are paid be considered finally in computations affecting life membership” and “That the Secretary be

authorized to circularize the membership of the Association at the present time to determine what members are engaged in war service and that the

results of the survey be reported in the forthcoming issue of Proceedings.”'4 Yet one finds no expression in those pages of what might be regarded as anti-German sentiment, particularly toward Germans now resident in North America. How widely held in the APA hierarchy were the feelings to which Broughton attributes the challenge to Jaeger’s candidacy? Are there other incidents in the history of the APA at that time which further document and

account for the prevalence and impact of such feelings? And might there be additional explanations for this electoral challenge? Another issue warrants reflection as well. Why had Jaeger stood virtually alone among his fellow German émigrés in rising, and rising rapidly, to positions of influence and visibility in the APA during the late thirties and early forties? The program of the 1936 meeting in Chicago lists a paper delivered by Kurt von Fritz; the directory of members lists not only von Fritz (then residing in Portland, Oregon) as having joined the APA that same year but also Hermann Fränkel (as at Stanford University and as having joined in 1935) and Friedrich Solmsen (as in Cambridge, England, and as having joined in 1936). The program of the 1937 meeting includes papers (both, admittedly, read by title) by von Fritz and Solmsen; that of

1938—held in Providence, R.I.—papers by von Fritz, Solmsen, Frankel, and Paul Friedlaender (the papers by Solmsen and von Fritz read by title, the 14 TAPA

73 (1942) xix.

Prior to the declaration of war, however, the Association does

not appear eager to criticize Germany directly. Iı should be noted that a paper entitled “Modern Germany and Antiquity" by Michael Ginsburg was merely presented by title at the 1937 meeting—so TAPA 68 (1937) xxvi. Ginsburg’s other publications for that year, listed on xlvii, include "The Jewish Menace,” in The Future; “Shadows over Soviet Russia," in The Nebraska Alumnus, and "Women's Emancipation in Ancient Greece" in The

Eleusis. The politically engaged outlook suggested by such titles and their public fora may have pervaded Ginsburg's comparison between ancient and modern Germany. In that event, it is possible that Ginsburg’s presentation struck the APA President for that year— Sanders of Michigan—and the other organizers of the APA program as too controversial for public delivery. Other information about Ginsburg suggests that he is a figure deserving of further investigation.

Judith P. Hallett

47

other two delivered orally).15 Jaeger’s performance at the 1936 meeting, like the published version of his paper, seems to represent his sole appearance on an APA program. Yet the leadership of the APA selected him, and not

these others, as one of their own. The prestigious nature of the posts which Jaeger occupied at Chicago and Harvard, and the presence of Chicago and Harvard colleagues on the APA Nominating Committee in those years, were bound to have played a role in his swift penetration of the APA’s inner circles. So were the

circumstances of Jaeger’s departure from Germany and the fact that he was not himself of

Jewish descent in an era when Jews were only beginning to

establish a foothold in the classics profession.'® But did his record as a professional activist in Germany also mark him among his new American colleagues as one particularly suited for such responsibilities? Assuming that the contents of the APA Proceedings represented only a

highly edited summary of organizational business, I next determined to consult the official correspondence and documents pertaining to the years 1936-1943 in the APA archives for further details. I thereupon phoned Harry Evans, APA Secretary-Treasurer at the time, to inquire into the nature and accessibility of such materials. I was dismayed to learn that the Association’s archives, currently housed at Columbia University, merely

date back to the mid-1970s. My expression of dismay to William M. Calder III, however, prompted the suggestion that I consult the correspondence of William A. Oldfather to Arthur S. Pease in the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Calder

observed that Pease’s extensive collection of papers is beautifully catalogued and easy to consult. What is more, since Oldfather served as president of the

APA in 1937-1938 and Pease in 1939-1940, there was a high likelihood that Oldfather’s correspondence would deal with Association business; indeed, as both joined the APA Nominating Committee right after they had

served their terms as president, both must have played a role in Jaeger’s nominations to the Committee on Materials for Research, the Board of Directors, and the Second Vice-Presidency. As Houghton also houses Jaeger’s own papers, a visit there would also enable me to consult whatever correspondence he himself received and preserved about these nominations. 15 TAPA 67 (1936) xxvii, Ixxiv-Ixxv, Ixxxix; on xciii it lists the German émigré Hans Julius Wolff at the National University of Panama in the Canal Zone and as having joined in "1937" [sic]. TAPA 68 (1937) xxvi; TAPA 69 (1938) xxvii. For H. J. Wolff (19021983) see Gerhard Thür, ZSS 101 (1984) 476-92. 16 For the barriers that had confronted Jewish classicists in the U.S. prior to this time, see the letter to Harry Caplan cited below, note 21, as well as Donna Hurley, "Alfred

Gudeman," TAPA 120 (1990) 360 ff.

48

Wermer Jaeger Reconsidered IIl. Correspondence to Arthur S. Pease and Werner Jaeger on Matters Concerning the American Philological Association A. The 1942 APA Nominating Committee: Pease, Oldfather, Hendrickson, Harmon, and Sanders

The letters from Oldfather to Pease did not prove to be as helpful as I had hoped. But they nonetheless contained some valuable information about Jaeger's professional image in the years after his arrival in the U.S. In a letter written during the first months of his term as APA president which was dictated on February 14 (and typed February 21), 1938, Oldfather reflected on the content of the APA program by ruminating: With all this in mind it occurs to me that one might have one meeting devoted to a conference on the place of the Classics among the Humanities in our general American culture, and what values might be emphasized in the present period of strain and transition. Of course only our best men would be worth listening to on such topics, but perhaps some of them could be secured. I think of people like Rand, Hendrickson, Nock, Jaeger, Prescott, Cooper, Norwood...

Oldfather's comment, therefore, indicates that less than two years after Jaeger had assumed his post at Chicago, and a little more than one year after Jaeger had presented his paper on “Philology and Humanism” at the 1936 meetings in Chicago, Jaeger had already established himself—in the eyes of a pillar of the APA and American classical establishment—as an authority on the values of classical humanism in “our general American culture.” Oldfather, himself German-educated and German-speaking, surely based his judgment on Jaeger’s impressive public achievements in Berlin. More

importantly, though, Jaeger had clearly been accepted by Oldfather (and was being described by Oldfather to Pease) as one of “our best men.” Oldfather’s correspondence with Pease, however, only makes one explicit reference to Jaeger as a candidate for APA offices. In a letter of July

3, 1942, he justifies his decision to vote for Rodney P. Robinson rather than Jaeger for the nomination to the Second Vice-Presidency: In particular I think that moving Robinson up to the second vicepresidency will cheer him a good deal, in his present poor state of health, and of course Jager [sic] can wait a little while, since he is

certain of the presidency anyway in due course.!?

17 Robinson, at that time dean of the graduate school at the University of Cincinnati, had received his Ph. D. from

Oldfather’s own

institution, the University of Illinois.

lived, ironically, until April 1950, surviving Oldfather himself by five years.

He

Judith P. Hallett

49

Presumably Oldfather addressed most of his thoughts on Jaeger’s

candidacy, at least in 1942, to the chair of the Nominating Committee that year, George L. Hendrickson. At least the topic looms most large in Hendrickson’s letters to Pease from June 1942 through January 1943. There

is also reason to assume, from Oldfather’s acceptance of Jaeger as “one of our best men” who was certain to attain the APA presidency, that he and Hendrickson, whose professional ties with Jaeger have already been and will again be discussed, together played a major role in Jaeger’s selection for leadership in the APA. Indeed, we should attribute to Hendrickson primary responsibility for Jaeger’s nomination to the Second Vice-Presidency in

1942. On June 5, 1942, Hendrickson wrote to Pease on the eve of his departure for his summer residence at Chebeague Island, Maine. After regretting that he would lack “facilities for proper correspondence” during his absence from New Haven, and after claiming that he had just learned that he

was chair of the APA Nominating Committee, Hendrickson remarks: This circumstance has caused me to depart somewhat from the usual procedure which has been followed in the past in nominations from the several members of the Committee.

collecting That is, I

venture in this letter to submit a tentative ticket, which I have made up

in consultation with my colleagues Harmon (himself a member of the Committee) and Sturtevant... President: Ogle (now First Vice-President) First Vice-President: Winter (now Second Vice-President)

Second Vice-President: Werner Jaeger or Rodney Robinson An undated note in Pease’s hand stating his preference for Jaeger as Second Vice-President responds to Hendrickson’s letter, or at least to a letter from Hendrickson, by now summering on Chebeague Island, dated June 22,

1942.

In this letter Hendrickson asks Pease and the other Committee

members—Harmon, Oldfather, and Sanders—for a formal ballot in view of the objections raised by Sanders: For the office of Second Vice-President, no other names than those of Messrs. Jaeger and Robinson have been suggested, and on the returns the scale balances evenly between them. If an additional Director

should be necessary in the case of the nomination of Professor Jaeger as Vice-President, there are three votes for Professor Semple.

This letter, then, explains the disappearance of Jaeger’s name from the roster of APA Directors in 1942: it was assumed that he, running without

Opposition, would advance to the triad of offices culminating in the APA presidency.

Hendrickson wrote to the Committee again on July 7, 1942,

with the results of the ballot:

three votes for Jaeger, two for Robinson.

50

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

From Pease’s note, we may assume that he, Hendrickson, and Hendrickson’s colleague Harmon supported Jaeger. Oldfather’s letter to Pease of July 3 and later references by Hendrickson to Sanders indicate that they cast the two

votes for Robinson.

It merits notice that the minutes of the 1942 meeting

in Proceedings announce that Robinson had been nominated as Chairman of

the Committee on Materials for Research, on which he had served since 1938 and to which Jaeger also belonged; Proceedings for 1943 list Robinson

as the Second Vice-President for 1943-1944, But in the summer of '42 Hendrickson and his committee had every reason to assume that their slate would be elected at the APA meeting scheduled to take place in Cincinnati that December. Their expectations about the circumstances of both the forthcoming election and meeting were

not to materialize. In a letter received on November 30, 1942, and dated ca. November 28, Hendrickson reports to Pease about a communication from

Lucius R. Shero of Swarthmore College, Secretary-Treasurer of the APA. Shero writes that an alternative ticket has been prepared under the leadership of Kraemer affecting only I understand the First and Second Vice-Presidents naming Hadzsits as First Vice-President and demoting Winter to Second Vice-President. He does not say whether this plan looks to the benefit of Hadzsits or the elimination of Jaeger. I have written for more information. The strangest part of the matter is that (according to Shero) the authors of the movement had written to Jaeger about it. Would you feel like asking him about such correspondence? I have no feeling about the presentation of another ticket, but I should have considerable if the motive looked toward the elimination of Jaeger as possibly a foreign-enemy alien or anything of that sort.

Casper John Kraemer, Jr., of New York University, had been elected to the Board of Directors along with—inter alios—Ogle, Robinson, and Winter in 1938. His name does not figure in the minutes of the 1942 APA meeting detailing the outcome and circumstances of the election of officers. Yet it does appear later in the same volume of the Proceedings, once in

connection with the report of a special committee chaired by Pease himself “to suggest possible changes in organization” of the APA.

Hendrickson

refers to that committee in his next letter, of December 3, 1942. Here, after expressing interest to learn that Pease was also “in the dark

about the origins and purpose of a statement proposed by Kraemer et. al.,” Hendrickson writes: The whole business seems to me inconsiderate and tactless, not only for Jaeger but also for Hadzsits. I enclose a copy of a letter which I have sent Jaeger and I am almost inclined to send one to Hadzsits himself. My letter to Jaeger will not add much of importance to you, but I should like to know whether it contains anything that would be serviceable for your committee. I regret very much that you cannot be

Judith P. Hallett

51

present at the Phil. meeting and I wish you could revise your decision

about attending.

If the voting is done by proxies I have no doubt that a

group so energetic as Kraemer and his associates will be able to carry their ticket. I at all events am in no position to conduct a counter campaign, not only with no taste for it but also without the necessary stenographic assistance not to mention the disturbance of work in which I am engaged. Would you think some sort of restrained protest against the procedure would be useful? or desirable? Sanders, by the way, scarcely had a hand in it—at least the list of signers shows no trace of Michigan names. In a letter dated December 13, 1942, Hendrickson informs Pease: Hadzsits’ letter is a bit puzzling and I'm not quite sure what he means by “extraordinary proceedings,” for it scarcely seems credible that he was entirely ignorant of the whole business. He exaggerates a little about my “belief in his innocence-ignorance.” I took it for granted that he was cognizant of the matter, but I implied (as I think is true) that he was quite innocent of any share in the organization of the

movement.

Pease’s file contains a letter from Hadzsits, dated December 17, which Hadzsits identifies as a copy of the letter which he had sent to Hendrickson “because

I very

much

wish

you,

as a member

of the Nominating

Committee, to know of my utter lack of knowledge, at that time, of the activity of the group of my friends who are responsible for having my name

appear on the ballots of the APA.” Hadzsits relates that he wrote Shero to see if the ballots could be held up, but Shero had printed them on the assumption that Hadzsits was aware of the situation.

He states “I deeply

regret that I was not consulted in advance,” offers the possibility that he might withdraw from the election entirely “but it’s perhaps too late,” and adds “I did wish you to know the whole truth.” Presumably Hadzsits made much the same argument in the statement, described in the 1942 APA Proceedings, explaining how his name had been placed in nomination and he had been prevailed upon to allow it to stand. Hendrickson then sent Pease a further communication, dated December 21: From Shero’s announcement it appears that there is no place or time to ask for a mail vote of the whole Association and I fear we must resign ourselves to being beaten at Phil. meeting [sic]. I enclose a statement worded as if from the Committee.

This statement must be the “communication from four members of the Nominating Committee, stating their belief that alternative nominations should be resorted to only in very exceptional circumstances.” These

52

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

members would appear to be Hendrickson, Harmon, Pease, and Oldfather, in the light of a letter from Hendrickson to Pease on January 2, 1943. After indicating that he has received a note from Pease as well as letters from “Miss [Lily Ross] Taylor” (of Bryn Mawr College, the 1941-1942 APA President) and Jaeger, Hendrickson here reports that Harmon and Oldfather have endorsed the statement, but that he received no reply from

Sanders, who independently dissented to Shero. He continues: I enclose all correspondences, some superfluous and all of it ancient history. I am not greatly convinced of Hadzsits’ (perfect) ingenuousness and “the other things he did not care to go into” sounds disagreeable, but need not mean too much. It’s all disagreeable business and reveals a pettiness which I hope we in America were above... I wish we could talk the matter over for it is a great nuisance to impose another letter on you, but in brevity I should like to know your response to the situation. Jaeger emerges from it unscathed and I am glad he did no [sic] go to the meeting. But who is the “Innominato”? Sanders has been up to all the mischief possible but as a member of the Committee he can scarcely have written to Jaeger. By the way I was in error in saying that Jaeger’s nomination was unanimous. Sanders voted for Flickinger for President and Robinson

for Second Vice-President. The Proceedings for 1942 also contain a memorial, prepared by Sanders,

for Roy Caston Flickinger, “Professor of Latin and Greek in the State University of Iowa,” who died on July 6 of that year, indeed on the day before Hendrickson wrote to announce the result of the ballot by the

Nominating Committee to its members.

Sanders’s tribute to Flickinger,

claiming that “both as scholar and as teacher he was representative of the Middle West,” remarks that he “worked long and earnestly for this Association” and that “It was a great disappointment to many of us that he

was not honored with its presidency.”!® And Sanders himself wrote to Pease several months later, on May 7, 1943, to defend his conduct, stating: You will recall that a rival ticket was nominated last year and that chairman Hendrickson tried to have this committee adopt a condemnatory resolution. I opposed both actions. I have never considered that this committee was bound by any precedents.”

18 TAPA 73 (1942) xxv. This memorial is considerably longer than an “official” APA memorial on the same page for George Miller Calhoun of the University of California at Berkeley, APA President in 1940-1941, who met with an “untimely death” at the age of 56. Calhoun’s tribute, by his colleague and former APA President (1931-1932) Ivan Linforth, begins “The American Philological Association notes with sorrow”; Flickinger’s “In the death of Roy Caston Flickinger on July 6 of the present year this Association, as well as classical studies in America, suffered a great loss.”

Judith P. Hallett

53

In reviewing the correspondence which Jaeger himself received about the nomination to the APA Second Vice-Presidency, we might well ask, with Hendrickson, “Who is the Innominato?”

alone—and what did he write?

Did this individual write to Jaeger

And there is no obvious answer.

No such

rubric appears in the classification of letters sent to Jaeger. Several letters from Shero on the matter of APA nominations, however, are to be found and next merit our scrutiny. On June 11, 1941, for example, Shero writes that he has received from Jaeger’s former Chicago colleague Berthold Ullmann the slate of nominees for APA office, and notifies Jaeger that he has been nominated to the Board of Directors. After specifying that the Board meets on the first morning of the annual meeting, and again on the last day so as to assign papers to referees, Shero assures Jaeger: “Except for attendance at these meetings of the Board, members have little to do.” On July 23, 1942, Shero writes Jaeger, on behalf of Hendrickson, that Hendrickson’s committee “wishes to

nominate you for the office of Second Vice-President beginning December next.” Most importantly, on December 18, 1942, on the understanding that Jaeger had been notified about the alternative slate of candidates, Shero writes Jaeger that he would like to “supplement the notice of the Directors’ meeting with a more personal message.” Acknowledging that Jaeger does not plan to attend the meeting in Philadelphia, he observes: But each additional person who is present can make a helpful contribution to the discussion, so that you would be warmly welcomed if you found it feasible to be there...It is regrettable, in my opinion, that alternative nominations should have been filed this year, although I do not share Mr. Hendrickson’s fecling that alternative nominations are in general objectionable ... This does not alter the fact that our members are confronted this year with a very embarrassing choice. For I feel very sure that while there are many members who have great admiration and affection for Mr. Hadzsits and who would wish to show their appreciation of all that he has done for the Association and for classical studies in this country in general, all would be extremely reluctant to see the management of the Association deprived of the counsel of either you or Mr. Winter. In view of the provision of voting by proxy it is altogether uncertain whether it will be you or Mr. Winter or Mr. Hadzsits who will fail of election, and I am extremely confident that failure of election this year will mean merely temporary postponement of progress through the cursus honorum, whichever of the three it may be. I talked to Mr.

Hadzsits early this week,

and I know

the whole

affair has been most embarrassing for him. It was less than ten days ago that he first learned that his name had been placed in nomination, and he says that if he had been informed in advance of the intention to nominate him, he would certainly have refused to permit it. He of course shares the profound admiration for you and your work which we

54

Werner Jaeger Reconsidercd all feel, and 1 know that he would be unhappy indeed if his nomination resulted in even the temporary elimination of your name from our list of officers. It is quite obvious, however, that no exception could be taken to

the motives of Mr. Kraemer and those who were associated with him in filing the nomination of Mr. Hadzsits. As you perhaps know, his health has not been good for the past two or three years, and I know there are many who would consider it most unfortunate if his advancement to the higher offices of the Association were delayed too long.

After mentioning Roy Flickinger’s death as an example of what may result from such delays, Shero concludes: Your kind and generous attitude in this matter is most appreciated.

It is

my sincere hope, and I have little doubt that it is the unanimous hope of our members, that you will honor the Association by serving in its highest offices, whether or not advancement to them is temporarily delayed.

An earlier letter, written on December 2, 1942, by Hendrickson to Jaeger, contains similar sentiments. After reporting that he has only just learned about the alternative slate of nominees, emphasizing that he was “quite ignorant” about its existence until “only a few days ago,” and informing Jaeger that he did not hear from Kraemer “until a week ago,” Hendrickson states that his first concern was for Jaeger, lest it seem to you a slight and perhaps cause you at once to withdraw your name. I wanted to prevent that and I am greatly relieved to find that your feeling was sound and just, namely that the situation called for no action whatever on your part, that you had accepted in good faith an honor which you had not sought and which you had accepted further without much hesitation, for reasons which do honor to your discretion and modesty, as being relatively a newcomer amongst us...On our part your nomination was inspired not only by the distinction of your work and position, but also by a feeling that we wished to confer on you a badge of welcome, transcending the international antipathies of the moment.

After blaming Kraemer and his associates for not “memorializing [sic] the Committee in advance,” Hendrickson concludes: “I sympathize dislike of becoming the nucleus of a controversy about the nominations” and “you are in some sense the innocent bystander, not unfortunately always escape without some scratches.” Both Shero and Hendrickson imply that they perceived

with your policy of who does Jaeger’s

nationality, or at least his status as a new arrival to the United States, as an issue in “the controversy about the policy of nominations,” an intra-

Judith P. Hallett

55

organizational disagreement in which Jaeger was affected as “innocent bystander.” Shero intimates as much through reminding Jaeger of “all that [Hadzsits] has done for the Association and for classical studies in this country.” Hendrickson suggests as much to Jaeger through his reference to

Jaeger “as relatively a newcomer amongst us” and Jaeger’s nomination as “a badge of welcome.” The concern voiced by Hendrickson to Pease that Opposition to Jaeger’s nomination may have looked toward the “elimination of Jaeger as possibly a foreign-born enemy alien” and his assertion to Jaeger that the Nominating Committee viewed this nomination as “transcending the international antipathies of the moment” may, moreover, allude to the anti-German feeling described by Broughton as motivating “the campaign to

elect a rival." Nonetheless, other than Hendrickson’s remark to Pease that he hoped "we Americans were above” such pettiness, the letters to Pease and Jaeger say nothing more about the role played by this sentiment. To be sure, after the United States declared war on Germany on December 11, 1941, Jaeger was “technically an enemy alien until he acquired citizenship.” But he had left his native land of his own accord and had “pledged allegiance” to his new country in a number of ways. Ruth

Jaeger writes that when he left Germany in 1936, his family included the children from his two marriages except for the oldest, Erhard, who had been drafted into the German army; just as the Jaeger family was leaving, the time of military service had been extended to two years. But through the efforts of the German consul in Chicago, a man of the old type of career diplomat, not a Nazi, he was able to leave Germany in the middle of his second year, to everybody’s astonishment and joy. Ironically this boy was later one of the first to be drafted into the American army even before Pearl Harbor and took part in the Second World War on the American side, with the rank, finally, of first lieutenant in

intelligence.!? Jaeger had, moreover, been publishing in America and in English ever since his arrival in the U.S. and been serving in high APA offices for the past two years. Why did anti-German sentiment even figure in the opposition to his candidacy—and how widespread were such feelings among U.S.

classicists? B. Prejudice and Stereotyping in the APA at the time of Jaeger’s Nomination to the Second Vice-Presidency As Coser reminds us, the spread of anti-German feelings upon America’s entry into World War I had a profound impact on classicists and classical 19 Ruth Jaeger, 20.

56

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

scholarship for many years to come.” Such feelings were no doubt familiar and automatic to many classicists when the Second World War broke out. Yet the circumstances of the prior conflict with Germany were quite

different from those which obtained in the early 1940s. I am a Jewish classicist who, although not yet born in 1942, was reared in a family meeting, and Hadzsit, and spring 1989

of social activists in Philadelphia—site of the 1942 APA professional home to such key figures in this drama as Shero, Broughton. At the time I received Professor Broughton’s letter, Lee Pearcy, a Bryn Mawr Ph. D. and an adopted

Philadelphian himself, and I were investigating the extent to which anti-

Jewish feeling pervaded our field in the period between the World Wars.?!

Thus it would be disingenuous of me not to disclose my immediate reaction to Professor Broughton’s reminiscence about Jaeger and the election to the APA cursus honorum. That is, I wanted to know more information about the APA members “who disliked having a man of German birth in that office at that time.”

Was this dislike largely reflexive, a recurrence of a twenty-year-old sentiment?

Was it a product of the nationalistic “war hysteria” which had

taken hold of the American professoriate by 1941222

Was it also linked

with sympathy for Hitler’s Jewish victims—that is, were any of these individuals themselves Jewish, close colleagues of Jewish refugees, or somehow involved in helping Jewish refugees re-establish themselves in American academic life? Did any Philadelphia classicists, particularly those at Quaker institutions (such as Swarthmore) which prided themselves on their tolerance and compassion, harbor such intolerant sentiments about German émigrés? Yet any discussion by members of my own generation on the matter of anti-German sentiment among APA members must perforce restrict itself to what can be corroborated rather than what might be speculated. My study of 20 Coser, 271-72.

To be sure, Broughton mentions in his spring

“campaign to elect a rival persisted even against the APA.” Jaeger’s candidacy, in other words, belonging to the generation which would have most profoundly. Perhaps the negative impact of studies in earlier years had made these individuals

1989 letter that the

appeals from leading senior members of attracted support from some colleagues experienced those anti-German feelings such sentiments upon American classical particularly opposed to the recrudescence

of anti-German feelings. Still, these individuals were not successful in this instance. 21 On this matter, see Coser 321-22 (the 1919 letter to Harry Caplan from his Cornell colleagues, citing “a very real prejudice against the Jew” which they do not share, as

grounds for asserting that it is “wrong to encourage anyone to devote himself to the higher walks of leaming to whom the path is barred by an undeniable racial prejudice.”) and 272-

73 as well as Hurley 360 ff.

The most shocking example is the American profession's

treatment of their greatest benefactor, James Loeb (1867-1933); see W. M. Calder TII, ICS

2 (1977) 315-32 = Antiqua 23 (Naples 1983) 213-30, 308. For anti-semitism and other kinds of prejudicial stereotyping in the historical profession at this time, sec Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question in the American Historical Profession (Cambridge 1989) 172 ff. For this phenomenon in the historical profession, see Novick 247-48.

Judith P. Hallett

37

the letters to Pease and Jaeger did not, to my own frustration, turn up any specific statements of anti-German feeling. I did, however, come across some discomforting manifestations of racial prejudice and stereotyping which may help to illuminate why anti-German feeling was able to flourish in, and to affect the professional environment of, the U.S. classics community in 1942. These manifestations were found in the correspondence to Pease from

William A. Oldfather; these remarks were—it should be emphasized— clearly not intended to be injurious or defamatory. But Oldfather’s writings do display a tendency to judge individuals in terms of the ethnic or religious group to which they happen to belong, and to give more weight to an individual’s group identity than to his or her personal or professional

qualifications. In a letter dated March 29, 1939, for example, he complains to Pease about his difficulties in finding a suitable position for the German Jewish émigré F. W. Lenz when “I can’t find respectable positions for my

own students.” Oldfather expands upon his dilemma: Why don't the wealthy Jews in this country establish their own University? For a few million dollars (and there are four and a half million of them, so the task should not be great) they could set up a Jewish University in this country which would put the very best of us on our mettle. There are Catholic Universities and Methodist Universities and Presbyterian Universities and Mormon Universities

and I don't see why there should not be a Jewish University [in a marginal note he adds “As there is now in Jerusalem"]. faculty they could get together from all over the world!”

And what a

Prejudice and stereotyping of this sort are completely absent from the letters of Hendrickson. In fact, in a letter to Pease of July 28, 1942, on the proposed nomination of Lily Ross Taylor to succeed him as Delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies, Hendrickson explicitly dismisses

the issue of gender as a relevant factor in her selection. He states:

23 Oldfather's concern and support for Lenz, however, were strong and long-lasting.

In

a letter to Pease about Oldfather's death on June 10, 1945, Hendrickson notes that he and

Oldfather had been corresponding about a possible position for Lenz. Oldfather had offered Lenz a small position as assistant to himself, and the Illinois department was considering how Lenz might "increase his meagre allowance by some other instruction or position in the University." Other letters from Oldfather to Pease (e. g., February 12 and July 28, 1941) also contain stereotyping remarks, in these instances about Latin Americans and the Nordic race respectively. For Oldfather's effort to justify the study of ancient Greek and

Roman sport on the grounds that "the Greeks were a Nordic people, most closely related to our Germanic

ancestors," see David

Sansone, Greek Athletics and the Genesis of Sport

(Berkeley and Los Angeles 1988) xiii-xiv. discussion to my attention.

I am grateful to Barbara Gold for calling this

58

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered In submitting our nominations L. Shero raised the question of naming a woman as delegate to the ACLS, and wrote to Leland to ascertain his opinion or judgment of our suggestion... The only essential point made by Leland it seems to me is that at times Committees of the Council have met at clubs, like the Harvard in New York or the Cosmos in Washington. However that objection would bar women from membership of any Committee of the ACLS and that seems to me an

unreasonable

conclusion . . .?*

Admittedly, his own letters and those of Hendrickson establish Oldfather as a strong supporter of Jaeger. LestI fall into the same habits of mind which I am detecting in Oldfather,

I would not wish to argue that

classicists of the late thirties and early forties as a group shared Oldfather's tendency to judge individuals on the basis of group stereotypes. Yet the mere fact that an esteemed figure like Oldfather—who had been born and had traveled widely abroad, and who conspicuously struggled to help Jewish

refugee scholars find a professional footing in this country—was known to engage

in judgments

of this sort shows

plausible and permissible in the APA

that such conduct

milieu.

was both

What remains to be

determined, however, is whether or not factors in addition to anti-German

prejudice can be assigned responsibility for the electoral challenge to Jaeger as well.

C. Casper J. Kraemer, Jr., and the Pease Committee The reference in Hendrickson's letter to Pease of December 3, 1942, to *your

committee"

encouraged

me

to investigate

the

relevance

of

Hendrickson's correspondence on the elections of 1942 to that committee's mandate. The APA Proceedings of 1941 report that the Directors had adopted a motion "That a committee of three be appointed by the President to consider changes in the organization of the Association which might

contribute to the more

efficient management

of its affairs.”

The

Proceedings of 1942 provide the special committee's report, which was presented in Pease's absence by Cornelia C. Coulter (of Mount Holyoke College). After identifying the members as Coulter, Pease (chairman), and Levi Arnold Post (of Haverford College), and after indicating that “the committee has not met as a whole, but by correspondence and by meetings of Miss Coulter with each of the other members," the report notes that the

committee members had been aided “by a memorandum from the Secretary summarizing questions raised by the Directors at their 1941 meeting, and U Hendrickson's very first letter to Pease in the Houghton collection, dating back to the 1920s when Pease was President of Amherst College, asks for Pease’s assistance in advising a female graduate student—my Wellesley College professor Margaret E. Taylor— on her dissertation. ?5 TAPA 72 (1941) xix.

Judith P. Hallett

59

also by suggestions courteously sent by Professor C. J. Kraemer, Jr., upon

invitation from our chairman.” Kraemer’s letter to Pease, in which he offered these suggestions, is dated April 22, 1942, well over a month prior to Hendrickson’s letter to Pease and the other members of the Nominating Committee which suggests

that either Jaeger or Robinson be nominated for Second Vice-President. In his letter Kraemer proposes “[a] different system of electing officers. Nomination by a committee of expresidents seems to be too inelastic, to

warrant the criticism of membership by clique and to be responsible for passing over obvious candidates (like Flickinger and Hadzsits).” Kraemer explicates that “we have slipped into what seems to be a fixed cursus honorum for the chief executives ... We should not tie ourselves up in advance to the elections of any given person.” He recommends, moreover, that "the APA accept the offer of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States and assume control of Classical Weekly." As it happens, the report of Pease's committee defends the current

system of electing officers by attempting to refute the criticism that a clique of ex-presidents "may determine the choice and may pass over obvious or desirable candidates." It maintains that "The present method of nomination . . . offers no serious obstacle to the choice of a particularly meritorious candidate, irrespective of age or sex" (although it does not

mention either race or religion). In support of this claim, it remarks that “during the last fifty years our Presidents have been drawn from twenty-three different institutions, ranging in size from our largest universities, such as the University of California, to colleges the size of Trinity (Hartford) and Bryn Mawr; in geographical position from the Atlantic to the Pacific; in type from state universities to endowed colleges; and including institutions for men, others for women, and others for both men and women." Significantly, however, the report does address Kraemer's concern that “obvious” candidates in later years and/or declining health not be passed over. For it states: “We have no statistics bearing upon the age of our Presidents at election, but belicve that our members would prefer seniorcs of

attainment to adulescentes of promise." As Oldfather's statement that Jacger “can wait a little while, since he is certain of the presidency in due course”

reminds us, Jaeger only turned 54 in July of 1942.

He may have been a

mere two years younger than the APA presidents of 1940-1941 (George

Miller Calhoun of Berkeley, who died in June of 1942) and 1941-1942 (Lily Ross Taylor), but was a good deal younger than many other U.S.

classicists of attainment. Ogle, of the University of Minnesota, who was elected to the presidency in 1942, was nine years Jaeger's senior; Winter, seven years; Hadzsits fifteen. The nomination of the formerly ailing Robinson to the Second Vice-Presidency in 1943 suggests that this report 26 TAPA 73 (1942) xxiii ff.

60

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

helped to encourage the APA Nominating Committee to take seniority and

physical fragility more seriously.??

What is most important about Kraemer’s suggestions to Pease, though,

is that months before Kraemer—or, for that matter, most members of the Nominating Committee—could even have known who would be nominated for the Second Vice-Presidency in 1942, Kraemer was already thinking and talking of Hadzsits and Flickinger for that post. Likewise, it is not surprising that Kraemer responded to the announcement of the 1942 candidates by proposing an alternate slate of candidates that included Hadzsits. Kraemer had voiced an interest in changing the system for the election of officers when expressing the view that Hadzsits was an obvious candidate (Flickinger had, of course, died during the summer of that year). It is altogether possible, therefore, that whomever the Nominating Committee would have proposed for the office of Second Vice-President would have met with a challenge—and specifically the challenge of Hadzsits—from Kraemer. The individual in question just happened to be Jaeger. It is not clear exactly when Kraemer, and the general APA membership, were informed of Jaeger’s nomination: although Shero had written to Jaeger in late July, it seems likely that this information was not made public until the academic term began in autumn. For a letter from Kraemer to Jaeger dated November 12, 1942, starts with the statement that

“It was with a good deal of pleasure and with some relief that I read your letter of October 31.” Kraemer goes on to say, “I am delighted to learn not merely that you have no feeling of resentment at my suggestion of nominating Professor Hadzsits but that you agree with me in the desirability of my action. The last thing I should want to happen would be to have any dissension on the floor of the meeting in Cincinnati, and I am very much pleased that this will not now occur.” One wonders, however, why—if Jaeger knew about the Kraemer slate in

October of 1942—Hendrickson and Pease were not informed until several weeks later. Other questions arise as well. Why was Hadzsits nominated not to oppose Jaeger for Second Vice-President but the nomince for First Vice-President, Winter? Why was Winter nominated to oppose Jaeger for Second Vice-President when Winter had just held that post in the preceding year and was thus already running for First Vicc-President? Why did Winter and Jaeger then switch places in the cursus honorum, so that Winter ended

up holding the position for which he had been defeated by Hadzsits? Although chosen Second Vice-President by the 1941 Nominating Committee, and hence an inappropriate participant in a challenge to the 27 For the dates of these individuals, see Bloch 331-32. Robinson never managed to ascend to the APA presidency; Hadzsits was succeeded in 1945-1946 by Levi Arnold Post.

Judith P. Hallett

61

official slate of nominees, Winter seems to have been complicit in this challenge. Why did this development occur? Similarly, questions arise in view of several striking details: Kraemer's reference to Flickinger—as an obvious candidate who had been passed over—in his letter to Pease of April 1942; Sanders’s vote in June 1942 for Flickinger as APA President in response to the slate—which was required,

in view of his previous record of office-holding, to be headed by Ogle— suggested by Hendrickson and Harmon; the fact that Winter and Sanders

were colleagues at Michigan. In determining why he and Pease had not been informed about the alternate slate, Hendrickson first must have considered and rejected the possibility that Sanders and the Michigan department were

somehow involved. After all, in his letter to Pease of December 3, 1943, he remarks that “Sanders... scarcely had a hand in it—at least the list of signers shows no trace of Michigan names.” A month later, though, in wondering about the identity of the “Innominato,” Hendrickson states that “Sanders has been up to all the mischief possible but as a member of the Committee he can scarcely have written to Jaeger.” A recent essay by Herbert Benario has observed that the 116 individuals

who have served as APA presidents from the founding of the APA through 1988 have come from only seventeen states and the District of Columbia, and two of the Canadian provinces. Benario points out that “it is surely preposterous to suppose that, in more than one hundred years, states such as Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Texas have claimed no single person worthy of presiding over the APA” and that “almost the entire mid-west, south and farwest to the coast have been ignored” in the roster of presidents. He consequently argues that there continues to be an “elitism of place” which has not served the APA membership on the North Amcrican continent well. Yet Benario’s sense that certain regions of the Association’s territory have been unfairly excluded in the selection of official APA leaders is, as we

have seen, nothing new.*° Sanders's memorial tribute to Flickinger of Iowa State stresses Flickinger's representativeness of the Middle West as well as the disappointment to “many of us" that he was not honored with the APA presidency; the report of Pease's committee appears sensitive to this issue 75 Lee Pearcy has suggested that Kraemer originally nominated Hadzsits, then in his seventieth year, for the office of First Vice-President rather than Second out of concem for his health. Hadzsits, however, held a variety of visiting appointments after retiring from the University of Pennsylvania in 1943 and lived until 1954.

29 “Τῆς APA as a North American Organization," in Phyllis Culham and Lowell

Edmunds, eds., Classics: A Discipline and Profession in Crisis (Lanham, NY, and London 1989) 287-93. Benario does not, however, point out that several individuals from this

region have in recent years been nominated for, and failed of election to, (the offices whose occupants succeed to) the APA presidency. 30 Nor is such regionalism exclusive to the classics profession. See Novick 182 ff. for its manifestations among historians.

62

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

by emphasizing that the APA presidents have been drawn from institutions

ranging in “geographical position from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”

That

the report underscores the number and diversity of the presidents’ respective academic institutions seems no less significant, suggesting a sensitivity to the charge that certain elite universities have been over-represented. And one can see why midwestern classicists, particularly those from the University

of Michigan, might have made common cause with Kraemer

in opposing

the recommendations of the 1942 Nominating Committee. The fifteen APA presidents prior to 1941-1942 had included seven midwesterners: one from Western Reserve University in Ohio, two from the University of Chicago, and two from the University of Michigan, as well as Oldfather from the University of Illinois. But three of the most recent seven, and indeed the core of the current nominating committee—Hendrickson,

Harmon, and Pease—were faculty members at Harvard and Yale.?! Kraemer, then, may have received support for the idea of an alternative slate in part because of resentment about the disproportionate presence of Harvard and Yale faculty among recent APA presidents. The choice of Hadzsits had an additional advantage in that it enabled Kraemer to enlist support from colleagues on the east coast and in the Ivy League who might otherwise interpret the electoral challenge as directed at them. Such resentment would, obviously, explain why Hendrickson and Pease did not hear about the alternative slate until weeks after Kraemer had written about it to Jaeger, i. e., that they, and Shero, were deliberately kept in the dark until it was too late for them to do much in response. Hendrickson himself complains that—with less than a month prior to the APA meeting—he has no time (or taste or secretarial resources) to marshall an effective countercampaign. Such resentment would, coincidentally, also have worked against Jaeger's own candidacy. But one can only speculate about the connections between Kraemer and a Michigan contingent without examining the list of signers referred to by

Hendrickson and the correspondence about the 1942 election received by both Shero and Hendrickson himself.

31 We should recall that in his letter to the Nominating Committee of June 5, 1942, Hendrickson admitted that he had "departed somewhat from the usual procedure" in not collecting nominations from the several members of the committee; that he had submitted

a list made up after consulting not only with a Yale colleague who was in fact a committee member—Harmon—but

also with a Yale colleague who was not—Sturtevant;

according to his letter of June 22—Sanders procedures and asked for a formal ballot.

and that—

had raised objections to Hendrickson's

Sanders had, moreover, refused to cooperate with

the committee in preparing a statement that "alternative nominations should be resorted to only in very exceptional circumstances." It is thus not unlikely that Sanders shared Kraemer's perception of the nominating committee as a clique and bore a special grievance against what he viewed as the high-handed behavior and self-perpetuating selections of its Harvard and Yale nucleus.

Judith P. Hallcıt

63

IV. Other Evidence on Werner Jaeger and the American

Philological Association Having learned from Harry Evans that the APA archives did not contain any documentary material from the 1930s or 1940s, I contacted Shero's daughter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to see if she had in her possession, or at least knew the whereabouts of, Shero's files from his years as Secretary-Treasurer of the APA. Unfortunately, she had no idea about how I might find any of

this material. Perhaps one of my readers can be of help in this regard. My efforts to obtain access to Hendrickson's correspondence at first seemed more promising, as several boxes of his personal papers are housed in the Sterling Library at Yale University. Numerous and varied items are preserved in these boxes. There are letters in four languages from some of the most distinguished classical scholars of his day. These letters include an

acknowledgement

that Hendrickson

had in 1937 secured a Sterling

fellowship in classics for Friedrich Solmsen and a request in 1933 from

Giorgio Pasquali in Florence to “use his influential position in America" to help two colleagues who were losing their professorships in Germany—

Eduard Fraenkel and Karl Lehmann-Hartleben.

There are Latin citations

which Hendrickson wrote on behalf of the Yale administration and eloquent

obituaries which Hendrickson wrote for a variety of Yale luminaries, among them the former dean—and Democratic Governor of Connecticut —Wilbur Cross. There are extensive records of Yale's Phi Beta Kappa chapter; lecture notes for an array of courses on Latin language and literature; correspondence from former students, relatives, summer friends on Chebeague Island, and

from Governor Al Smith of New York.

But the only memento saved from

Hendrickson's APA service is a photostat of the APA program in the year of his presidency. I was successful in requesting that the Library remove the

restricted status of one container—enjoined from public scrutiny for 75 years—on the grounds that the oldest items therein date to 1912. But this container, too, had nothing pertinent to his APA service. Again, I look to

my readers for assistance. There is, however, one letter from Werner Jaeger, dated October 9, 1937, and thus from the year after Jaeger presented a paper at the APA session chaired by Hendrickson in his capacity as president. Although

German scholars (with the notable exception of Eduard Frünkel) wrote Hendrickson in German, this letter is in English. After addressing Hendrickson as "Professor Hendrickson," it says: I thank you very much for sending me a copy of your brilliant review of Gow's book on Housman which I have enjoyed last night. It was indeed a great amusement.

But at the same time, I think, you did full

justice to the personality and attainments of this great scholar as well as to his works. He must have been, after all, a tragic figure and I am sure you are right in explaining his sceptic and satiric attitude towards

64

Wemer Jaeger Reconsidered his own age by his fecling of complete isolation. Your fairness in dealing with some German scholars who were ridiculed by Housman will oblige their pupils. I agree with your definition of the task of modern philology which cannot be restricted to emendation any longer, without endangering emendation itself. I experienced during my vacation in Northern Wisconsin what your words mean, “fishing without the need of fish.” I admire your selected quotations from Cicero’s Brutus, and last not least, your wonderful English. I hope very much to see you again this winter. If you come to Chicago, please let

me know. It would be sad not to meet you.?? In 1937 Hendrickson, born in 1865, was over seventy years old; although still extremely active as a scholar, member of the APA hierarchy, and devoted citizen of the Yale community, he had been professor emeritus for several years. Hendrickson had himself studied in Germany, corresponded with Jaeger’s teacher Wilamowitz, and had in this instance sent Jaeger a review on a subject of interest to Jaeger. Yet he and Jaeger did not truly share research interests. One conjectures that their acquaintance began, or at least progressed to the point of exchanging offprints, with the APA session the previous year. Jaeger does not here refer to Hendrickson’s editorial assistance in turning “Philology and Humanism” into a TAPA article, but presumably their collaboration on this project strengthened their professional relationship. And in the heyday of the New Deal, the confidant of Wilbur Cross and correspondent of Al Smith may have felt a certain

political compatibility with Jaeger, whose widow has described him as “a convinced liberal.”33 Yet it is at the same time clear that Jaeger was cultivating, and seeking the patronage of, this influential senior colleague much as he appears to

have earlier cultivated scnior colleagues at Berlin.?* He skilfully calls his

own “extra-emendational” definition of philology to Hendrickson’s attention while stressing his own assimilation to life in the United States—the vacation in Wisconsin, the appreciation of Hendrickson’s expository style (which he oddly labels “English,” as if this were not Hendrickson’s native language). Such a letter renders Hendrickson’s promotion and strong support of Jaeger for high APA office five years later all the more understandable: as Jaeger praised Hendrickson’s "justice" in dealing with Housman and "fairness" in dealing with Housman's German victims, so Hendrickson would speak of “reasons which do honor to your discretion and modesty.” To observe that Jaeger cultivated Hendrickson is not—let me emphasize—to impugn Jaeger’s behavior. Conduct of this sort is common 32 The review appeared in AJP 58 (1937) 462-67. 33 Ruth Jaeger, 22. 34 See Calder in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, 217, and in this volume.

Judith P. Hallett

65

and frequent in the professoriate; virtually all academics engage in it to some degree or other. What is striking about Jaeger’s approach to Hendrickson, though, is that it suggests an eagerness on Jaeger’s part to join, rather than

to retreat from, the center of political power in the American classics community. I would like to offer another piece of evidence about those same years

which seems to imply that Jaeger consciously sought a place for himself within the APA, and hence the national American classics establishment, and at the very least to imply that he was not at first averse to holding a position on these shores similar to that which he had occupied in Germany. In her recollection of her years as Werner Jaeger’s graduate student and

collaborator, Professor Virginia Woods Callahan, formerly of Howard University, relates that The graduate students in Greek and Ancient History [at the University of Chicago] were introduced to Professor and Mrs. Jaeger at a reception during the meeting of the American Philological Association in Chicago in December 1936. Mr. Jaeger gave a lecture at that meeting

on Humanism and Paideia. He then went to Scotland to give the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews on The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers. He began his teaching at Chicago in autumn 1937 with an Aeschylus seminar during which the concentration was on “The

Suppliants.”35 Jaeger’s widow indicates that Jaeger received the invitation to join the

Chicago faculty in 1935; like his other biographers, she speaks of him as coming to Chicago in 1936.36

Nevertheless, he obviously did not begin

teaching there in the fall term of that year if he was only introduced to the Chicago graduate students during the APA meeting in late December. But why time this debut during the APA meeting rather than during the academic term, and in connection with regular departmental business? To be sure, Jaeger was about to leave for Scotland; still, we cannot discount the symbolic significance of having Jaeger’s first encounter with his students

take place in the context of his first professional appearance before the national classics community as a member of a U.S. academic faculty. While Jaeger’s appearance on the APA program seems to have led to the scheduling of this meeting at this time, the first impression that Jaeger was likely to have made on his own prospective students was bound to be that of an important figure on the national scene. Similarly, the presence of his prospective students at this reception was likely to have conveyed to the 35 “The Jaeger Years—1936-1961." I would like to thank Virginia Woods Callahan for providing me with a copy of this memoir. 36 Ruth

Jaeger,

19-20;

Callahan,

“Jaeger,

Werner

Wilhelm,”

Encyclopedia (New York 1968) 799; Calder, Classical Scholarship: Encyclopedia 221; Bertini Malgarini, in this volume.

New

Catholic

A Biographical

66

Wemer Jaeger Reconsidered

leadership of the APA the image of a warmly welcomed teacher and scholar putting down roots at a solid and well-regarded institution in the geographical center of their country. V.

Conclusions

In relating the episode about Werner Jaeger’s unsuccessful nomination to

high APA office during the Second World War, Professor Broughton has attributed Werner Jaeger’s failure to be elected to the office of Second VicePresident in 1942 to the antipathy felt by a number of APA members

towards a president of German birth in the first year after the U.S. declared war against Germany. Although one can comprehend, if not actually substantiate, the existence of such prejudice in the classics community at that time, it is also important to note other factors capable of contributing to a professional climate which favored an alternative slate of nominees over those proposed by the APA Nominating Committee. Jaeger’s nomination occurred during a period in which the APA was voluntarily undergoing a form of organizational self-examination. It postdated a critique—in the context of this self-examination—of the APA leaders and procedures responsible for Jaeger’s nomination, by an individual who was likely to have challenged, and found widespread support in challenging, the official APA nominee—irrespective of that nominee’s identity. It is quite likely that Jaeger additionally suffered as a result of resentment over the professional hegemony of classicists from certain elite American institutions in New England, one of them his own.

What needs to be stressed, however, is that this professional climate was in no way of Jaeger’s own making, that he was an “innocent bystander” turned into a victim by sheer bad luck. In their letters to and about Jaeger,

Oldfather, Hendrickson, and Shero all clearly voice their personal feeling that Jaeger deserved to be APA president, and their strong sense that the US. classics community heartily agreed. But just as good fortune had smiled upon Jaeger’s efforts to launch himself into a career of both scholarly

and professional eminence in Germany—to the extent that he achieved a prestigious post at an unusually early age despite fierce competition from accomplished colleagues many years his senior—so ill fortune now thwarted his efforts to achieve a similar existence in the United States. One lesson we can all learn from Jaeger’s life is that the academic world is a tychocracy as well as a meritocracy. However much we may try to create equal opportunities for all within the classics (or any academic) profession, we cannot control the powerful forces of luck. Jaeger, however, received tangible evidence that he was being temporarily deprived of what was rightfully his in the form of a promise from the APA Secretary-Treasurer that he was only experiencing “temporary postponement of progress through the cursus honorum.” Unbeknownst to him, two professionally powerful individuals—Oldfather and Pease—seemed

Judith P. Hallett to share the assumption that he was “certain of the presidency anyway

67 in due

course.” Like Hendrickson, one can understand why in December of 1942 Jaeger chose to withdraw as a candidate for APA office and decided not to attend the annual meeting. Travel to the meeting was discouraged because of wartime contingencies, and all signs pointed to the eventuality that the

alternative ticket would carry the day. But outside of making a contribution to the annual report of the Committee on which he served for the next few years—that on Materials for Research—Jaeger from that point on withdrew from the activities of the APA, and from the prospect of a high professional profile in his adopted country, altogether. Needless to say, it would have been possible for Jaeger

to become active in the APA again, and be elected to high office, after the war ended. In 1945 he was only 57. Although Oldfather met an untimely death in that year, Jaeger could have counted on several other influential supporters. Levi Arnold Post and Comelia Catlin Coulter, whose service on Pease’s committee may well have predisposed them to heed Pease’s advice, became presidents in 1945-1946 and 1947-1948 respectively. Shero himself became APA president in 1949-1950; Jaeger’s Harvard colleague William Chase Greene in 1950-1951; Broughton—the first APA president to be born in the present century—in 1953-1954, Hendrickson, in fact, lived to be 98 and survived Jaeger by more than two years; Pease died

approximately three weeks after Hendrickson.?? What prompted Jaeger’s decision to retreat in so dramatic a way? As far as I can tell, the defeat and disappointment which he must have felt as a result of this unfortunate episode represented an anomalous if not an

unprecedented experience in his career: he had never before failed to achieve what he wanted.

He thus decided to tailor his wants to what he had no

trouble achieving. As a result, Jaeger—to expand upon Shero’s words— deprived the APA and his adopted country of his counsel, talents, experience, and leadership. I do not mean to disparage Jaeger’s investment of his time and energies in his scholarship, his Harvard students, and in his personal affective ties—

the commitments for which he is best remembered during the Harvard years. Although Jaeger died five years before I entered Harvard as a graduate

student, his memory was still bright during my days thcre, in large measure because of the esteem in which his widow Ruth was held. She, as I recall, was unique among the wives of my professors in having pursued, with her husband’s strong support, her own teaching carcer in classics. She provided

female graduate students such as myself with a successful role model at a time when there were few at hand. In later life, Jaeger furnished an unusual and wholly admirable kind of professional role model, too: his decision to eschew the pursuit of power, goals, and rewards that loom so large in the 37 Bloch,

331-32.

68

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

lives of many academic males set him apart from more ambitious classical colleagues.

Still, one wonders how Jaeger might have influenced the course of our profession here in the United States if he had assumed a larger role in the APA and national classics community. And I wish that I—and others interested in Wemer Jaeger’s scholarly and professional contributions—could be more fully aware of the role that he did play, and was expected to play, in that arena during his first six years in this country. Let us hope that the documents from years gone by that I so badly needed to consult will soon

make their way to the APA archive in New York. And let us hope as well that by full and detailed record-keeping, today’s APA leaders will leave future classicists with documents that enable them to understand and learn from the experiences of our own generation.*8 University of Maryland at College Park

38 The portions of the Wemer Jaeger and Arthur Stanley Pease manuscripts in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, have been quoted with the permission of the Houghton Library. A portion of the 1937 letter to G. L. Hendrickson from Jaeger has been quoted with the permission of the Sterling Library, Yale University. I would like to thank several individuals for their help, advice, and support on this project: Alessandra Bertini Malgarini, Thomas R. S. Broughton, William M. Calder III, Virginia Woods Callahan, Harry Evans, Elizabeth Falsey, Barbara Gold, Erich Gruen, Marilyn Arthur Katz, Barbara McManus, Lee Pearcy, Amy Richlin, Judith Schiff, and Zeph Stewart.

4 Werner Jaeger’s Portrayal of Plato

CHARLES H. KAHN I begin my report with a small confession. When I was invited to speak on Jaeger’s portrayal of Plato, I was delighted but momentarily perplexed.

I

could not recall a single word that Jaeger had written about Plato. The contrast could not be greater with Jaeger’s work on Aristotle and on the Presocratics. Like many scholars of the last two generations, I began my study of Aristotle in the shadow of Jaeger’s Entstehungsgeschichte. And

my doctoral dissertation on Anaximander was directly inspired by his chapter on the Milesians in The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers.

But

Jaeger on Plato? At first I drew a complete blank. I mention this personal experience because I think it may be typical of professional behavior in the field of ancient philosophy. Despite his unrivalled influence on Aristotelian studies, Jaeger’s impact on Platonic

scholarship has been relatively slight.

This is all the more paradoxical

when one realizes how important Plato was for Jaeger. Jaeger describes Plato as “the true philosopher of paideia.”! Volume Two of Paideia is wholly devoted to Socrates and Plato; Volume Three is entitled “The Conflict of Cultural Ideals in the Age of Plato”; while Jaeger says of

Volume One that it “should be taken as an introduction to the study of Plato” (II, x). In the 1943 Preface to Volume Two Jaeger writes: “It was principally of Plato that I was thinking nearly twenty years ago, when I

tried to draw the attention of scholars to that aspect of Greek history which the Greeks called paideia” (II, xiv). He is referring to his Munich lectures Platos Stellung im Aufbau der griechischen Bildung (published in 1928) and to his even earlier lecture on Platos Staatsethik (published in 1924). It is clear that Plato was the central figure in Jaeger’s own conception of the “Third Humanism,” as he is the central object of attention in Paideia, occupying nearly half of the entire work. One is struck, accordingly, by this disproportion between Jaeger’s overwhelming interest in Plato and the relative lack of reciprocation on the 1 Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. G. Highet, Vol. IL, “In Search of the Divine

Centre” (Oxford 1944) xi. This translation is cited in the text by volume and page number. In some cases I have adapted the translation to bring it closer to the German text. The German text is cited as “G.” by page numbers from the three-volume edition of Paideia: Die Formung des griechischen Menschen.

70

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

part of Platonic scholarship. Hence I propose to begin the discussion of Jaeger’s Platobild in the perspective of what we may call the problem of its reception. Why has this massive work on Plato, by such a towering figure, left no greater mark on scholarship in this field? Before proceeding, however, I must record one note of qualification. Although at first sight Jaeger’s influence is absent from the major trends in Platonic scholarship today, upon closer examination we can discover an important exception. The most prominent recent work on Plato in Germany, the esoteric interpretation of the so-called Tübingen school, can be traced back to Jaeger both directly and indirectly. The indirect link is via the person of Schadewaldt, pupil of Jaeger and teacher of Kramer and Gaiser. The more direct connection is provided by some remarks of Jaeger in his first work Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des

Aristoteles.

In a brilliant discussion of the historical background of the

Aristotelian school treatises, Jaeger draws a sharp distinction between such technical works and the literary dialogues designed for a wider public. He emphasized the fact that in Plato’s case the technical discussions remained within the school, unwritten. “Never did philosophy make use of the dialogue form to teach and disseminate its rigorous knowledge

(Wissenschaft)."? When discussing the theory of Forms, Aristotle refers not to the Symposium or Republic but to Plato’s lectures and to discussions in the Academy.? These remarks of Jaeger opened the door to the esoteric reading of Plato. But it is striking that the relevant passage occurs in a book on Aristotle, not on Plato, published in 1912.

no interest in the “unwritten doctrines.”

Jaeger himself showed

His account of Plato, published

thirty years later, reflects a standard reading of the dialogues, although he does occasionally remark on the importance for Plato of what remains unwritten.* What Jaeger would have thought of the Tübingen Plato we can only guess. Krämer’s fundamental work was published in 1959, just two years before Jaeger's death. What is certain is that this interpretation bears only a tangential relation to Jaeger’s own reading of the dialogues. 2 Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik, 140.

3 Ibid., 141.

* See, e.g., Paideia II, 207 (= G. III, 283):

Plato's written work is meaningful for him

“only as a reflection of his oral activity as teacher.” “We do not possess, and we never shall possess, any written statement by him about the supreme certainty whereon his work was founded.” 5H. J. Krämer, Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles (Heidelberg 1959). Krämer cites the key passage from Jaeger’s Entstehungsgeschichte in the second footnote of his Introduction (p. 14 n. 2). K. Gaiser also cites Jaeger frequently in Protreptik und Paränese bei Platon (Stuttgart 1959)—e.g., pp. 16 f., 22, 29 f. The influence of Paideia II is clearly discernible .in Gaiser's book.

In the discussion at Urbana, Heinrich von Staden pointed out that for the development of the Tübingen interpretation the works of Léon Robin (La théorie platonicienne des Idées et des Nombres d'aprés Aristote) and Julius Stenzel (Zahl und Gestalt bei Platon und Aristoteles) were much more important than the influence of Jaeger. I entirely agree. My

CharlesH. Kahn

71

Why is Jaeger’s work on Plato so widely neglected?

I am inclined to

count two factors as essential and one as contingent. The contingent factor is that his treatment of Plato is found in Paideia, and this work is itself little read today. (This contingent factor is not entirely contingent, as we will see in a moment.)

But the two more essential considerations are these:

1) Jaeger's view of Plato is unitarian rather than developmental; he sees a single philosophical position expressed from the early dialogues to the Laws, where most historically minded scholars have been concerned to plot

consecutive stages in the evolution of Plato's thought. mental enterprise Jaeger makes no contribution.

To this develop-

(Here we have another

paradox, since Jaeger is of course the great initiator of the developmental approach to Aristotle.) 2) Like that of his master Wilamowitz, Jaeger's interest in Plato is almost exclusively focussed on the moral and political content of Plato's thought, with little or no attention paid to his logic, epistemology, and metaphysics. Philosophers studying Plato tend to be drawn to these more

theoretical aspects of his thought.

Furthermore, even those philosophers

who are concerned with ethics and politics will not find much to attract them

in Jaeger's

treatment,

since

he shows

little interest in moral

or

political theory as such. Jaeger is really concerned with Plato's ethics and politics only as a theory of culture or Bildung, that is, as "paideia." And so it is no accident after all that his treatment of Plato has suffered from the general neglect of his three volumes on Paideia. Despite the great value of many detailed discussions, the over-all approach of Paideia seems hopelessly out-of-date. For Jaeger's notion of humanism, which dominates this work, Strikes us today as essentially a class concept, tied to the role which

classical culture played in the education of the renaissance nobleman and the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie. Furthermore, the tone is often distressingly homiletic. We find a great deal of talk about moral standards, cultural ideals, spiritual values, and inner worth, not to mention the aspiration to a

higher form of human life, but almost no discussion of the principles of right and wrong, of social justice and equal rights, or how political power is

to be organized and controlled. Although both the Republic and the Laws are treated at great length, Jaeger shows no deep interest either in Plato's attempt to justify morality, which is after all the central theme of the Republic, or in the arguments for and against the rule of law in the Statesman and the Laws.

point was simply that there is some connection between Jaeger and the Tübingen school, and to this extent his influence is not entirely absent from contemporary trends in Plato

scholarship.

72

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

In short, Jaeger shows no interest in the fundamental issues of ethics and politics as they are debated by philosophers. There is a significant contrast here between Jaeger and Paul Friedlander, the other pupil of

Wilamowitz who devoted so much of his life to Plato. Although Friedlander had a distinctly less original mind than Jaeger and was surely not a better scholar, his volumes on Plato have become part of the standard secondary literature in a way that Jaeger’s contribution has not. In part this is due to his broader view of Plato's work, not limited as Jaeger's is to the theme of paideia. But it is due also to the fact that Friedlander, though not a

trained philosopher, makes a consistent effort to address the issues with which philosophers are concerned. Thus we have in Friedlander a chapter on “Plato as a physicist” and another on “Plato as a jurist,” as well as an

attempt to relate Plato to the views of Schopenhauer, Bergson, Kierkegaard, Jaspers, and Heidegger. There is nothing of this kind in Paideia. It is clear, then, that to appreciate the great merit of Jaeger's work on Plato we must read him as an historian and not as a philosopher. More

precisely, Jaeger is an historian of culture whose tools are those of philology. He is first and foremost a great reader of texts, but his Paideia is, as Reinhardt said, the only modern griechische Geistesgeschichte.$ Jaeger's historical enterprise is not like that of Wilamowitz, to reconstruct

the intellectual biography of his subject. just that for Aristotle.

He had in fact undertaken to do

But in Paideia his aim is to situate Plato's work

within the wider context of Greek cultural history since Homer, and to show how Plato succeeded in preserving and transforming the characteristic themes of Greek literature and morality by unifying them within the unique structure of his own philosophic world view. Let us sketch some of the positive achievements of Jaeger's portrayal before returning to the question of its limitations. Jaeger begins his discussion of Plato with an excellent account of Socrates, whom he describes as “the greatest teacher in European history” (IL 27 = G. II, 74: "das mächtigste erzieherische Phänomen in der Geschichte des Abendlandes"). The followers of Socrates invented new literary forms, the dialogue and the memoir, in order “to re-create the incomparable personality of the master who had transformed their lives" (II,

17 f. = G. II, 64). It was through these works that the Socratic influence became the literary and intellectual focus of the fourth century and the chief source, after Athens’ temporal collapse, of its world-wide spiritual dominion (II, 17). “It was Socrates’ summons to men to ‘care for their souls’ that marked the real breakthrough of the Greek mind to a new form of life" (II, 46 = G. II, 95). By his own embodiment of a rigorous ethical ideal, in his

death as in his life, Socrates prefigured the new conception of life as a definite bios, human existence conceived not merely as a lapse of time but 6K. Reinhardt, Vermächtnis der Antike (Géttingen 1966) 350 n. 13.

Charles H. Kahn as an “anschauliche, sinnvolle Einheit, als bewuBte Lebensform”:

73 “a clear

and meaningful unity, a consciously shaped pattern of life” (ibid.). And by

his insistence on “care for oneself” or “care for one’s soul,” Socrates is responsible for that turn towards the inner life that is characteristic of all

later antiquity (II, 45 = G. II, 94). In dealing with the form and content of Socratic teaching Jaeger shows more confidence in the historical reliability of Plato's dialogues and Xenophon's report than many of us today would feel is justified. Two points, however, are worth noting here, as reflecting Jaeger's keen insight as

an historian of moral ideas.

One is the recognition that it was due to

Socratic influence that the concept of self-mastery and self-control (Selbstbeherrschung, enkrateia) became a central factor in our own ethical tradition (II, 53 = G. II, 103), although the implicit recognition of selfcontrol as a virtue is of course much older. Of greater philosophical consequence is Jaeger's claim that it was Socrates who specified the good as the end (telos) or aim (skopos) of human desire. The direct textual evidence for this is problematic, since we can only refer to the speeches which Plato assigns to Socrates in the Gorgias and Protagoras. But Jaeger argues plausibly that this view of the good must already have been implied by the doctrine that seems most authentically Socratic: the paradoxical claim that no one does evil voluntarily but only out of ignorance presupposes “that the will is directed to the good as its telos” (II, 69 = G. II, 121). Some such notion of the good as aim or goal of rational desire would indeed seem to underlie the Socratic insistence upon self-examination. And this notion of the telos is obviously of central importance not only for Plato and Aristotle but for all Hellenistic philosophy. So in this age of skepticism concerning Plato's account, when we perhaps know less about the historical Socrates than ever before, it is well to be reminded by Jaeger that this fundamental principle of Greek ethics is genuinely Socratic. Turning now to Jaeger's account of Plato himself, we must take note of the fact that, although his treatment is arranged chronologically, his point of view is resolutely unitarian. There are earlier Socratic dialogues, but no distinct Socratic stage in Plato’s philosophical development. ‘When he wrote the first words for his first Socratic dialogue, he knew the whole of which it was to be a part" (II, 96 = G. II, 152). So in Plato’s last work, the Laws, the philosophic training of the Nocturnal Council reflects the same conception of virtue and education for leadership that was represented in the

Republic by the philosopher-kings.

"From his first work to his last, his

thought on that one cardinal point remained unaltered” (III, 261 = G. III, 342). Perhaps no twentieth-century portrayal of Plato has so radically rejected the developmental approach that was epitomized in Wilamowitz's biography of Plato and that has been taken for granted in much Englishlanguage scholarship. Jaeger's Aristotle had his Lehrjahre and his

Meisterjahre, but the mind of Jaeger's Plato seems as timeless as that of an Olympian god.

74

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Jaeger follows Wilamowitz in seeing the Seventh Epistle as a key to Plato’s conception of philosophy as a continuation of politics by other means. Originally prejudiced against the letter, Jaeger was convinced of its authenticity not only by “Wilamowitz’s brilliant personality and the

powerful reasons he adduced,” but even more by the fact that Plato’s account of himself and his career in the letter “presupposed in every respect that

interpretation of Platonic philosophy which I had independently reached by the detailed analysis of all his dialogues” (II, 83 f. = G. II, 137). From the letter we learn that Plato’s “practical interest in politics was the dominating

force in his early life" (III, 198 = G. III, 272). “Like many others, Plato had probably originally come to Socrates out of interest in politics” (ibid.). This was his lifetime concern, as we can see from the Gorgias, the Republic and the Laws, as well as from his repeated involvement in the affairs of Sicily. But in Jaeger’s view politics becomes paideia: Plato’s “entire work as a writer culminated in two great educational systems—The Republic and The Laws.” The position of Plato’s philosophy “in the history of Greek thought is defined by the fact that it is paideia.” But “its position in the history of Greek paideia is defined by the fact that it points to philosophy and scientific knowledge as the highest form of culture (Bildung).” It places the traditional problem of teaching arete on a new basis, provided by Plato’s metaphysics and theory of the Good, which “takes the place of the original foundation (Nährboden) of all human culture: religion. Or rather, it is itself a new religion" (II, 85 = G. II, 139). Whatever doubts one may harbor concerning Jaeger's own conception of paideia, his identification of these political-moral-religious concerns as the center of gravity for Plato's lifework seems essentially correct. Rousseau

had long ago recognized the Republic as more concerned with education than with politics in the usual sense. It is easy for Jaeger to extend this view and to show that “the ultimate interest of Plato's Republic is the human soul”; the political dimension is “introduced merely to give an ‘enlarged image’ of the soul.” “He makes Socrates move the whole state with one lever, the education which forms the soul” (II, 199 = G. II, 271 £.). Just as in the Gorgias Socratic moral teaching is represented as the true art of politics, so in the Republic the essential function of the state is moral and intellectual training. But this training culminates in the philosophic vision of the Forms. Jaeger emphasizes the religious implications of this new metaphysics. He claims that Aristotle and his contemporaries immediately recognized in Plato the founder of a new religion (II, 297 = G. III, 21). Historically speaking, this seems correct. It was primarily through Plato's writings that Socratic philosophy, in one form or another, became the predominant religion of educated men in the Hellenistic world. And Plato has in some sense designed his dialogues with this goal in mind. The myths are there not only to reinforce the arguments but to provide new and better substitutes for the immoral and blasphemous stories that Plato wants to eliminate from traditional poetry.

Charles H. Kahn

75

Jaeger has clearly marked the links between Plato’s criticism of poetry and his own literary creation. Plato deliberately offers “the philosophical

poetry of his own dialogues” as a replacement for the older poetry whose theology and morality he rejects (II, 216 = G. II, 291). This motive remains implicit in the Republic, but it becomes explicit in the Laws, where Plato’s spokesman says to the tragedians: “We too are poets, authors of the best and fairest tragedy” (Laws VII, 817b). The dialogue itself is to serve as a paradigm for literature to be used in education (ibid., 81 1c-«; cf. Paideia III, 256 = G. III, 337). Jaeger's insight here permits us to see how, in earlier dialogues, Socrates is consciously presented as hero of a philosophical comedy (in the Symposium) and of a philosophical tragedy (in the Phaedo). Plato can thus present himself as the only artist able to compose both tragedy and comedy because he writes with genuine knowledge and art (techne, Symposium 223d). This contest with the poets is more than a literary rivalry: Plato is competing for the soul of Greece. As Jaeger points out, he was only partially successful. “Posterity did not replace the earlier poets by Plato’s works when these were received into the canon of classical paideia” (III, 256; not in German ed.). The contest was simply made eternal, with Plato located next to Homer and Sophocles in the monumental coterie of literary immortals. As we have seen, Jaeger portrays the political constructions of Republic and Laws as background and framework for a program of moral and intellectual culture (Bildung), and furthermore he construes this educational program in religious terms as ὁμοίωσις θεῷ, an assimilation to the divine norm. He pursues this religious reading of Plato's educational enterprise by an elaborate parallel between the Form of Good as highest object of knowledge in Republic VI and the role of the deity as "measure of all

things” in the Laws.’

In his book on the theology of the Presocratics,

Jaeger has shown how the natural philosophers introduced a new notion of divinity as replacement for the anthropomorphic gods of Greek piety: the discovery of the natural world as an organized cosmos brought with it the conception of the cosmic god as the intelligent organizing principle of the world order. In the Timaeus and in the Tenth Book of the Laws Plato takes over this conception of the cosmic god and makes it his own. But Jaeger

reminds us that Plato's religious thought took its starting point not from natural philosophy but from the Socratic moral ideal and from its metaphysical backing in the doctrine of Forms. In the world view of the great middle dialogues the Forms, and most specifically the moral Forms,

represent what is most divine in the universe. In the words of the Phaedrus, the Forms are that “by contact with which a god is divine" (249c).

The

7 "In the state described in the Laws, God occupies the place taken in the Republic by...the Idea of Good. There is no essential difference between the two, only a difference of aspect, and of the level of knowledge to which, as objects, they correspond" Gl, 261 =G. II, 342).

76

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Form of the Good is described as reigning over the intelligible realm just as its offspring the sun rules over the visible heaven (Rep. VI, 509d). This supreme position for the Good can be seen as the metaphysical correlate to the religious dimension of Socrates’ commitment to morality. As Jaeger points out, just this moral-normative conception of divinity is presupposed in the earlier criticism of myth and poetry, where the basic tenet of theology is that “the god is good and must be spoken of accordingly” (Rep. II, 379b).

If Plato refrains from explicitly describing the Good as divine, that is “because it was so obvious that the reader could fill it in without help, and also because it was important to distinguish his supreme principle from the

gods of popular religion” (II, 285 = G. III, 8). True enough, but we can perhaps say more. The Form of Good is not a personal being, as the Greek term theos would imply. Also, Plato is not a monotheist, as Jaeger sometimes seems to suggest by speaking of God in the singular, as if theos were a proper name in Greek rather than a common noun. (This suggestion

is particularly misleading in the English translation, where “God” takes a capital letter.) But Jaeger knows better, of course, and he occasionally recognizes the diversity and plurality of Plato's conception of the divine.’ For Plato the concept of divinity is essential but also essentially vague. By calling the Forms "divine" he only indicates that they belong at the highest

level of his metaphysical scheme.

The Laws is a less technical work, and

here he can speak the language of ordinary men and refer to his supreme

principle simply as 6 θεός, “the god.” By emphasizing Plato’s stature as a religious thinker of the first magnitude, Jaeger offers a valuable corrective to more narrowly philosophical accounts of his ethics and metaphysics. And by taking seriously the Laws as a renewal and fulfillment of the educational project of the Republic, Jaeger brings out the underlying continuity in Plato’s moral and political thought. Beyond these general points, the virtue of Jaeger’s work on Plato lies in the detail, in the careful reading of particular texts. I cite two examples which seem to me representative. 1. Jaeger’s reading of the defense of philosophy against the charge of uselessness in Republic VI is penetrated by his sense of the concrete historical background. He is particularly good on the interactions between

Plato and Isocrates, and he recognizes the latter as one source of the charge 8 “God is the absolute good for which everything is striving; God is the world-soul; God is the demiurge or Creator; God is reason, nous; and there are the visible gods, the sun, the moon, the planets, et cetera” (II, 415 n. 396; this part of the note is lacking in the German, III, 377 n. 37). 9 In the Laws Plato speaks of "god" in the traditional way because here “we do not enter the holy of holies but remain outside, on the threshold of the temple" (G. III, 455 n. 354; there is nothing corresponding in the English: III, 352 n. 376). But what Jaeger says in this note (in both editions) about the One of Laws 962d and 963b being identical with the Good in the Republic is more dubious.

Charles H. Kahn

77

of uselessness (II, 266; cf. III, 56 f. and 148). He also recognizes the extent

to which Plato is reflecting here upon his own situation. Every concession to the critics of philosophy “changes into an accusation against the world. ... More than any others in his work, these pages are written with his heart’s blood” (II, 267 = G. II, 348). Plato is thinking not only of the fate of Socrates “but of his own high intentions, and of the ‘failure’ of his powers before the task he had once thought of as his own” (ibid.). With other commentators Jaeger notes that the philosophic natures spoiled by

their surroundings include such men as Critias and Alcibiades. What Jaeger adds is the suggestion that Plato saw these men as like himself in their

natural talent and that he saw their problem as it were from the inside,' like a man who describes with sympathy the tragedy of a member of his own family (II, 271 = G. II, 352). This explains why Plato “does not, like

Xenophon, attempt to disown” Critias and Alcibiades as associates of Socrates (II, 270 = G. II, 352). It also helps to explain the (for us disconcerting) degree of sympathy with which Critias is treated, both in the Charmides and in the Timaeus. 2. These examples from Republic VI illustrate Jaeger’s acute sense for the personal experience of the man behind the work, as in a more restrained version of Wilamowitz’s biographical narrative. But my last positive point concerns an insight quite unlike anything in Wilamowitz. This is the

extent to which the earlier so-called Socratic dialogues contain anticipations of the central ideas and doctrines of later works, above all of the Republic.

Jaeger invokes Schleiermacher's view as essentially correct, in regarding Plato's works as planned from the beginning "to form one intellectual whole which was dialectically unfolded, step by step, through them all" (II,

92 =G. II, 148).!!

It is of course an exaggeration to say that when he

began to write his first Socratic dialogue "the whole was already floating in outline before his eyes" (G. II, 152; cf.II, 96). But it is an exaggeration in the right direction, boldly denying the unargued but common assumption of the developmental view that, in every one of his works, Plato says

everything he knows at the time of writing (II, 97 = G. II, 153). Jaeger, more than any other scholar known to me, has recognized the need for what we may call a proleptic reading of the earlier dialogues, in which one finds

deliberate adumbrations of views to be more fully developed in later works.!? As Jaeger sees, a whole set of shorter dialogues are connected with 10 "When he asserts that it is impossible ...for a young man with a philosopher's character to be saved... unless by a special miracle from heaven, this is a general but unmistakable reference to the fact that Plato himself was originally preserved by finding

Socrates" (II, 270 = G. I, 867). ΤΊ For Jaeger's explicit endorsement of Schleiermacher, see II, 385 n. 52 = G. II, 384 n. 52. 1? Before rediscovering this approach in Jaeger, I had been developing a similar interpretation of the earlier dialogues. Sec "Plato's Methodology in the Laches," Revue

78

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

one another by their detailed arguments and by their common concern with

the nature and teachability of virtue.!?

But the definition of virtue must

presuppose some notion of what is good.

Hence the problems of definition

and teachability raised in the shorter works point forward to the Republic, where the virtues are at last defined, the problem of teachability solved in principle, and all issues are seen to depend upon the Form

of the Good.

Thus “the entelechy of the Republic can be quite clearly traced in the early dialogues" (II, 96 = G. II, 152). Of course not every work was planned from the beginning of Plato’s career. But he must early on have formed “the plan of taking his readers step by step upwards to the pinnacle” from which they could survey his whole thought (II, 105 = G. II, 163). The developmental

view tends to miss the many lines of connection drawn from work to work, by means of which Plato gradually reveals a single comprehensive pattern or Zusammenhang (ibid.). That all roads lead to the Republic seems to me a correct insight. Correct also is Jaeger’s appreciation of the key position occupied by the

Protagoras in this connection. The Protagoras has often been considered a very early work. Von Amim thought it was the earliest of all, and Wilamowitz dated it before Socrates’ death. Jaeger recognizes that it serves to bring together the threads developed in the shorter dialogues by connecting the virtues with one another and with knowledge of the good. Here Jaeger’s concern with the theme of paideia stands him in good stead. It

permits him to see with unusual clarity how, by systematically debating the question of education, the Protagoras points the way straight to the central issues of the Republic. In conclusion, let me briefly remark some chief deficiencies of Jaeger’s account of Plato. One obvious deficiency, namely incompleteness, was inevitable and was recognized by Jaeger himself. Given the viewpoint of paideia, not all dialogues are equally relevant, and Jaeger particularly regrets

his omission of any detailed treatment of the Timaeus.!*

So we can note,

without complaint, the absence of any discussion of the Parmenides and the Sophist, and the relative neglect of epistemological issues in the Theaetetus and elsewhere. (The omission of the Philebus and the slight attention paid to the Statesman are more regrettable.) As I mentioned at the outset, we

miss in Jaeger any real concern with central issues of moral and political theory. He writes on Plato as an intellectual historian and not as a philosopher. Hence it is his deficiencies as an historian that are to be judged Internationale de Philosophie 40 (1986) 1-21, and “Plato’s Charmides and the Proleptic Reading of Socratic Dialogues,” Journal of Philosophy 85 (1988) 541-49. 13 “His first dialogues were not written while he was still in doubt. Not only in each separate dialogue, but throughout the entire group, his thought always moves with

marvelous assurance straight towards the end he has in view. ... The central problem round which they all move...

14]], xiv and 346 n. 215.

is the nature of arete” (II, 89 = G. II, 144).

Charles H. Kahn

79

most severely. As far as I can see, these deficiencies are all connected with a certain blindness to or lack of interest in political reality. examples.

1.

I give three

The first instance is a technical point, but I believe it is symp-

tomatic. In Laws III (690 a-c) Plato lists seven axiomata or claims to rule: parents over children, nobles over non-noble, older over younger, masters

over slaves, stronger over weaker, the wise over the ignorant, and the one chosen by lot over the one who is not chosen. The list is strangely incomplete: rich over poor is missing, for example. But it is clear at least that we have here an incipient analysis of the sources of political conflict

(στάσεων πηγή at 690d); these are some of the opposing principles that

Plato will seek to reconcile in the compromise constitution of the Laws. His own view is that all these claims must yield before the primary qualification of obedience to law (714e-715c). Jaeger recognizes the juridical sense of the term axioma, “claim to possess,” but he ignores its

relevance to Plato’s intention of blending different political forms. Instead he emphasizes the mathematical sense of “axiom” which we know from Aristotle and which he finds important here, “because Plato is discussing the

general principles on which politics is based” (III, 235 = G. III, 314, “die allgemeine Grundlegung der Politik”). But in fact there is nothing mathematical or “axiomatic” about Plato’s use of these seven principles. Jaeger’s reference to this sense comes as a mere distraction, reflecting his

own lack of interest in the political realm as such. 2. A more significant omission is the lack of any notice of the very striking passage in Laws IV where the Athenian stranger agrees that he sees matters more clearly in his old age than he did when he was younger (715d— el). This confession comes immediately after the thesis that salvation for the state depends upon the rulers being servants to the law. This guiding conception of the Laws represents a fundamental break with the principle of

the Republic that philosophy must rule, a break that is envisaged but not yet accomplished in the Statesman. What is at stake in the keener sight of Plato’s old age is nothing less than Lord Acton’s axiom: all power

corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a principle repeatedly recognized by Plato in Books III (691c-d) and IV (713c-714a): human nature cannot bear unchecked power. That is why in the age of Cronus our cities were ruled by daimons rather than by men. If the truly wise ruler could be found, that would still be the best solution (IX. 875 c-d). But Plato no longer hopes to find such a man. Hence his legacy to posterity is

the second-best city of the Laws, where the whole constitution is designed to check the arbitrary exercise of personal power. Despite his sensitive reading of the Seventh Epistle, Jaeger shows no awareness of what Plato has learned in Syracuse about the weakness of human nature in positions of power, no sense for the radically new position of the Laws.

80

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

3. Finally, we can detect the same lack of any interest in politics as such in Jaeger’s reading of the Republic. It is one thing to say that the political construction is there to illuminate Plato’s study of justice in the individual psyche; it is something else to ignore the political passion expressed in the claim that mankind will not cease from its troubles until philosophy rules in the city. Jaeger rightly recognizes what I would call the

messianic strain in Plato’s politics: he says that Plato’s disappointment in Sicily can be seen from the Christian point of view as a mistaken attempt to build the spiritual kingdom in this world rather than in the next (III, 211 = G. III, 287). What Jaeger does not see is that this is what practical

politics always meant for Plato:

to build the best city here and now.

He

never gave up that enterprise, although he was realistic enough to settle for a second-best, or even for a third-best, if circumstances were unpropitious.

Jaeger prefers to emphasize the passage at the end of Book IX where Socrates speaks of the best city as a pattern in heaven which the philosopher can behold and, by seeing it, construct in himself the true state (II, 354 = G.

III, 87, citing Republic 592b). He also quotes at length the description of the philosopher as the man in the dust storm who takes refuge behind a wall (Rep. VII, 496d). On this Jaeger comments: “The philosopher has descended from his lofty claim to rule the true state. Quietly he retires to a corner out of sight” (II, 272 = G. II, 354). But it is revealing that Jaeger breaks off his quotation before Plato’s own comment at 497a. “Such a man

will not have made the smallest achievement,” says the interlocutor. “But not the greatest either,” responds Socrates, “unless he meets with constitution. In such a state he will grow greater, and together private preservation he will also save the community (ta koina).” within us, so dear to Jaeger, is for Plato also a consolation. But

a fitting with his The city it is not

even a second best. The real goal is to do something that is public and political. Only in this way can the philosopher attain his full stature. Jaeger’s vision of Plato as the unrepentant Socratic, pursuing the spiritual reform of mankind by a program of moral and intellectual training, seems to me fundamentally correct. Where the vision falters is where it touches on mundane issues of power and legislation; here the author seems to be temperamentally out of touch with his hero. It is said that Werner Jaeger never wanted to visit Greece.!5 Perhaps for him the inner truth of Greek thought required an ideal landscape. Great historian that he was, he was unwilling or unable to see the aspirations of Plato historically tied to 15 Prof. W. M. Calder III informs me that Jaeger finally went to Greece in his old age in order to receive an honorary degree from the University of Athens.

Charles H. Kahn

81

the realities of power, violence, and compromise in a rocky corner of the sunlit Aegean.!6 University of Pennsylvania 16 For general discussions of Jaeger’s treatment of Plato see E. N. Tigerstedt, Interpreting Plato (Uppsala, 1977) 50 f., and F. Franco-Repellini, “Note sul ‘Platonbild’

del Terzo Umanismo,” Il Pensiero 17 (1972) 91-122. I should add that the very diverse and informative discussions at the Urbana conference helped to confirm my view of Jaeger's weakness in dealing with political reality. In particular, the paper of Donald White, infra, on Jaeger's personal role in the cultural politics of Weimar and early Nazi Germany, comes to a conclusion which is closely parallel to my own inference from the blind spots in Jaeger’s understanding of Plato’s much deeper and more thoughtful involvement in the politics of his day.

Werner Jaeger’s Early Christianity and Greek Paideia PAUL T. KEYSER Confessioni addictus sum evangelicae—so wrote the young Jaeger in midMay of 1911.! Normal would have been: Fidem profiteor evangelicam; addictus (“assigned”) is a legal term. This is our earliest record of his reception of the faith of his fathers—such confessional statements are rare in the rest of his writings. Yet the last book he saw through the press (almost his last work—only three items are posthumous?) concerned just that ancestral faith—Early Christianity and Greek Paideia. What led the young believer to this last testament? What does it offer and how has that offer been received? I. Faith of His Fathers

For his early years and religion we rely entirely on his own words, which are descriptive not confessional, and incomplete. They are found in “Notes Towards an Autobiography: The Beginnings,” and in the introduction to the Scripta Minora? He writes: “in the life of the inhabitants of the area (the lower Rhine near Holland], the question of religion has always been a matter

of decisive importance,"^ and he speaks of a “life based on the ecclesiastical culture of the late Middle Ages surviving here unbroken."5 He describes a simple peasant piety and an uncritical devotion to the Roman

Church.

Catholic

But that was the context of his family's very different religious

experience—they were Lutherans who “brought with them to the Catholic

lower Rhineland the age-old, deeply rooted legacy of their Protestant faith."$ ! Vernerus G. Jaeger, Emendationum Aristotelearum Specimen (Berlin 1911) 61.

? See the bibliography by H. Bloch in Werner Jaeaer: (Montreal

1966)

143—65:

there

were

also

two

Five Essays, ed. A. M. Fiske

translations—one

into

Italian of the

Theologie der frühen qriechischen Denker and one into German of Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (cp. below, note 84). . 3 The first is published with an English translation in Essays 2-21; the second, Scripta

Minora I (Rome 1960) ix-xxviii, is reprinted in unrevised English translation in Essays 25-44.

* Essays 3.

5 Essays 7. $ Essays 11.

84

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Other children in such a situation might have grown up to alienation and a critical outlook toward religion or to stubborn perseverence and fanatical intolerance—neither occurred. Jaeger’s grandfather Johann Ludwig Birschel “was entirely non-political and non-church-going [and had] an enlightened outlook,"? and only (!) to young Jaeger “did he entrust his summa

summorum on an occasional impulse, and it was then reduced to the brief formula that ‘everything’ was a hoax.”® On the other hand, his grandmother (Pauline) had a literary education “but solidly based on the religious foundation customary in Wuppertal. It was a genuine theocracy, like those in the Puritan Commonwealths of New England where the Pastor ruled and theology penetrated all thought and earthly conduct.” Jaeger emphasizes the importance for his life of the presence of his maternal grandparents in his hometown;!? and “the contrast in the natures of my [maternal] grandparents struck me and I absorbed both of them into myself. In my intellectual development I have made both my own [habe ich beide in mir

aufgehoben].!!

His parents were very different,!? “but I never paid homage

to the Zeitgeist of naturalism, to the scientific materialism which controlled the thought of my parents’ generation.”!? They had grown away from the Church tradition, yet “devotion was not lacking in their life nor reverence

for that which is above men.

They were not atheists . . . .”1*

Such is the context of Jaeger's confessio evangelica. Two other matters from his youth will also be relevant. In his “Notes” he rejects utterly the Industrial Revolution: I remember how the ostentatious second generation of this new industrial gentry entertained the people now and then with a spectacle such as seeing the tall son of the white-haired old founder of an internationally known firm drive his pair of greys through the streets .. . [and] like the chorus in a Greek tragedy I would say to myself that this went beyond what can be endured without

resentment.!5

The noble castle Bocholt that stood in the middle of the village (a symbol, though Jaeger does not say so, of the old feudal synthesis in which the Roman Catholic Church played such a leading role) “was bought by the

textile king of the new industrial nobility; this was in keeping with the trend of the times, the Industrial Revolution, as it is called in the United 7 Essays 11. 8 Essays 15.

9 Essays 15. 10 Essays 11.

1 Essays 17. 12 Essays 17.

13 Essays 19. 14 Essays 21.

15 Essays 9.

Paul T. Keyser

85

States.”!6 More attuned was Jaeger to the “Old Western" values represented by Latin and Greek!” and out of step with the modern world and modernism.

Second: as he relates, he attended the Gymnasium in the town from which came the author of what Jaeger calls (probably correctly) the most popular book after the Bible—I mean Thomas Hemerken of Kempen (Thomas à Kempis) and his /mitatio Christi!® whose only critical editor J. Pohl was Jaeger’s Gymnasium Classics master at the time he was preparing the edition.? Hemerken’s /mitatio Christi was part of Jaeger's reading in his school days and after.2? Jaeger rightly refers to him as a mystic and explains that the fortress of Kempen which harbored our Thomaeum Gymnasium within its thick walls and moats, flanked by three strongly fortified towers, was like a visible symbol of this tradition. It made the unity of the bilingual cosmopolitan culture of antiquity and the unity of the classical and Christian worlds seem natural to us from the very

beginning, and I have held to this unity in all my later work.?!

Elsewhere: "even in the Gymnasium I was half a theologian, and my graduation certificate specified that I would go on to the study of both

classical philology and theology.'2? Indeed, in his earliest autobiographical work, the vita attached to his dissertation, he indicates that he gave himself

"studiis . . . philologis et historicis, theologis et philosophis.”23

The two

areas, philology-history and theology-philosophy, were parallel—Calder records the twin icons of Wilamowitz and Harnack in Jaeger's Harvard

office? ——and despite Calder's suggestion that Marburg turned Jaeger from philosophy to philology and “made him an historian of ideas,”2° I believe Jaeger's own testimony (cited above) is decisive—he felt he was always both. This theological view and work seemed to Jaeger to be applicable to the very beginning of Grcck thought (as his book Theologie der frühen griechischen Denker shows), and he connects this outlook with his antimodemism: “[I wrote] in opposition to a widespread modern opinion which interprets the beginnings of Greek philosophy in the sense of today’s natural 16 Essays 9.

17 Cp. Essays 26. 18 Essays 26. 19 Noted by Jaeger in “Humanism and Theology," Humanistische Reden und Vorträge U (Berlin 1960) 327 n. 17.

2 Reden 305.

21 Essays 27. 22 Essays 38. 23 Specimen 61; cf. Essays 38. 24 Wm.

M. Calder III, "Werner Jaeger," Classical

Scholarship:

A Biographical

Encyclopedia, ed. W. W. Briggs and Wm. M. Calder III (New York 1990) 211—26, 216. Calder, supra, 213.

86

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

science,” and he states that his other work provides “many examples of this principal tendency in my research.” II. Paideia of Christ

Jaeger’s entrance to the University community as a student occurred in the

last years of Wilhelmine Prussia—that is, the final stage of his intellectual formation has more affinity with the old order than the new.

As noted, he

there continued his theological reading and upon obtaining the Doktorat was encouraged (commanded?) by Wilamowitz to edit Gregory of Nyssa (“the most truly Greek of the Christian fathers”2’), which became a life-work.2® The groundwork was laid, but there was yet to come an event which

strengthened Jaeger’s aversion to the modern world and Realien—the very real experience (in Kiel) of the collapse of Prussia in 1918. Already in 1917 he wrote, “from week to week this war tears more deeply apart the

foundations upon which until now my life was built... [I am in] doubt about everything that had become second nature to me from childhood

..."79 His student W. Schadewaldt writes “the November Revolution [of 1918] transformed a tendency into an obsession."39 In the words of Lucretius (3.16-17)—twice quoted by Jaeger—moenia mundi discedunt?! The Weimar years would only serve to confirm. Milieu is decisive. Germans at this time were yearning for a revival of

what they saw as the lost German synthesis of Kultur and Nation. writes:

Stern

"[they] sought a breakthrough to the past and they longed for a new

community in which old ideas and institutions would once again command universal allegiance,”?? and “... their one desire was for a new faith, a new community of believers, a world with fixed standards and no doubts, a

new...religion that would bind all... together.”??

Stern is thinking

especially of Paul de Lagarde, the great and eccentric Old Testament scholar opposed to modernism and occupied with the notion that "every psyche is the object of an education by God,”™ and of Julius Langbehn who “rejected 26 Essays 37.

27 Essays 37.

23 Essays 38: Jaeger writes: "[when] Wilamowitz urged me to [edit Gregory] I felt immediately at home ... it corresponded fully to what my own personal development had shown me was necessary." But Calder, supra, 216 records a letter of Jaeger to Wilamowitz in which he writes (8 March 1921): "you summoned me to the task when I [had no] idea of what to do.” Perhaps neither recollection need be taken as definitive. For the size of the task see Calder, supra, 217 and Essays 38-39. 29 Calder, supra, 216. 3; Calder, supra, 216. 31 Quoted in Essays 26 and Reden 303. 5„Fritz Stem, The Politics of Cultural Despair (New York 1965) xvi. „Stem, supra, xii. 54 Stem, supra, 13.

Paul T. Keyser

87

contemporary culture, sneered at reason, and feared science."55 Both were, as Stern shows, extraordinarily influential in late Wilhelmine Prussia and the Weimar Republic and were a measure of the times. Lagarde's moral thought is characterized by Stern as typically Lutheran (and both the Lutheran and

Roman Catholic Churches were opposed to modernism).*© These tendencies coalesced around a belief that man is not primarily rational, but volitional; he is not by nature good nor capable of perfectibility; the politics of liberalism rest on an illusion;

evil

exists

and

is

an

inherent

aspect

of

human

life;

positivistic science and rationalism are divorced from reality and at best only partly valid; the idea of historical progress is false and blinds

men to the approaching catastrophes of the twentieth century.?? Stern deals with critics who wrote before Weimar; Peter Gay treats Weimar culture itself: . . the most insistent questions revolved renewal, questions made most urgent and disappearance of God and the threat of stupidity of the upper classes, and the

around the need for man's practically insoluble by the the machine, the incurable helpless philistinism of the

bourgeoisie.?® Gay notes a tendency to turn nostalgically and uncritically to the past,

“reformation through nostalgia,” and quotes Walter Goetz: “Preceptors of the nation! Do you really think you are fulfilling an educational task if you command history to stop in its course and return to an old condition?”3? Two important movements sought this through a return to the Classics—

the Stefan George Kreis (compared to Plato’s Academy) and the Warburg

Institute—with more dilettantism than success.” Jaeger saw himself in a very similar way.

He describes the man who is

the subject of much of Paideia:*! “Plato himself saw clearly his lifework as a philosophical reconstruction of [the] basic social scheme of Greek life” and “the true paideia, be it education or legislation, is founded on God as the

supreme norm . . . true human virtue is assimilation to God.”*? And what does Jaeger say of himself?

35 Stem, supra, 118. 36 Stern, supra, 28-29 and xix-xx respectively.

37 Stern, supra, xviii. 38 peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (New York 1970) 7.

39 Gay, supra, 79 and 92 respectively; cp. also 84-85. 40 Gay, supra, 46-51 respectively.

41 Cf. C. H. Kahn's paper in this volume. *? Reden 318, 320.

88

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered The external cause that led to [Paideia's] composition lay in the crisis facing our humanistic cultural tradition on which the whole magnificent development of classical scholarship in the nineteenth century was based, whether or not it was conscious of this fact. Unless there is a permanent value for human culture in the ancient concept of man, classical scholarship exists in a void. Anyone who does not believe this should come to America and see there what can happen to the development of classical studies. Where the humanistic tradition begins to decay, there is only one thing left for the student of antiquity to do: take up the cudgels and, like monks in the early Middle Ages,

devote oneself body and soul to his mission as a teacher... the promethean urge to fashion men, which comes to us from antiquity, is

and remains the root of all classical scholarship.)

I have quoted this somewhat in extenso because of its crucial importance— Jaeger was a man with a mission, a mission born of the cultural despair of Weimar, a mission he himself perceived as divine ("like the monks"). He drew upon the theology of his youth ("founded on God") and sought a method to produce men of the old type ("assimilation to God" and *promethean urge to fashion men"). In keeping with his times he turned (had long since turned) his back on modernism and sought renewal for man

through Classical education (paideia). This feeling of revulsion and desire for the Old Western values was not confined to Weimar, and a parallel (already adduced by Stern) may help.^ I refer to the Anglo-Irish scholar of medieval and renaissance literature C. S. Lewis, a near-contemporary (bom 1898, died 1963) and fellow believer.*° Lewis too was concerned to save Greek paideia as baptised into the theology of the Church and addresses the issue in his Abolition of Man.“ He writes that the purpose of education is to train the pupil to like and dislike what he ought (citing Arist. NE 1104b, Plato Laws 653, Augustine Civitas Dei 15.22) and emphasizes the difference between the old education as propagation and the new education as propaganda or conditioning.*? Elsewhere he argues that "Christians and Pagans had much more in common

with each other than either has with a post-Christian. The gap between those who worship different gods is not so wide as that between those who 43 Essays 41-42.

44 Stem, supra, xviii. 45 Because he has been more received as a theologian than as a scholar, most biography is hagiography. See recently Dabney A. Hart, Through the Open Door: A New Look at C. S. Lewis (Tuscaloosa 1984), George Sayer, Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times (London 1988), and A. N. Wilson, C. 5. Lewis: A Biography (London/New York 1990). *6 (London 1943) and often reprinted. Like Jaeger's Christianity it was originally a set

of lectures. 47 Lewis, Abolition 10-11 and introduction to Jaeger’s Paideia L

14-15 respectively.

Cp. the first page

of the

Paul T. Keyser

89

worship and those who do not."4* Like Jaeger he is no fan of the Industrial Revolution or of modern science, going so far as to claim that the greatest break in Western Culture was the Industrial Revolution and the associated changes in politics, arts, and religion, and (in the manner of Livy) he

advocates the study of the past as a liberation from the present.*? There are differences—Lewis was a devout convert, while Jaeger remarks “without

taking an active part in the life of any one church I was at home in the Church of all the centuries.”5° The parallel of the theologian, the milieu of Weimar, and the testimony of Jaeger cited above combine to prove that from the earliest days of his professional career his goal in composing Paideia was theological and

protreptic.

In this context Christianity can be seen not as merely volume

four of Paideia (or worse, as merely an afterthought) but as the telos or entelechy of the whole of not only Paideia but of Jaeger’s life. III. Assimilation to God

I have shown how Jaeger was fertile ground and what the seed was. How did it grow, and can we discern first fruits? Important here will be various

reviews, essays, and letters—and a course.5!

Already in 1913 some of Jaeger's ideas found in Christianity find expression in print, in a lengthy (42 pp.) review of Eduard Norden,

Agnostos Theos.5? His reactions to Norden's research on the speech in Acts 17 are especially significant in light of Jaeger's later work. Norden finds parallels to Hermetic thought in Acts 17:27a (to seek God if they might

grasp him) and in Acts 17:25 (οὐδὲ προσδεόμενός two), and to neoPythagorean thought in Acts 17:24 (god dwells not in man-made temples).

Jaeger accepts these,*? but significantly prefers a Senecan parallel (Epist. 41): "god is near to you, he is with you, is within...in each and every one of good men god dwells (which god is uncertain)."5* Norden finds parallels in the speech of the prophet and magician Apollonios of Tyana (originally from a neo-Pythagorean source) which Jaeger again accepts ("beweist die Richtigkeit der N.schen Einreihung")—only to reject it in a 48 De Descriptione Temporum (Cambridge 1955) 7. This was his Cambridge inaugural lecture, delivered in Fall 1954. 9 Lewis, Temporum 11-17 and 19-20 respectively. For aversion to modem science cp. also Abolition 34—42. 50 Essays 38. 5! For all information about the course I am indebted to Wm. M. Calder III, a participant in Spring 1954.

52 GGA (1913) 569-610 = Scripta I, 115-61.

53 Scripta I, 118—20. 54 Scripta I, 120. Poseidonios (as found in Cicero, ND 2.154) is also cited, Scripta I, 119, for the idea that both God and Man dwell in the Kosmos as in a house.

90

Wermer Jaeger Reconsidered

footnote to Christianity.55 Thirdly, Norden shows that the concept of the ἄγνωστος θεός is at home from the beginning in Gnostic and Hermetic circles, and this again Jaeger accepts: N.'s Erforschung des Begriffes ἄγνωστος θεός bedeutet einen neuen Beweis dafür, dass nicht die hellenistische Metaphysik, sondern die religióse Spekulation des Orients, die bei den ersten Ansützen zur Lehrgestaltung in Urchristentum mit Pate gestanden hat, den ültesten und lebensfähigsten Keim zur physikalischen Christologie und zu jener unfruchtbaren Wendung in der spüteren Dogmenbildung ihm ein-

gepflanzt hat."56 (He might have been inclined to accept these more readily to please Norden,

who would vote on his appointment at Berlin.5”) None of this appears in

Christianity (Orphism only with James 3:6, “the wheel of birth"55), nor does he discuss neo-Pythagoreanism or Hermeticism in Christianity.? Why is this? No one will complain if a man at 70 no longer adheres to all the ideas he held when he was 25 (especially if the collapse of Prussia, Hitler, and exile intervene)— but Jaeger never gives reasons for rejecting or ignoring what he once regarded as proven. Below I shall suggest some causes. On the other hand, the significance of the Pinax of Cebes for the

understanding of Christian μετάνοια he regards as established by Norden— and still insists thereon in Christianity. The next signpost is a letter written 17 years later (in the midst of economic disaster and a month after the resignation of the Müller cabinet) to

the theologian Rudolf Bultmann.$! It is by way of a thank-you for Bultmann's reaction to an unnamed Vortrag of Jaeger's. The only sufficiently recent and sufficiently theological Vortrag I find in Jaeger's list of publications is "Die geistige Gegenwart der Antike," which had been given and printed the previous year$2— nothing else listed for 1929 or 1930 will do. Jaeger is glad that theologians take note of what humanists are moved by and promises: 55 Scripta I, 121-22 and Christianity 112. His later arguments are that if Acts depends upon Apollonios of Tyana it must have been composed in the middle or the late II A.D., which is impossibly late. Granted—but might the parallels (which he does not refute) be otherwise explained—a common neo-Pythagorean source of the I B.c. toI AD? 56 Scripta I, 131; cp. 134.

The metaphor of the godfather strikes.

57] am indebted to Wm. M. Calder III for this insight.

58 Christianity 8.

59 Gnosticism only in a few disparaging paragraphs—“this strange sort of religious

ersatz” —pp. 53-55. 60 Scripta I, 138-41

and

Christianity

8-9,

110—here

Pythagoreans—but only in connection with the “Two Ways.”

he

does

mention

the

61 In the collection of Wm. M. Calder III, to whom I am indebted for permisson to quote

from it: dated 28 April 1930. $2 See Essays 150.

Paul T. Keyser

91

Ich darf hier so viel aussprechen, dass ich die immer neve Auseinandersetzung des Humanismus mit dem Christentum für eine der grössten beiderseitigen Aufgaben halte und, wenn meine Lebenszeit dazu reicht,

mich ihr später noch selbst zu widmen hoffe. Für mich ist die Welt mit der Antike noch nicht zuende. Allerdings ist ein Aufbau nur von der Antike aus möglich. Das Christentum konnte historisch und kann auch heute noch nur in sie (d. ἢ. die Antike] eintreten und sie durchdringen,

nicht sie durch einen anderen Aufbau ersetzen.

Das ist es, was ich mit

den Gedanken ausdrücken wollte, dass die antike Kultur die fortzeugende Form der europäischen sei.

[Emphases his.]

The years (and events, as Schadewaldt notes) have in no wise dimmed his

enthusiasm. The next available set of signposts comes in the years 1954-55, after his divorce and remarriage, the flight from Hitler, and the war and its aftermath.

The quarter-century had seen also the publication of all three

volumes of Paideia.

Again he writes to Bultmann, this time giving a brief

epistolary review of Bultmann’s Theologie des neuen Testaments, in the

course of which he remarks: Die staendige

[sic,

and so throughout]

Elements in der hellenistischen Form besonderem

Wert

Betonung

des gnostischen

des Urchristentums

fuer jeden der sich die Frage

Christentum nicht bloss als Uebernahme

ist von

Hellenismus

und

griechischer Philosophie

denkt, sondern gar in konkret-historischer weise auffasst.©

Gnosticism was “in the air” in 1954, as the Nag Hammadi codices had been discovered only nine years before—yet despite Jaeger’s statement (“von

besonderem Wert”) he barely mentions Gnosticism in Christianity.“ In the letter he goes on to say: Von der griechischen Tradition aus betrachtet wuerde sich die Theologie der Christen tatsaechlich wohl auf das reduzieren, was die Apologeten als

solche

hinstellen,

und

erst

im

vierten

Jahrhundert

sind

die

spezifisch christlichen Dinge wie Gnade, Suende, Erloesung, etc. die

Gegenstücke einer christlichen “Theologie” geworden.

This explains the emphasis in Christianity—one third of the text (sections VI- VII) is devoted indeed to those fourth-century A.D. developments. 53 This typed letter of 31 October 1954 is also in the collection of Wm. M. Calder III, to whom I am again indebted for permission to quote. The word “gar” in the last line is a

correction in Jaeger's hand, kindly interpreted for me by E. A. Schmidt and E. Schütrumpf (28 April 1990). 6* pp. 53-55, as noted above.

92

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Shortly after this letter was written appeared Jaeger’s review

of

Merki's Ὁμοίωσις τῷ Oe. Important for Jaeger's method in seeking out examples of Christian paideia are the words he wrote about Merki's hunt for

the concept of ὁμοίωσις τῷ θεῷ: Man kónnte natürlich bei einem minder wórtlichen Verfahren Platos Forderung in Verbindung bringen mit früheren Formen des Glaubens an die göttliche Herkunft der Seele und an ihre Rückkehr zu ihren Ursprung

(Orphik, Pythagoreer, Empedokles, Pindar)...55

And he insists that the consideration of the motif of the "Image of God" in Jewish-Christian literature is a necessary detour for a complete understanding of (the later) ὁμοίωσις τῷ 82.7 We shall see below how he applies this in Christianity. In the Spring of 1954 Jaeger offered a course of Greek readings in early

Christian literature. The course seems to have been intended as a dry run for the book. The primary texts were Acts 17, the Loeb Apostolic Fathers in two volumes (by Kirsopp Lake), the edition of the Apologists by E. J. Goodspeed, and Rahlf's LXX. The selections read from the LXX were the two Wisdom books (that of Solomon and that of Sirach also called Ecclesiasticus). From the Apostolic Fathers there were selections from the Didache, I Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, "II Clement," Epistle of Diognetus, Tatian—notably not the Epistle of Barnabas (from the New Testament only

Acts 17).

In addition to selections from the Apologists (primarily Justin)

the class read the recently rediscovered Paschal Homily of Melito of Sardis and selections from Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus (from this last he would translate, in a solemn yet impassioned tone, the passage "The Bacchae have ascended Zion to do worship to the Most High"). Clement is

remembered as the first to see Christianity as a continuer not a wrecker of the classical world. Close attention was paid to the texts (the exams were at least half translation—students were asked to identify the authors of the passages set) and to the ideas therein (examples of questions: “Which texts of early Christian literature do you think to be the most significant documents of the rapid growth of episcopal authority and church discipline in the first two centuries?" and “How does the Christian religion of Clement

of Rome compare with the faith of Paul? How far does it correspond to it? Wherein does it differ?”). Inclusions and exclusions of texts are significant. The class did read from the two Wisdom books, and although they did not read the very Jewish but anti-Judaizing book Barnabas nor any of the other documents of the 55 H. Merki,

Ὁμοίωσις τῷ θεῷ (Freiburg 1952)—the review was possibly already

written when the letter was; it appeared in Gnomon 27 (1955) 573-81.

66 Review of Merki, supra, 574.

67 Review of Merki, supra, 571.

Paul T. Keyser

93

Hellenistic Jewish-Christian demi-monde (Psalms of Solomon, Sibylline Oracles, Enoch, etc.), yet Jaeger does ask exam questions about this sort of literature. How very different from Christianity, in which Jaeger has only a

few pages on this very important facet of early Christian literature.6® Again, the class read documents (Hermas, Tatian, Melito) not related by

Jaeger in Christianity to his theme there. Finally, historical context played a role—exam questions include “How are [Hermas and the Revelation

of John] related to Rome and her rule?” and “Write an essay on the relationship of Church and State as reflected by the early Christian writers

from Clement of Rome to Justin Martyr.” (The Nag Hammadi and Qumran documents are absent—they were as yet difficult of access, and in any case are in Hebrew and Coptic, not Greek.) No mention seems to have been made in the course of Hermetic, Gnostic or neo-Pythagorean literatures—in contrast to the attitudes expressed in the reviews and letters quoted above. (A. D. Nock at Harvard was working on Hermetic literature at the time— Jaeger may have felt that that literature was out of his bailiwick.)

In his Ingersoll Lecture (1958) on “The Greek Ideas of Immortality,"70

one can see the direction his thoughts were taking.

He notes that the

specifically Christian (I Cor. 15) belief in the resurrection of the dead (ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν) differs from the Platonic belief in psychic immortality but that the Church has because of the first belief always had an interest in the latter. Important for the survival in Jaeger’s thought of the

issues of the Weimar period is a passage in this lecture concerned with the social order of the fourth century B.C.: ... but even though the idea of the political community and the common good is still the value to which every form of human activity is related and which determines a person’s value, it seems evident that this original authority of the social order is vanishing in real life and that the highly differentiated individual of this century is struggling hard to maintain a value of his own that is independent of the giant mass of men because it is rooted in something of eternal validity and in

the depth of the human soul.”!

He also acknowledges in this connection the significance of Orphism and the (neo-) Pythagoreans. His description of Plato’s religion is also significant:

“Philosophy is for him a way of life that leads to the salvation

(σωτηρία) of the soul"? and “The Symposium gives an even more detailed $5 Christianity 4-7, thus less than 4% of the text. © Melito does appear (pp. 59-60) only to be disparaged:

“tragic dramatism"; the other two documents appear not at all. 70 HTAR 52 (1959) 135-47 = Reden 281-99.

71 Immortality 139 = Reden 291.

72 Immortality 143 = Reden 294-95.

“overblown mannerism" and

94

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

picture of this ascent [like that of the Orphic religion] of the soul to the world of being by the long and toilsome way of knowledge."73 I have sketched from the evidence available the development of Jaeger's

thought relevant to Christianity over the course of his professional career. One can see the persistent interest in the renovative and salvific power of

Greek (especially Christian Greek) thought.

There is also a constant

recognition of the importance not just of Greek philosophical and Christian works sensu stricto but also of Gnostic, Hermetic, and neo-Pythagorean documents which may throw light on the early Christian texts and the Hellenization of Christianity. How does this compare to Christianity?

How far does it correspond to it? Wherein does it differ? IV. The Word of Jaeger In 1960 as he retired from teaching at Harvard, Jaeger gave his seven Carl

Newell Jackson lectures on "Early Christianity and Greek Paideia"; these,

expanded and amplified with notes, form the book Christianity.'* There he expresses the hope that this book, published at Easter 1961, would be a kind of first fruits of a larger whole, i. e., Paideia IV, as had been his intention

since the first volume and his work on Gregory of Nyssa. Within months hope was falsified by fate. Most reviews were written in light of his death and are laudatory and uncritical (nil nisi bonum de mortuis). I defer my own

"belated review" to cite some examples from these reviews and to draw a parallel.

The reviews of Goodenough, Downey and Musurillo—whom

one

might expect to have provided some insights—are entirely laudatory.?> The reviews of theologians are appreciative but cautious. Christie writes: "Tertullian and Cyprian violently criticised the pagan philosophers . . . it was precisely the Hellenic tradition which they tended to repudiate" and reminds the reader that Origen, who plays such a leading role in Jaeger's

construction, was himself repudiated by the Church

in A.D.

553.76

Mackauer notes that Acts does not call Christianity the "paideia of Christ" (though the Acta Philippi, 8, does), nor does the canonical Acts try to make Christianity seem a continuation of Greek paideia (Acts does try to make

Christianity seem suitable for upper-class people, such as “Dionysios the Areopagite" and various women)."

Further, Clement of Rome uses paideia-

words in non-technical senses throughout and does not define his epistle as an act of Christian education.’® Thirdly, he claims that Jaeger misinterprets 73 Immortality 144 = Reden 296. 74 Christianity pref. p. i. 75 Respectively, Goodenough AHR 67 (1961-1962) 760, Downey CW 55 (1962) 198, Musurillo AJPh 84 (1963) 209-11.

76 JTRS 14 (1963) 500-02. ΤΊ JRel 43 (1963) 156-57 and cp. Christianity 12. 78 Cp. Christianity 24-25.

Paul T. Keyser

95

a passage in Plato’s Laws (of this more below). But by the theologians the book is on the whole praised. Historians criticise historical details. Grant notes that Theophilos (a second-century Apologist not Ad Autolycum 3.2 refers scomfully to the paideia of (also not in Christianity) Adversus Haereticos 2.32.2 (not Greek) history as the education of mankind—but

referred to by Jaeger) Plato, while Irenaeus conceives of Biblical Grant acknowledges

that an adequate interpretation of Christianity can never afford to ignore Jaeger's insights. Chadwick notes that the discussion of Origen, because of the one-sided use of the panegyric of Gregory Thaumaturgos, represents

him as rather less critical of Greek philosophy than he was, and that *"Jaeger...sees... Greek paideia and early Christianity with blurring of sharp distinctions."

He concludes that the book is “more than an

historical study in that it is an implicit confessio fidei in the tradition of Christian humanism associated with Erasmus.”®° Perspicacious; but one may rightly go further. Calder, with reference to

Jaeger's “Die Erziehung des politischen Menschen und die Antike,”®! notes: “Jaeger nowhere perverts his sources. He simply picks, chooses, and ignores to make a welcome point.” Snell in 1935 had already made the

same point in his review of Paideia I, showing “how Jaeger was forced to interpret evidence... unhistorically in order to sustain his thesis that paideia provides the cornerstone on which to build an intellectual history of

Greece.”®2 This would seem also to be Jaeger's technique (as noted in some of the reviews cited above) in Christianity—he picks those Christian authors who have something positive to say about pagan Greek writings and

who can be held to refer in some way to or to exemplify a Hellenised Christian paideia. Significantly, few modern scholarly works on early Christian writings

mention or use Jaeger’s book—its influence has not been deep.®? (Wide it 79 Speculum 37 (1962) 283-84. $9 CR

13 (1963) 114-15.

81 Volk im Werden 3 (1933) 43-49; see Calder, supra, 220. 82 Bruno Snell, GGA 197 (1935) 329-53 = Gesammelte Schriften (Göttingen 1966) 3254; cp. Calder 219.

83 The following (listed alphabetically by author) are representative (the one to cite Christianity is Grant): Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition: Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (New York 1966) is based on lectures given in 1962 with revisions and enlargements, and adopts a very different perspective than Jaeger (and nowhere cites him); Arthur J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tübingen 1989) = Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 26 (1989) 203-04 cites Jaeger's "Greeks and Jews,” JRel 18 (1938) and the English translation The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford 1947) but not Christianity; E. J. Goodspeed, A History of Early Christian Literature, rev. Robt. M. Grant (Chicago 1966)—the original was 1942, and Grant may not have felt at liberty to add a reference to Jaeger ("I have tried to retain as much of the Goodspeed flavor as possible”: p. v), but he certainly knew Christianity: note the review cited above, note 79, and the next item; Robt. M. Grant, After the New Testament (Philadelphia 1967) 53 n. 13 "for Greek aspects [of / Clement see] W. Jaeger, Christianity (Cambridge 1961), pp.

96

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

may have been: Harvard University Press reprinted it four times for a total of over 9000 copies in the five printings.) One apparent exception proves the rule: Jaroslav Pelikan (a grand-student of Harnack)®5 in his magisterial five-volume history of Chrisuan doctrine lists Christianity and remarks that it “relates the themes of his three-volume work

[Paideia] to his lifelong

interest in the Greek Christian fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa,”®° yet despite discussing Acts 17,87 despite drawing parallels between pagan philosophers and Christian thought in Justin Martyr's Apology and in

Origen,3® despite discussing Clement of Alexandria's Protrepticus,®? and despite describing the “Hellenization of Christianity" including Gregory of Nyssa,” Pelikan nowhere cites or quotes Christianity. Pelikan's work is the most comprehensive treatment of the history of Christian doctrine since Harnack (possibly ever)—the omission is damning.

Now let me turn to a "belated review" of Christianity.?!

There are

seven sections (not "chapters," as the headings in the notes reveal), untitled,

making up 100 pages of text. One may in a rough way assign titles: I. Introduction (10 pp.), II. Letter of Clement (14 pp.), III. The Apologists (9 pp.), IV. Neoplatonism (11 pp.), V. Clement of Alexandria and Origen (21 pp.), VI. The Fourth Century A.D. (18 pp.), and VII. Gregory of Nyssa (17 pp.). This also clarifies the balance—the weight is heavily on the third and fourth centuries A.D. (67 pp., versus 23 pp. for the first and second 12-26" (this is in a paper on "Scripture and Tradition in Ignatius of Antioch" wherein the note is attached to a sentence concerning Ignatius’ resemblances to Clement and Hermas as representing

a mixture

of Greek

and Jewish

elements);

Helmut

Koester, History

and

Literature of Early Christianity = Introduction to the New Testament Ii (New York/Berlin 1982) nowhere cites Jaeger, Alfred R. C. Leaney, The Jewish and Christian World 200 B.c. to A.D. 200, Cambridge Commentaries on Writings of the Jewish and Christian World 200

B.C. to AD. 200 7 (Cambridge 1984) nowhere cites Jaeger; Williston Walker, et al., A History of the Christian Church* (New York 1985), though founded on a book originally published in 1918, has been brought it up to date by largely rewriting it (p. ix) and is still standard—Aand nowhere cites Jaeger; Michael Walsh, S.J., The Triumph of the Meek: Why Early Christianity Succeeded (Cambridge/New York 1986) does not cite Jaeger at all; and Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers? (Cambridge 1970) is based on Philo and quotes only Jaeger's Nemesios (p. 400 n. 23).

9^] am indebted to Fred Waters of Harvard University Press for providing me with this information (per telephonam, 30 May 1991). The latest reprint is 1985. It was also translated into German (Berlin 1963), and twice reprinted by Oxford University Press (London 1969, 1977). 35 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. L The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago/London 1971) xi.

36 Pelikan, supra, 363. 87 Pelikan, supra, 11-12. 88 Pelikan, supra, 33-34. 89 Pelikan, supra, 35-36. 5° Pelikan, supra, 45-50 and 50-51, 53 respectively.

91] cite passages from Christianity in the following by page number, and in the text rather than in the notes.

Paul T. Keyser

97

centuries). This is consistent with the letter of 1954 to Bultmann (see above). Jaeger makes his point of departure the “one great difference [from Judaism or other local cults] . . . that the Christian kerygma did not stop at the Dead Sea or at the border of Judaea but overcame its exclusiveness and local isolation and penetrated the surrounding world" (pp. 4—5). He very slightly but significantly misrepresents the explanandum—Judaism had spread in various forms from Babylon to Spain, from Italy to Ethiopia, and Mithraism, Isis-cult, and others were widespread— what is to be explained is why and how Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire (and why it was a particular form that did so). This is not so much explained as assumed, and the process is described—the Hellenization of one particular Jewish heresy is the subject of the book. And this is (p. 6) built on the extant Hellenization of the Jews and the use by the Christians of Greek literary forms (p. 7) and language (p. 5). (This of course was also true of the other religions of the time, all other languages being merely epichoric). Jaeger emphasizes (which Christians often forget) that the New Testament documents are mainly Greek forms: Epistles and Praxeis (he might have mentioned the similarity of some Acts to the Greek Novel—I think here of the Acts of Paul and Thecla), to which were later added the Martyrology and Sermon (Diatribe) already in use among pagans (p. 7). What of the Gospels? The Didache is rightly connected with propaganda tracts of sects such as Orphics and (neo-) Pythagoreans (he compares the Pinax of Cebes) as to form and content (pp. 8-9). In Acts 17 the significant fact is that the author chose as his common ground the Greek philosophical tradition (p. 11)—but what of Acts 1-16 and 18-28? There is little enough philosophy there and much of other things. Thus far the Introduction—but there are glaring omissions. Nothing is said of the miracle stories, which on any reading of Christianity are a crux— how are these to be connected with paideia? What of the divine claims of Jesus—so incomprehensible and so emphasized? And finally what of the thoroughly Jewish (not Stoic) rejection of polytheism found throughout the New Testament documents? All are significant features, none can be explained as part of Greek paideia, and all were retained by succeeding generations of Christians —until the Enlightenment. These are precisely the features of Christianity Jaeger would not have learned from his immediate family (see above)—is it possible that Jaeger is practising eisegesis? Jaeger next proceeds to the letter of Clement: this alone from the bulk of the "Apostolic Fathers" he chooses to treat (pp. 12-26). He has proclaimed his book a selection or "certain main outlines" (pref. p. ii), so one can not deny him the right to pick an example—but it should be an example. That is, his treatment of the letter of Clement and the conclusions he draws from it should fairly represent the literature from which he has made his selection. But one misses any representative of the vast bulk of Jewish-Christian literature (as noted above), or any discussion of the

98

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Gnostic, Hermetic, or neo-Pythagorean works which hovered about the writings later accepted as “truly Christian” by the Church triumphant on Earth. In his treatment of the letter of Clement he follows the lead of the word. paideia—probably too far, since a praise of paideia (in one chapter of sixty-five) hardly “defines” the epistle as an act of Christian education (pp. 24-25). A modem scholar would add a reference to the great commentary of J. B. Lightfoot,?? which emphasizes the numerous other issues in the letter, such as its primary purpose (see cc. 1-3, 40-47, 51, 54, 57, 63) to

reestablish correct Church discipline. Christian keywords dominate most of Clement’s text: ζῆλος (4-6), μετάνοια (7-8), πίστις (9-12), and of course ἀγάπη (49-50) to name only a few, while the character of cc. 29-32 is rightly described by Lightfoot as liturgical.

No doubt a few sections do

reflect Greek thought (c. 20 ὁμόνοια, c. 25 φοῖνιξ) not including (I think) Jaeger's key chapter 56 on paideia.

The use of the word there iis clearly ini

the sense "correction, discipline": ἀναλάβωμεν παιδείαν ἐφ᾽ N οὐδεὶς ὀφείλει ἀγανάκτειν (and Clement quotes LXX Ps. 118.18 and other Jewish scriptures—are we really to infer Hebrew paideia?).?? Jaeger writes "it is clear that [Clement] applies [paideia] in a much wider sense ...and...conceives of paideia as precisely that which he offers to the Corinthians in his whole letter" (p. 25)—Tather, it is clear Clement had

no such idea—paideia is purely “correction” here (and indeed his whole letter is so meant: cp. cc. 58-59, 63). Jaeger has gone a bit beyond the text (and has been quite selective as well—one chapter of 65 is hardly representative). The third section concerns Justin Martyr, the earliest apologist

completely extant in Greek (Aristides, who is the only earlier extant Apologist, is extant mainly in a Greek paraphrase and a loose Syriac translation, with a few Greek fragments), and the most open of all of the second-century A.D. Apologists to Greek thought. Jaeger rather oddly believes that the Dialogue with Trypho “is a classic example not of external

imitation of a rigidified literary pattern but of a true effort by the partners in the dialogue to understand each other instead of asking questions only for the sake of refutation” (p. 27)—most readers would, I think, say the reverse.

Again in the discussion of the Apology (Jaeger’s main topic) a modern scholar would refer to Goodenough on Justin Martyr’s theology or to the commentaries. But there is no denying that Jaeger’s case can here be made much better than with Clement of Rome—Justin Martyr surely does

thoroughly adopt (really retain, as he was first a pagan philosopher) Greek 92 The Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp 1.1, 1.2 (London 1889-90). 93 On all these see Lightfoot, supra, ad locc.

94 E. R. Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr (Jena 1923); the commentaries are J. Geffcken, Zwei griechische Apologeten (Berlin/Leipzig 1907), who treats also Athenagoras; A. W. F. Blunt, The Apologies of Justin Martyr (Cambridge 1911), in the Cambridge Patristic Texts; A. Puech, Les Apologistes Grecs (Paris 1912), and A. L. Williams, Justin Martyr: The Dialogue with Trypho (London 1930)

Paul T. Keyser

99

thought.?5 Yet again, is he a fair example of the historical process? I think not—the other extant Apologists of the second century A.D. (Aristides,

Theophilos, Athenagoras, and Tatian) either ignore Greek thought save for commonplaces or use it only to reject it (whether partly or, as Tatian,

shrilly). Nor does Jaeger’s approach explain the other explanandum of the Christian Apologists—why does their approach result in the thorough rejection of Jewish elements from Christianity? For the remaining sections I am less competent, and confine myself to

a few remarks. For Clement of Alexandria a modern scholar would refer to works such as Molland on Clement and Greek philosophy? or Osborn on

Clement’s own philosophy.” For Origen what of Hanson on his doctrine of tradition and the relation of Origen to Gnosticism

(also a pregnant

question for Clement of Alexandria)??® Or Daniélou’s study of Origen???

Nor is Jaeger’s passing reference (pp. 53-55) to Gnosticism adequate—its significance both for Greek thought and Christianity is greater than a

“strange sort of religious ersatz.” Festugiére might have helped Jaeger.!%

Significant both for Jaeger’s wide reading and knowledge of Greek literature and for his unwillingness to see other sides of Christian thought (or at least

tendency not to) is his passing reference (p. 56) to initiation into the mysteries as a comparans for introduction to philosophy, which he parallels

from Hippocrates, Law 5 = CMG 1. (1927) 8.15. In drawing parallels from Hippocrates to early Christianity he might also have noted Edelstein’s thorough commentary on the Oath, which shows that such prohibitions in it as those against aiding suicide or procuring abortion (prohibitions so

characteristically Christian) are neo-Pythagorean!?!—but neoPythagoreans!?? (as noted above) are not really part of Jaeger's field of view. Jaeger was sent a letter with a transcript of the Greek of Clement in Morton Smith's stunning book Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark

and accepts the main thesis (pp. 56-57)—that there indeed was a Secret Gospel in use at Alexandria in the time of Clement!9?— but does not take the next necessary step of recognising the thereby proved tremendous 95 Yet for a more balanced reading of Justin, see later Henry Chadwick, “Justin Martyr's Defence of Christianity,” BJRL 47 (1965) 275-97 = History and Thought of the Early Church (London 1982), no. 7. 96 Einar Molland, Clement of Alexandria on the Origin of Greek Philosophy (Oslo 1936). 97 Eric Francis Osborn, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge 1957). 98 Richard P. C. Hanson, Origen's Doctrine of Tradition (London 1954) 99 Jean Dani£lou, Origen, trans. W. Mitchell (New York 1955). 100 A. J. Festugi?re, La Revelation d'Hermés Trismegiste I (Paris 1950). 101], Edelstein, The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation = BHM S. 1 (1943). eer may just note that Edelstein wrote a partially favorable review of Jaeger's Diokles at AJPh 61 (1940) 483-89. Edelstein does not accept Jaeger’s late dating but accepts the thesis that Diokles was a contemporary of Aristotle. 103 M, Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge 1973).

100

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

influence of Gnosticism on the second-century Church (even to put it so distorts—Gnosticism was an integral and even the largest part of the second-

century Church).!%

A reviewer (see above) has already pointed out that

Jaeger (p. 66) misquotes and misinterprets Plato Laws 10 (897b2-3), which

reads not 6 θεὸς παιδαγωγεῖ τὸν κοσμὸν but ὀρθὰ xoi εὐδαίμονα παιδαγωγεῖ navra—the true reading weakens his argument considerably. When Jaeger describes the opposition to Christianity as “representatives of

the highest cultural tradition [whose] point of departure is their culture, the[ir] paideia” (p. 71), he has forgotten the other (more common) sort of persecution recorded already in Tacitus, Annals 15.44, and Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96-97—I mean the rumor-fueled and politically

motivated judicial murder of Christians as social misfits. What has that to do with Jaegerian paideia? A few notes not critical but indicative may also be added. The issues which Jaeger sees confronting his authors (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc.) are not infrequently closely related to Lutheran theology (p. 88 explicitly, pp. 67 and 64 as well)—in one case (p. 64) revealingly so: free will and predestination, though surely an issue from Augustine (if not before) were the greatest Streitfrage, almost the defining doctrine, of Lutheranism (and perhaps, I suggest, not the chief problem facing Origen, as Jaeger claims, p. 64). Or again, when Jaeger describes (pp. 44-46) what

we now Call the transition to the Late Antique, he concentrates on the rise of neo-Platonism, to the exclusion of art, architecture, politics, or all the other

indices of cultural change—contrast Hans-Peter L’Orange.!® V. The Meaning of Limits I have shown how Jaeger (in the words of his student Calder) “picks, chooses, and ignores to make a welcome point [and] is forced to interpret evidence unhistorically in order to sustain his thesis” (cp. above). A more difficult question is, why? We know his thesis—that early Christianity in fact continued, not destroyed, Greek culture—can we elucidate the

significance this thesis had for Jaeger that led him to his exegetical and interpretative practice? And can we speak of reasons for his selectivity must we seek causes? And what significance does his book, in light of limits and their origins, have for us? In the first place I would point to Lutheranism, the rationalism of parents, and the influence of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi. If

or its his all

104 See now Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York 1979). 105 Studien zur Geschichte des Spätantiken Porträts (Oslo/Leipzig 1933), reviewed in Gnomon 11 (1935) 15-22 (the second volume in which Jaeger does not appear as editor, rather his student R. Harder); the English translation is Art Forms and Civic Life in ıhe Late Roman Empire (Princeton 1965). Compare now Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge 1978) —his Carl Newell Jackson lectures, which give a very different picture of the Christianization of the Roman Empire.

Paul T. Keyser

101

history is current history, a fortiori all intellectual history (and that is what his book Paideia is) is current intellectual history. I have remarked above how events and currents of thought in the Weimar period would have drawn

Jaeger irresistibly (as Plato was) toward the eternal and lasting.

himself remarks with evident passion:!%

Jaeger

the Greeks saw the world as a cosmic structure of unchanging norms and not as merely a temporal sequence of events.

His review of Merki’s “Οιοίωσις τῷ θεῷ (cited above) shows his approach to this stability—and Thomas 4 Kempis’s title is the translation into

Christian Latin of ὁμοίωσις τῷ θεῷ. By being made like God, that is, for a Christian, like Christ, one holds fast to and even becomes part of that

which endures. Just as theologians interpret all texts in light of developed doctrine ("dogma has no history, only heresy does"), so Jaeger interprets Greek and Christian culture in light of the (rather: “his”) doctrine of paideia:

it is the theologian who speaks in these pages.

(I would compare also his

approach to the pre-Socratics, as noted above.) I have already remarked where Jaeger’s Lutheranism breaks through; his parent’s rationalism is presumably reflected in his tendency to interpret Christianity without reference to the more Jewish or ecstatic or physical (crucifixion, sacraments, martyrs) elements therein. (I have noted the paucity of attention paid to Gnosticism and the like.) It is an historical fact, as much as anything about the early Church is, that it was not primarily an intellectual movement. The brilliance of Jaeger’s presentation is this, that one is almost convinced, one does almost come away believing, that the New Testament is a work,

like that of Musonius Rufus or Epictetus, of Hellenistic philosophy. Nothing could be further from the truth—Hellenistic, yes, but more closely allied to Judaism, Gnosticism, and Magic, as a less tendentious reading

would show.

And the same can be said for the Christian literature of the

second and third centuries A.D. Even in Jaeger’s preferred fourth century, despite the presence of undoubtable cases like the Cappadocian fathers, the picture is not so simple and fine. Consider for example Athanasius of Alexandria, the fourth-century defender of the doctrine of the Incarnation, who in On the Incarnation 1 writes: What men mock as unsuitable (ἀπρεπή) by his goodness he renders suitable, and what men explain away and mock as human by his power he shows to be divine, overthrowing the illusion of idols by his apparent degradation through the cross, and invisibly persuading those who mock and do not believe to recognize his divinity and power. 106 Essays 43.

107 Cp. Pelikan, supra, 7-8 from Euseb. Eccl. Hist. 1.1.1.

102

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Then, after briefly summarising Greek cosmology in c. 2, he writes in c. 3: the divinely inspired teaching (διδασκαλία) of faith in Christ refutes their vain talk as impiety. It teaches that the world did not come into being of its own accord but that through the Word God brought the universe, which had previously in no way subsisted at all, into being

from non-existence.! Later (cc. 41-47) he comes to “the unbelief of the Greeks [who] laugh at things which are not to be mocked, and are blind in their shamelessness which they do not perceive, having devoted themselves to stones and wood.”109 Athanasius seeks to defend the argument that the Incarnation (with the Cross) is θεοπρεπής, contrary to the well-nigh universal belief of thoughtful Greeks. Thus, Lutheran theology rationalised and a deeply felt engagement with the doctrine Imitatio Christi are the well-springs of Jaeger's thought. And Jaeger himself gives us the key to'his mind in a remark in his Ingersoll

lecture on “The Greek Ideas of Immortality":!19 “At the very moment when the Greek mind seemed to arrive at the stage of entmythologisierung, a super-myth arose and ushered in a new world." For “Greek” read “Jaegerian.” (Compare also the letter Bultmann.) Another appeal was the rational and paradeigmatic Greek thought—on the appearance of Dodds's The Greeks and the

its final age of the of 1954 to nature of Irrational,

Jaeger “criticise[d] it with unaccustomed virulence on the ground that it was dangerous because it overemphasized what was unimportant among the

Greeks at the expense of what was important, their rationality.”!!! Does this adequately explain his selectivity in Christianity? Is he simply homing in on what he (rightly or wrongly) saw as the essence, and exegeting that? That may well be the reason—I would like to suggest that there were in addition two causes. He prepared the lectures thinking he would later have time to write the full book—could it be that he prepared them partly from the materials organised for his course, and so naturally

concentrated on what he had done for that? (The course itself was based on a selection from his reading.)

And secondly, given the intellectualizing bent

of his Christianity, could it be that such elements as Gnosticism struck the holder of Nietzsche's chair as too Dionysian? We cannot tell.

What significance then can his book, a flawed torso, have for us in an age preoccupied with its own Gnosticisms and Magics, an age when all 108 Robt. W. Thomson, Athanasius Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione (Oxford 1971) in

the Oxford Early Christian Texts, see pp. 135-39.

109 Thomson, supra, 235.

110 Immortality 147 = Reden 298. 111 As recorded by Wm. M. Calder II, to whom Jaeger made the criticism, in a note to me (2 May

1990).

Paul T. Keyser

103

cultural syntheses fall to the ground and no centers hold? We find ourselves in a state similar to that in which Jaeger found himself, with voices on the left and right proclaiming an educational crisis!!2— perhaps not so much has changed since Socrates was condemned for introducing new gods and corrupting his students? After the work of theologians such as Karl Barth and Sgren Kierkegaard is there any place for such a super-rationalising

account of the faith of the Church? Or are we come back to that hater of paganism (and most everything else) Tertullian, who wrote (De Carne Christi 5.4) prorsus credibile est quia ineptum est...certum est quia

impossibile?”!\3

Kierkegaard is the theologian (as Eliot is the poet) of

Industrial Man—fragmented, alienated, existential—for whom the soul is

not a divine spark but a "relation which relates itself to itself"!1^ and who speaks to the truly self-made man. Faced with Christian paideia we ask, “quis educabit ipsos magistros?"115 Works Cited Blunt, A. W. F. The Apologies of Justin Martyr (Cambridge 1911).

Brown, Peter. The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge 1978). Calder, Wm. M., III. “Werner Jaeger." Classical Scholarship: graphical Encyclopedia.

A Bio-

Edited by W. W. Briggs and Wm. M.

Calder (New York 1990) 211-26. Chadwick, H. Review of Christianity: CR 13 (1963) 114-15. Chadwick, H. "Justin Martyr's Defence of Christianity." BJRL 47 (1965) 275-97 = History and Thought of the Early Church (London 1982), no. 7.

Chadwick, H..

Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition:

Studies in Justin, Clement, and Origen (New York 1966).

Christie, J. T. Review of Christianity. JThS 14 (1963) 500-02. Culham, Phyllis, and Lowell Edmunds, editors. Classics: A Discipline and Profession in Crisis (Washington DC 1989).

Daniélou, Jean. Origen. Translated by W. Mitchell (New York 1955). 112 Phyllis Culham and Lowell Edmunds, eds., Classics:

A Discipline and Profession in

Crisis (Washington, D.C. 1989), a reference I owe to Judy Hallett; and John Searle, “The Storm Over the University," New York Review of Books (6 December 1990) 34-42. 113 Oft misquoted as quia absurdum est. See Alberto Vaccari, "Credo quia Absurdum.'

Chi l'ha detto?,” Scritti di Erudizione e di Filologia Yl (Rome 1958) 17-21.

114 Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and

Edna H. Hong (Princeton 1980) 13. The complete jabberwockian sentence is: “The self is & relation which relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation: the self is not the relation but is the relation’s relating itself to itself." (The original Danish is Copenhagen 1849.) I am indebted to Ed. L. Miller (Philosophy, Boulder) for these references. 115] am indebted to Wm. M. Calder III for encouraging me in this work.

104

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Dodds, E.R. The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley 1951). Downey, G. Review of Christianity. CW 55 (1962) 198. Droge, Arthur J. Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tübingen 1989) = Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 26 (1989). Edelstein, L. Review of Diokles. AJPh 61 (1940) 483-89. Edelstein, L. The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation =

BHM S. 1 (1943). Festugiére, A. J. La Revelation d' Hermes Trismegiste I (Paris 1950). Gay, Peter. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (New York 1970). Geffcken, J. Zwei griechische Apologeten (Berlin/Leipzig 1907). Goodenough, E.R. The Theology of Justin Martyr (Jena 1923). Goodenough, E. R. Review of Christianity. AHR 67 (1961-1962) 760. Goodspeed, E. J. A History of Early Christian Literature, rev. Robt. M. Grant (Chicago 1966).

Grant, Robt. M. Review of Christianity. Speculum 37 (1962) 283-84. Grant, Robt. M. After the New Testament (Philadelphia 1967). Hanson, Richard P. C. Origen' s Doctrine of Tradition (London 1954). Hart, Dabney A. Through the Open Door: A New Look at C. S. Lewis (Tuscaloosa 1984). Koester, Helmut. History and Literature of Early Christianity = Introduction to the New Testament II (New York/Berlin 1982). Leaney, Alfred R. C. The Jewish and Christian World 200 B.C. to A. D. 200. Cambridge Commentaries on Writings of the Jewish and

Christian World 200 B.C. to A. D. 200 7 (Cambridge 1984). Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man (London 1943). Lewis, C. S. De Descriptione Temporum (Cambridge 1955). Lightfoot, J. B. The Apostolic Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp. Vols. 1.1-2 (London 1889-90). Mackauer, C. W. Review of Christianity. JRel 43 (1963) 156—57.

Merki, H. 'Ouoíooig τῷ θεῷ (Freiburg 1952).

Molland, Einar. Clement of Alexandria on the Origin of Greek Philosophy (Oslo 1936).

Musurillo, H. Review of Christianity. AJPh 84 (1963) 209-11. L’Orange, H.-P. Studien zur Geschichte der Spätantiken Porträts (Oslo/Leipzig 1933). Translation: Art Forms and Civic Life in the Late Roman Empire (Princeton 1965).

Osborn, Eric Francis. The (Cambridge 1957).

Philosophy

of Clement

of Alexandria

Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels (New York 1979). Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. 1. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)

(Chicago/London 1971). Puech, A. Les Apologistes Grecs (Paris 1912). Sayer, George. Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times (London 1988).

Paul T. Keyser

Searle, John.

“The Storm Over the University.”

105

New York Review of

Books (6 December 1990) 34-42. Smith, Morton. Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge 1973). Snell, Bruno. Review of Paideia I. GGA 197 (1935) 329-53 = Gesammelte Schriften (Gottingen 1966) 32-54. Stern, Fritz. The Politics of Cultural Despair (New York 1965). Thomson, Robt. W. Athanasius Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione (Oxford

1971). Vaccari, Alberto.

“‘Credo quia Absurdum.’ Chi l'ha detto?"

Scritti di

Erudizione e di Filologia Il (Rome 1958) 17-21.

Walker, Williston, et al. A History of the Christian Church* (New York 1985). Walsh, Michael, S.J. The Triumph of the Meek: Why Early Christianity Succeeded (Cambridge/New York 1986).

Williams, A. L. Justin Martyr: The Dialogue with Trypho (London 1930). Wilson, A. N. C. S. Lewis: A Biography (London/New York 1990). Wolfson, Harry A. The Philosophy of the Church Fathers? (Cambridge

1970). University of Alberta at Edmonton

Werner Jaeger in the United States: One Among Many Others* ALESSANDRA BERTINI MALGARINI Jede Form von Emigration verursacht an sich schon unvermeidlicherweise eine Art von Gleichgewichtsstórung. ... Und ich zögere nicht zu bekennen, daß seit dem Tage, da ich mit eigentlich fremden Papieren oder

Pässen

leben

mußte,

ich

mich

nie

mehr

ganz

als

mit

mir

zusammengehörig empfand. Etwas von der natürlichen Identität mit meinem ursprünglichen und eigentlichen Ich blieb für immer zerstört. —Stephan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern. Erinnerungen eines Europäers (Stockholm 1944)

Hitler’s assumption of power and the subsequent promulgation of the Nazi racial laws induced 132,000 Germans and Austrians to emigrate to the U.S. between 1933 and 1942. The International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Émigrés 1933-1945! collected the biographies of more

than 25,000 people who emigrated to the U.S: among the 7622 from Germany and Austria 1000 were active in their country in the field of education, 2352 were physicians and paramedical personnel, 811 lawyers, 465 musicians, and 296 artists. A considerable number of artists, intellectuals, and academics who were forced to leave their countries, some for political reasons, most simply because they were Jewish, made this transfer of human beings, arts, and ideas one of the most significant cultural

events of our century. There are three elements which, in my opinion, can be taken to characterize generally these émigrés: 1) 80% of them were of Jewish origin;? 2) most of them grew up in the contradictory years of the Weimar

Republic;

and 3) although

they came

from different central

European countries, their cultural backgrounds were to a very significant * [| am very thankful to Prof. W. M. Calder III for inviting me and encouraging my research and to those who attended the Conference for their critical comments. My warmest thanks to Dr. Rosemary Sheldon for revising my English. This paper has been written during my stay in Washington, D. C., as a CNR/NATO Junior Fellow. _ 1 International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945, ed. W. Roeder and H. A. Strauss (Munich and New York 1980~1983), 3 vols. 2 According to H. A. Strauss, “The Movement of People in a Time of Crisis,” in The

Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation 1930-1945, ed. J. C. Jacmann and C. M. Borden (Washington, D.C., 1983) 45-59.

108

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

degree marked by homogeneity. With these statements I do not of course want to deny the very real fact that every single émigré of this group was unique, as their intellectual and non-intellectual lives prove to us.

It is

enough to remember briefly at this point that their degree of integration and their ability to integrate themselves were completely different in each case, and in a way this is what makes this wave of émigrés something unique. The only possible distinction that we might make is due to the different years of their emigration: those who left Germany between 1933 and 1935 could be considered political émigrés, since it was only after November 4,

1935, that life for the Jews was becoming worse and the few exceptions allowed in the Law for the Restoration of the German Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums)^ were removed and all the Jews still in service dismissed. But again, in some cases there were “external” reasons that caused emigration: the Anschluß of Austria by the German Reich in 1938 or the disintegration of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Furthermore, two countries—Italy and France, respectively after 1939 and 1940— were no longer safe shelters but transit countries. Therefore I do not believe it is necessary to make major distinctions among the émigrés regarding their political opposition to Fascism as opposed to their purely ethnic motives for leaving, because these motives overlapped for over twothirds of the émigrés. And it is not necessary, as we have seen, to make a distinction regarding the time they emigrated. What they decided is meaningful: for moral, political, or racial reasons, to live under such a

regime seemed and became intolerable to them, and they fled.5

As soon as the National Socialists won power the Gleichschaltung® of the German universities began, and through the Gesetz zur 3 As suggested in H. Stuart Hughes, The Sea Change: The Migration of Social Thought, 1930-1965 (New York 1975) 15; Id., "La grande emigrazione intellettuale," Rivista Storica ltaliana 82 (1970) 951-59. Besides, in dealing with intellectuals and artists, academics and non-academics, it is impossible to make overly subtle distinctions, since,

as has been rightly pointed out in A. Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America from 1930s to the Present (New York 1983) 74, “they were products of the same generation; in some cases they had been habitués of the same cafés." * Some chronological remarks: January 30, 1933:

Hitler was elected chancellor, April

7,1933:

the Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums was enacted; November

4, 1935:

the law had to be applied also to the War World I combatants excluded before;

January 26, 1937: the law applied also to those married to non-Aryans. 5] do not agree with L. A. Coser, Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences (New Haven and London 1984), who considers that what characterizes this group of émigrés—and makes it so different from others—is their heterogeneity, determined above all by their different cultural backgrounds and their reasons for abandoning their native countries. As I have suggested above, other elements eventually have to be considered in discussing their heterogeneity. See W. M. McClay, "Weimar in America," American Scholar 55 (1986) 119-28. S Usually translated as “coordination” or "synchronization." The two English words seem to me, however, somehow too neutral and are missing completely the strength and

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini

109

Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums the Sduberung (cleansing action) took over, affecting 45% of the entire teaching body of all German universities: “nearly 1700 faculty members and young scholars lost their

places, among them 313 full professors."*

It is interesting to note, once

again, that 80% were removed for racial reasons and only 20% because of their being leftists and/or suspected pacifists. As a matter of fact, first to be

dismissed, on April

13, 1933, were the scholars of the Institut für

Sozialforschung of the University of Frankfurt (closed in March 1933)? where Marxist orientation and Jewish origin were a common denominator of

the group.

They emigrated almost entirely to the U.S.!?

Something

similar happened to a large group of young historians (few of them were actually full professors, nor did they have any chance to reach that status, partly because of the terms of their engagement, partly because they were Jewish). Although, with some exceptions, they could not be considered political activists, they had been the "intellectual" support of the Weimar Republic. The topics of their research as well their methodological approaches clearly made them followers of a liberal political and historical current and therefore inappropriate to the Nazi educational program. Besides, as has been noticed, most of the historians who came to the U.S. were

students of Friedrich Meinecke.!! Also, the members of the so-called Vienna Circle were mostly Jewish and left-wing, and they too fled to the United States after Hitler's invasion of Austria. They are an example of a very successful integration into a new cultural environment, as well as of mutual

and productive influences.!? While we are speaking about the influence of the violence that was behind this action.

Something like "totalitarianization" would be

closer to the German word as well to what really happened. ΤῈ, H. Samuel and R. Hinton Thomas, Education and Society in Modern Germany (repr.

Westport 1971) 131. SF, K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Intellectual Community, 1890-1933 (Cambridge, MA, 1969) 440. 9 The story of this group, their emigration and their attempt at integration, has been written with great insight by M. Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research 1923-1950 (London 1973). In this as well in the following notes I will give just the very first bibliographical indications.

10 M. Horkheimer, Th. Adorno, E. Fromm, L. Lowenthal, H. Marcuse, and F. Pollock— just to name the most representative of them—were for a while together in New York at the Institute for Social Research of Columbia University. 1 For D. Gerhard, F. Gilbert, H. Holborn, E. Kehr, H. Rosenberg, etc., see G. Stourzh,

“Die deutschsprachige Emigration in den Vereinigten Staaten: Geschichtswissenschaft und Politische Wissenshaft,” Jahrb. Amerikastud. 10 (1965) 59-77: 64-69; G. G. Iggers, “Die deutschen Historiker in der Emigration,” in Geschichtswissenschaft

in Deutschland,

ed. B. Faulenbach (Munich 1974) 97-111; H.-U. Wehler, Historische Sozialwissenschaft und

Geschichtsschreibung

German Past:

(Göttingen

1980) 227-97, and F. Stem, “Americans

and the

A Century of American Scholarship,” Ceatral European History 19 (1986)

131-63 (now also in Dreams and Delusions: German Past [New York 1987] 243-73).

National Socialism in the Drama of the

110

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

German émigrés in American Geistesleben, we should not forget the important role played by Hannah Arendt, Franz Neumann, Leo Strauss, and

Eric Voegelin!? in political theory, to name just a few of a very impressive

number of political scientists who reached the U.S.!* together with their

colleagues, psychoanalysts and sociologists.!5 Relevant as well are the

arrivals of Curt Sachs and Erwin Panofsky: no one, in fact, could deny that musicology and art history were previously almost unknown in American

culture.16 To these very limited! examples of those who fled to the U.S. are to be added some 40 classicists (scholars working in all fields of Altertumswissenschaft), removed—with few exceptions—from their

positions for racial reasons and not stricto sensu for political ones.!® 12 H. Feigl, “The Wiener Kreis in America,” in D. Fleming and B. Bailyn, eds.,

The

Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960 (Cambridge, MA, 1969) 630-73, and H. Marcuse, “Der Einfluß der deutschen Emigration auf das amerikanische Geistesleben:

Philosophie und Soziologie,” Jahrb. Amerikastud. 10 (1965) 27-33: 29. 13 They arrived in the U.S. respectively in 1940, 1936, and both Strauss and Voegelin in 1938. 14 For understanding their influence I found very helpful F. Neumann, “The Social Sciences," in W. Rex Crawford, ed., The Cultural Migration (Philadelphia 1953) 4-26; G. Stourzh (note 11 above) 69-77; H. Stuart Hughes, The Sea Change (note 3 above), among

the many other studies that could and should be mentioned. 15 For E. H. Erikson, B. Bettelheim, E. Fromm, P. F. Lazarsfeld, etc., see L. A. Coser (note 5 above) sections II and III: 19-136, but also H. Stuart Hughes (note 3 above); /d., *Social Theory in a New Context," in The Muses Flee Hitler (note 2 above) 111—22, and S.

Riemer, “Die Emigration der deutschen Soziologen nach den Vereinigten Staaten," Kölner Zeüschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 11 (1959) 100-12. 16 For C. Sachs see B. Schwarz, "The Music World in Migration," in The Muses Flee Hitler (note 2 above)

135-50;

for Panofsky

see C. Eisler, "Kunstgeschichte

American

Style: A Study in Migration," in The Intellectual Migration (note 12 above) 544—629. 17 References have been unfortunately limited to German-speaking émigrés and to very few fields, neglecting scholars of other fields of the humanities and of the sciences, as well

of other countries, especially of Eastern Europe. These limitations are due only to the author's lack of knowledge. However, some of the studies on European migration quoted in the above notes cover more fields. See also the special issue of Salmagundi (Fall 1969Winter 1970): The Legacy of the German Refugee Intellectuals, ed. R. Boyers, and the books of L. Fermi, Jilustrious Immigrants: The Intellectual Migration from Europe 1930— 41 (Chicago 19712) and H. Pross, Die deutsche akademische Emigration nach den Vereinigten Staaten, 1933-1941 (Berlin 1955). 18 For the emigration of classicists see W. M. Calder III, "Die Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in den Vereinigten Staaten," Jahrb. Amerikastud. 11 (1966) 21340: 232-36; W. Ludwig, "Amtsenthebung und Emigration klassischer Philologen," Würz.

Jahrb. f. die Altertumsw. 12 (1986) 217—39, first published in Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 7 (1984) 161-78; G. Luck, "Stati Uniti D'America: La critica testuale grecolatina," in La filologia greca e latina nel secolo xx: Atti del Congresso Internazionale. Roma, CNR 17-21 settembre 1984 (Pisa 1989) vol. I: 235-61; ibid., D. Clay, "Greek Studies," 263-93, and ibid., D. O. Ross, Jr, "Latin Philology," 295-314. Further information in V. Losemann, Nationalsozialismus und Antike: Studien zur Entwicklung

des Faches Alte Geschichte 1933-1945 (Hamburg 1977) 27—46, and H. Widmann, Exil und Bildungshilfe: Die deutschsprachige Emigration in der Türkei nach 1933. Mit einer BioBibliographie der emigrierten Hochschullehrer im Anhang (Bern 1973). Some personal

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini

111

Among them there was Werner Jaeger: in 1936 he accepted a position offered to him by the University of Chicago, moved to Harvard in 1939, and died in Boston in 1961. Before discussing his emigration, it is necessary, I believe, to look more closely at the position of the U.S. toward the emigration of the "30s. In the United States the reaction!? to the expulsion of Jewish and leftist professors from German universities was somewhat twofold. Already at the beginning of May 1933 the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced

Scholars was founded? and until its closing on June 1945 helped 288 scholars to make a new start. But this did not prevent universities (Harvard,

Yale, Columbia, and Stanford, among others) from sending representatives to Heidelberg in 1936 for the 550th anniversary of the university and to

Göttingen in 1937 for its bicentennial, or institutions from maintaining ties with

Germany.?!

Nevertheless,

the

Rockefeller

Foundation

and

the

Oberländer Trust were among the most important foundations in supporting

hundreds of young and established scholars with grants and scholarships,” and some universities (above all Columbia and Johns Hopkins) adopted a very receptive policy toward foreign scholars.

But a very special role was

played by the New School for Social Research, founded by Alvin Johnson and after 1933 called "University in Exile" because of the great number of European émigrés who were teaching there. The autobiography of Alvin Johnson, written in 1952, is a very interesting document for understanding

the effort of American intellectuals in coping with the plight of their stories of German

classical scholars, as well as historical and methodological

problems,

are recalled and discussed in A. Bertini Malgarini, "I classicisti tedeschi in America fra il 1933 a il 1942: aspetti storici e metodologici," La Cultura 27 (1989) 155-66. 19 A recent interesting study on the subject by G. Stem, "The Burning of the Books in Nazi Germany, 1933: The American Response," Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 2 (1985) 95-113, and further J. Fine, "American Radio Coverage of the Holocaust," Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 5 (1988) 145-65. 20S, Duggan and B. Drury, The Rescue of Science and Learning: The Story of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars (New York 1948). The Committee functioned as an employment agency. 21 Contacts between American and German institutions and scholars of these two countries did not cease until 1938. But see K. J. Greenberg, “Academic Neutrality: Nicholas

Murray

Butler, James

B. Conant

and Nazi Germany,

1933-1938,"

Annals

of

Scholarship 3 (1984) 63-76, and /d., “The Search for the Silver Lining: The American Academic Establishment and the ‘Aryanization’ of German Scholarship,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 2 (1985) 115-37. In both articles the author shows how the “emancipation” from the German cultural and educational model and the awareness of the devastating effects of the Gleichschaltung of the German universities under the Nazis were not easy or immediate. The 1985 article deals also with aspects of the American attitude not previously pointed out (e.g., how American scholars reviewed books written in Nazi Germany), contributing to a deeper understanding of the American response. 2M. R. Davie, Refugees in America: Report of the Committee for the Study of Recent Immigration from Europe (repr. Westport 1974) 95-118.

112

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

European colleagues.2 The sensibility of Johnson is known as well as his far-sightedness. In a short article of 1941 referring to this wave of émigrés he wrote: “What is the effect on American scholarship of this infusion of foreigners into our teaching and research personnel? Are they introducing

alien elements into our intellectual life?

Or do they offer a stimulus to

American scholarship that will increase its efficiency and improve its

position in American life as a whole?”24 The answers focused on the fact that the policy of the agencies and of the foundations is shaped not to choose a priori a foreign scholar in preference to an American, but to choose the best scholar available for that position whatever his nationality. Above all, the article stressed the idea of the internationalism of scholarship and the gains—without any losses—that America could receive from this transfer: "Although the results of scholarship are international, scholars in different environments set out with different propositions, approach their problems in different ways. It cannot be determined offhand what approach is the most promising. But it is safe to say that many approaches are better than one.”25 Several other voices can be quoted as in favor of this idea and

willing to accept these émigrés. Science, for example, the official organ of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, on March 1940 published the article26 "The Role of Refugees in the History of American

Science." It showed that some of the improvements in American science had been won thanks to the refugees coming to the U.S. in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. We are ready and eager once again (the author almost seemed to say at the end of his historical outline) to take

advantages from “the tyrannical follies” of the current Germany.?? 23 A. S. Johnson, Pioneer's Progress: An Autobiography (New York 1952). Impressive is the bibliography on the subject: almost all magazines and journals already at the beginning of the persecution continually reported about the plight of European intellectuals. It is enough to quote here the bibliography at the end of D. Peterson Kent, The Refugee Intellectual: The Americanization of the Immigrants of 1933-1941 (New York 1953) 304-07 and the bibliography sponsored by the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration in H. A. Strauss, ed., Jewish Immigrants of the Nazi Period in the USA, vol. I ( New York 1978). It would be interesting to look also at the other side and examine the German response. I did not research this very carefully and came across only P. Mombert, "Die Auswanderung als politisches Problem," Deutsche Rundschau 63 (1937)

121-24:

the emigration of the °30s is seen as a general European phenomenon of human

beings transferred without mentioning the political or racial implications that it had. A. S. Johnson, “The Refugee Scholar in America,” Survey Graphic (30 April 1941) 226-28: 227. 25 Ibid., 228. 26 C. A. Browne, “The Role of Refugees in the History of American Science," Science 91

(March 1940) 203-208. 27 This "optimistic" view was, however, very often contradicted, and in fact it was not

easy to reach the U.S. But see D. S. Wyman, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis 1938-1941 (Amherst 1968) 27-39, and more recently B. McDonald Stewart, United States Government Policy on Refugees from Nazism 1933-1940 (New York and London 1982).

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini How can we explain this response?

113

If one takes into account the

uneasy economic situation of the '30s, as well as the notorious antiSemitism, the astonishment at such a positive and constructive response is great. The American historian Merle Curti2® writes: “The ideal of

internationalism ...did not disappear from American thought in the 1920s but it figured less in the intellectual life of the nation than it had during the War.” And: “In the intellectual sphere, as in every other, the years between Pearl Harbor and the sharpening of conflict with the Soviet

Union ... internationalism seemed to be the theme and to infuse the purposes of that war. ‘One world’ was a slogan heard almost everywhere.”29 The uncertainties between the respect for the old traditional American

national character and the idea that America was the shelter and the defender of democracy and civil liberties were gradually and finally clear.?? It has also been said very rightly that these European emigrants arrived at the

proper time, and scholars trained in two fields of research, atomic physics and psychoanalysis, were particularly welcome.?! The indispensable role they played and the names some of them made for themselves helped to give

the “less famous” scholars an entrée. But it was above all in the liberalism of Roosevelt that all of them found ideological and real support. Of course some of the European trends coming along with the émigrés were more favorably received and found a wider diffusion (Auswirkung, to use a German word) than others—some because their subject matter was closer to American thought, or because they were easier to translate into a language different from the one in which they were originally thought, or because of the willingness of the European intellectuals to undergo change in order to

make themselves understood and accepted.?? Herbert Marcuse"? has pointed out which European philosophical ideas were or were not accepted in

America, and I don't think anything new can be added to his analysis.4 But the following sentence is well worth our attention: “Nicht rezipiert nach kurzen Anfüngen oder gering rezipiert ist die philosophische Philologie, 73 M, Curti, The Growth of American Thought (repr. New Brunswick and London

19825)

667. 29 Ibid., 730. Actually all three chapters covering those years are to be read: 667-751. Sec also K. J. Greenberg (1985; note 21 above) 127-37. 30 R, H. Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (Middletown 1989?) 8-51. 31 H. Swart Hughes, The Sea Change (note 3 above) chaps. I, IV-VI. 32] agree in considering “heterogeneity” a characteristic of this wave of émigrés, but it is only at their scholarly productions that we should look; see A. Bertini Malgarini (note 18 above) 163-66. For some émigrés we can ascertain their abilitity and their attitude toward integration through their biographical reflections, sketches, or remarks, very often written by themselves or by somebody very close to them. To some of these documents I will retum briefly later on.

33 H. Marcuse (note 12 above).

3%] would just consider that nowadays in America Heidegger is more "popular" and discussed than he was 25 years ago, when Marcuse's paper was written.

114

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

besonders des klassischen Altertums, wie sie in der Figur Werner Jaegers drüben zunächst Einfluß gehabt hat. Dieser Einfluß ist aber leider so weit zurückgegangen, daß es im Augenblick nicht leicht ist, einen guten

Klassizisten der Jaegerschule in den Vereinigten Staaten zu finden.”?5 Following Calder’s* historical outline, the first period of German influence

in American

classical scholarship

(1853-1919)

ended

with

America’s entrance into World War I, while the second overlaps almost entirely with the years of Nazi Germany and with the emigration to the U.S. of German

classical

scholars

(1935-1945).?’”

This is not the place to

discuss and define the important influence that the German “model” had—in its methods as well as in its institutions—in that first period when American classical scholarship finally got a scholarly foundation. But I would assume that this “model” was present (rejected or accepted to a different degree, but nevertheless existing) even in the most American period

of this history (1919-1935).8 Are not the internal political controversiae on the validity of German philological methods which took place in those years in a way a sign of this presence?

In fact, as we have seen above, the

ties with Germany (even Nazi Germany)—and not only in Classics—were Not easy to cut. The intellectual appeal that this country has always had was resisted for a long while. But it would be surprising to find too many words supporting the idea of internationalism in scholarship and of welcome

to these émigré scholars from their American colleagues in classics.?? German classical scholars coming to the U.S. were definitely a minority, mixed in the wave. And they too were accepted, partly because (I would think) they were among many others. This might be of some help when we try to understand their acceptance even in a field where they could definitely not be of any great actual and “public” support.*° Their effect was, 55H. Marcuse (note 12 above) 28.

36 W. M. Calder III (note 18 above). 37 The fourth period in Calder's essay but the third in D. Clay (note 18 above) 274 n. 46, who called it the aetas ferri (1933-1945): “This grim chapter in the history of Classical scholarship—my age of iron, and an age of gold for the countries where the refugees found their home." W. M. Calder III (note 18 above) 225-31 recalls both what could be considered “imported” from Germany and what was definitely "rejected." Thanks to the kindness and great generosity of Prof. Calder, I could read his yet unpublished article, which was very useful to me, "Klassische

Philologen in den U.S.A." (forthcoming), where these aspects

arc deeply examined and considered. 39 The famous article of K. Lehmann-Hartleben, "United Front of Humanism," CW 36 (1942-43) 172-75, could be actually read also as a manifesto of the necessity of internationalism in classical studies. But so far as I know this was the only voice, and it comes from an émigré. Lehmann, professor of Archacology at the University of Münster, resigned in protest from his position in 1933. After two years in Italy he reached the U.S. and taught at New York University until his death in 1960. See P. Pray Bober, Gnomon 33 (1961) 526-28. 49 Well known, for example, are the roles played during the war by the historians who worked for the Office of Secret Services (OSS) and helped shed light on the reasons for

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini however, more tangible socially than scholarly. to them

that the opportunities,

previously

115

In fact, it was also thanks closed

or very

restricted

(especially in the humanities) for Jewish-American scholars who wanted to

pursue a career in academia, finally became open.^! What then what did they of the group. astonishing

could Wemer Jaeger and the other classical scholars bring and bring to the U.S.? Let us begin with him, the most famous He arrived in this country in 1936 at the age of 48 with an curriculum vitae and an equally astonishing list of

publications.*2 Two years before he had already been the first German to give the Sather Lectures*? (on Demosthenes) and, as Jaeger himself recalls, “This invitation introduced me to the New World, which has subsequently become my second home and the scene of my permanent activity.”** In 1939, after Jaeger’s short stay at the University of Chicago“ in Paul Shorey’s chair,

J. B. Conant, President of Harvard University, succeeded in

establishing for him a new professorship.* (In the first year in Chicago, however, Jaeger was free of teaching duties and could give the Gifford Nazism and by the German physicists who helped to build the atomic bomb. But as ve have briefly indicated above, there was room also for the European psychoanalysts who covered the American need for a theory, for the musicians who taught that music is not just virtuosity but has values, etc., etc.

41 See W. M. Calder III (note 18 above) and id., (note 38 above). But see also what happened to the Jewish historians in P. Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and The American Historical Profession (New York 1988) 172-74, 338-41, and 365-66. 42 The last biographical references on Jaeger:

W. M. Calder III, “Werner Jaeger,” in

Berlinische Lebensbilder: Geisteswissenschaftler, ed. M. Erbe (Berlin 1989) 343-63 and id., “Wemer Jaeger,” in Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia, ed. W. W. Briggs and W. M. Calder III (New York 1990) 211-26. But see also F. Solmsen, “Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars," GR&BS 30 (1989) 117-40. The complete list of Jaeger's publications is in W. Schadewaldt, “Gedenkrede auf Werner Jaeger, 18881961," now in Hellas und Hesperien: Gesammelte Schriften zur Antike and zur neueren

Literatur in zwei Banden (Zürich and Stuttgart 19702) vol. II:

707-22, and in W. Jaeger,

Five Essays, (Montreal 1961) 143-71. His second wife was of Jewish origin, and so far as is known she seems to have been the direct cause of his emigration. 435, Dow, Fifty Years of Sathers: The Sather Professorship of Classical Literature in the University of California, Berkeley 1913-1411963-64 (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1965). 4 W. Jaeger, Demosthenes: The Origin and Growth of His Policy, trans. by E. S. Robinson (Berkeley 1938, repr. New York 1963) ix. S. Dow (note 43 above) 15: "Werner Jaeger's Demosthenes, composed on the verge of Hitlerian domination, delivered in J's first American year, and printed on the eve of World War II, is remarkable for its calmness,

balance, and lack of cheap modem allusion.” 45 According to E. Shils, Robert M. Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago during Jaeger's years in Chicago, was indifferent to the Department of Classics and not eager to hire classical scholars dismissed from Nazi Germany. See E. Shils, "Robert Maynard Hutchins,” American Scholar 59 (1990) 211-35: 225. J. B. Conant, My Several Lives: Memoirs of a Social Inventor (New York and London 1970) 125, 151.

116

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Lectures at St. Andrews‘? and finish writing his book on Diocles).4* At Harvard Jaeger became “University Professor” (i.e., free to teach whatever he wished) and was freed of administrative obligations. He had already had a first encounter with Harvard in 1936 when he was invited to give a lecture at the Harvard Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences (Aug. 31—Sept. 12, 1936), but his works were known among American scholars.

In fact,

even his early books Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles (Berlin 1912) and Nemesios

(Berlin 1914) were reviewed in the

U.S., the first by P. Shorey,49 the second by W. A. Heidel and again P. Shorey, respectively in 1914 and 1915.59 Neither of them could be considered enthusiastic Nemesios, pointed out The book on Aristotle (1934) that received a

reviewers, especially Shorey who, dealing with his uncertainties on Jaeger's Quellenforschung.?! came out in 1923, but it was the English edition wide positive echo.5? Very critical words came,

however, from H. Cherniss,?? but it is again “the axis Scott-ShoreyCherniss"—as Calder has defined it**—to be considered presumably on 47 They were published some years later as The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford 1947). 48 W. Jaeger, Diokles von Karystos: Die griechische Medizin und die Schule des Aristoteles (Berlin 1938). 49 P. Shorey, CP 8 (1913) 235-39. 59 W. A. Heidel, AJP 35 (1914) 343-45 and P. Shorey, CP 10 (1915) 483-86. 5! p, Shorey (note 50 above) 486: “I have read it with interest, though with a growing sense of insecurity as I moved on from conjecture to conjecture up to the final apotheosis of Posidonius. . .. I distrust the assumptions of the method of Quellenforschung and text analysis of which Dr. J. is so brilliant a practitioner. .. . And I trust that Dr. J. and his teachers will not misunderstand the frank liberty of signed criticism, which is the policy of this journal." Another small piece to be added to the uneasy "relation" between Shorey and Wilamowitz? But see E. C. Kopff, "Wilamowitz and Classical Philology in the U.S.A.:

An Interpretation," in Wilamowitz

nach 50 Jahren, ed. by W. M. Calder III, H.

Flashar, and T. Lindken (Darmstadt 1985) 558-80: 570-6 and B. vom Brocke, "Der deutsch-amerikanische Professorenaustausch," Zeitschrift für Kulturaustausch 31 (1981) 128-182: 143-46. 52 B. Einarson, CP 30 (1935) 363-65: 363: “The most important book on A. that has appeared since Maier's Die Syllogistik des Aristoteles, and has led Aristotelian research into new fields"; Levi R. Lind, CJ 31 (1936) 321-23: 323: "The entire treatment shows an understanding of A's thought and background that stamps the book as the most important contribution of this generation to Aristotelian studies." B. C. Holtzclaw, CW 30 (1936) 65—66: 66: "Professor J. has given a most scholarly and interesting interpretation of the evolution of A's thought...the work is of definitive value... we have here an excellent translation of a most significant work." W. R. Dennes, Philosophical Review 46 (1937) 326-29: 326: “Of all his works [i.e., Jaeger's], the Aristoteles of 1923 has been the most enlightening and stimulating to English and American students of philosophy. Nothing could have marked more fittingly the good fortune of American scholars in the prospects of Professor J.'s sojourn in this country than has the publication of Professor R. Robinson's admirable translation of that book."

53H. Chemiss, AJP 56 (1935) 261-71. SW. M. Calder III (note 38 above).

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini

117

stage.°5 Paideia, Jaeger's most-quoted book and the one that made him

widely known (or at least made his name familiar),56 definitely had a far more extensive reception. And as such a book required, it was reviewed in historical, philosophical, and classical American journals. Two scholars,

the German classical philologist B. Snell5? and the Italian philosopher G. Calogero,55 warned readers against its political implications. This has been

a much disputed aspect of Jaeger's life and thought; it is still debated, and I think it will be difficult to say a final word.5? Calogero in his review

suggested that some of Jaeger's suspected philo-Nazi reflections look like later additions to the proofs. Modern historians speak of the appeal that National Socialism had for the German elite, seen as economic and moral salvation after the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic. But they

definitely underestimated its power and its violence, and when they finally realized it, it was already too late.$! The following years of Jaeger's intellectual and personal life in the U.S., as we are told by those close to 55 Chemiss' review is nevertheless in itself a small essay on Aristotle: at first he recalls studies which deal with some of the problems raised by Jaeger's book, then he gives his own arguments against Jaeger's thesis. 56 W. Jaeger, Paideia:

Die Formung des griechischen Menschen,

vol. I (Berlin

1934,

19362), vol. II (Berlin 1944), and vol. III (Berlin 1947). The English edition Paideia. The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. from the second German edition by G. Highet, came out vol. I (New York 1939), vol. II (New York 1943), and vol. III (New York 1944). For G. Highet as translator of Paideia see W. M. Calder III, "Gilbert Highet" Gnomon 50 (1978) 430-

2. 57 B. Snell, Gesammelte Schriften (Göttingen 1966) vol. I: 32-54, originally in Góttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen 197 (1935) 329-53. 58 G. Calogero, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 15 (1934) 359-71, now in Scritti Minori di Filosofia (Napoli 1984) with the "Postilla" in reply to G. Pasquali as “Storia dell’ ethos e storia dell’ etica nel mondo antico," 522-46.

In this review, less well

known than Snell's, Calogero (by the way, the translator of the Italian edition of Jaeger's book on Aristotle in 1935) investigates each chapter very carefully. In his opinion Paideia is a book of history and not of philosophy (“libro non di teoria ma di storia"), and starting from this point he judges what seems to him of value or what has to be reconsidered.

59 E. Hoffmann, for example, who was dismissed in 1936 from his position at

Heidelberg University for political reasons and therefore cannot be considered a supporter

of the Nazi ideology, in his reviews (HZ 155 [1937] 116-18 and 162 [1940] 118-20) of Jaeger’s Paideia and Humanistische Reden und Vorträge, did not seem to notice any dangerous political statements. But see J. Irmscher, “Die klassische Altertumswissenschaft in der faschistischen Wissenschaftspolitik,” in Altertumswissenschaften

und

ideologischer Klassenkampf, ed. H. Gericke (Halle 1980) 75-97. 60 ^S'incontrano ... Osservazioni di sapore razzistico, che parrebbero quasi aggiunte sulle bozze.... Dobbiamo leggere fra le righe l'augurio che col dritter Humanismus s’identifichi il drittes Reich ?... E giacché questo ritratto ideale del Führer attico-tucidideo, ... suggella solennemente il volume, cosi si ἃ costretti a dedurne che, per lo Jaeger esso rappresenta il frutto di tutta l'evoluzione morale del popolo ellenico, fino al punto del suo massimo fiore.

graditi?”

61 E, Stem,

above)

E' tutto cid, ingenuità, o tentativo di riuscir

G. Calogero, Scritti Minori di Filosofia (note 58 above) 523 and 542. "National

147-91.

Socialism

as Temptation,"

in Dreams

and Delusions (note 11

118

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

him, allow us to presume that he might have gone through this phase.

It

has to be said, however, that he never—not even at the beginning of his exile—cut his ties with Germany:

in 1938 he asked H. Lietzmann in

Berlin to take care of the publication of his Diokles, and in the war year 1944 the second volume of Paideia was published in Berlin. The American reviewer R. K. Hack, not as explicitly as Snell and

Calogero, pointed out the same worries.

Much more interesting are the

final paragraphs of R. G. Robinson's review of the second and third

volumes of Paideia.5 He rates the book highly, but he also asks about the

possible message of the Greek paideia for the contemporary time. Two aspects are in Robinson's opinion definitely out of date: 1) modern egalitarianism considers education a way to gain advantages, while for the

Greeks it was the refining of human nature, and 2) “paideia puts emphasis on virtue but the present world puts it on happiness. The supreme value in human character is no longer virtue but happiness."$6 Nevertheless, some 62K. Aland, Glanz und Niedergang der deutschen Universitat: 50 Jahren deutscher Wissenschafisgeschichte in Briefen an und von Hans Lietzmann (1892-1942) (Berlin and New York 1979) 923-24.

$3 Somebody who worked briefly with Jaeger on the edition of Gregory of Nyssa in the

late 40's after a very informal conversation with me and after having read this paper wrote me a letter from which I quote the following sentences (but he asked not to be named): “One thing I recall about Jaeger... is that he looked on himself as continuing in a line of succession from Harnack and Mommsen through Wilamowitz (whose pictures adorned the wall of his office) to himself and that he saw his work as an integral part of a corporate body of philological research that had begun two generations before and, he hoped, would be carried on after him.

This, of course, is an idea which is appealing to the German

mentality, and his biggest disappointment with American classical scholarship seems to have been its highly individualistic nature and the lack of anything equivalent to the German Akademie der Wissenschaften 1o divide up the work of a large project among cooperating scholars to insure its being handed on from one generation to the next. He, of course, did apportion the work of editing Gregory of Nyssa among numerous scholars, many

of whom

were

American,

but this was

not an

institutionalized

group,

like

the

Akademie, and was therefore ephemeral. Perhaps this affront by American individualism to his German need for institutionalized solidarity, rather than any love for National Socialism, led him to continue publishing in Germany, where he must have felt that his work was still looked on as a part of a larger effort that would span several generations” (per litteras April 16, 1990). 9* R, K. Hack, CP 37 (1942) 197-206. $5 R. G. Robinson, Philosophical Review 54 (1945) 83-89. This Robinson translated Jaeger’s Aristoteles (1934), while E. S. Robinson translated Demosthenes (1938) and The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (1947). $6 Ibid. 88-89. Robinson also says, “The ideal of paideia has fallen with the rise of scientific method.” This last statement, however, seems to be less convincing and less

valid on the threshold of the twenty-first century. Surely scientific progress has made our lives in some ways easier, but why should we also think that it makes us less virtuous? We can, if we wish, always perform our virtues, perhaps otherwise than our Greek ancestors. But Robinson saw very clearly the need of post-war America: “Nowadays we do not ask what is the best type of man, but what type we need (for practical purposes). We want specialists, not good men.”

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini

119

of Jaeger's assumptions on the virtue of Homeric heroes, on the areté or aretá of the archaic poets, and on Thucydides, became loci classici in

American scholarship.

Lately Paideia has been less and less read and

quoted, but it is still Jaeger's most-quoted book.

The Social Sciences

Citation Index from 1971 to 1985 has some 253 entries under the name of Jaeger; more than half (150) refer to Paideia, followed by Aristotle (the German and English editions together are quoted 46 times). A striking result from just a small search among American classical journals between 1975 and 1988:9 in the American Journal of Philology Jaeger's name appears 7 times, in Classical Philology 15, in Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 6. But also in the Journal of the History of Philosophy and in the Journal of the History of Ideas the incidence is small: 8 and 10, respectively. Paideia and Aristoteles are, as before, the most quoted. Most

of the citations are given as general references, in support of the authors’ own arguments, but also to disagree with him. Should one be surprised to find Jaeger's Paideia quoted, for example, in a study on demographic history

or on the importance of sports as moral exercises?® Probably not, if we

consider that Paideia was written and thought to be a book that should have

spread (above all among non-classicists) the legacy of antiquity and the debt that our western world owes to this past.

As always, we can read books in

different ways; it depends on what we look and ask for. Still, it is difficult to consider Paideia a book for non-specialists. Very recently A. Thomas Cole defined Paideia as a product of “the great tradition of nineteenth century Continental scholarship” because it focused “on both minute philological

detail and major cultural movements.” A short, but pointed observation. Jaeger’s other books did not find the same controversial reactions, but

still the comments made about them are worth noting in order to recall Jaeger’s position in the American cultural scene.

The first edition of

Humanistische Reden und Vortrdge™ was almost unnoticed, but for the second edition there were some interesting comments. $7 C.

H.

Whitman,

The

Heroic

Paradox:

Aristophanes, ed. C. Segal (Ithaca and London (Cambridge, MA,

1942), just to mention

Essays

on

Homer,

Moses

Hadas,

Sophocles

and

1982) and J. H. Finley, Jr., Thucydides

the first.

Whether they had already

formulated

their beliefs independently of Jaeger or followed him is in my opinion irrelevant. Without doubt both found in Jaeger's book confirmation and authority. But see D. Clay (note 18 above) 290-91. 8 I have used the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, and even if I have missed some,

Ihe pieture Will ποῖ Changge much. Daedalus 97 (1968) 467 and ibid., 110 (1981) 171. 10 The definition comes from his introdution of B. Gentili, Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greek: From Homer to the Fifth Century, trans. with an introdution by A. Thomas Cole (Baltimore and London

1988) xv, where Gentili's book is compared with H. Frankel,

Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums, and Jaeger, Paideia. I owe this reference to A. L. Ford. 71 W. Jaeger, Humanistische Reden und Vorträge (Leipzig and Berlin 1937, 19602).

120

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

reviewing the book in 1960, writes:72 “What humanism seems to amount to, in Professor Jaeger's conception, is a mystical and exclusive cult to

which only a spiritual elite can have access, but which alone, in turn, can produce such an elite.

Its perfect and permanent paradigm is classical

Athens, where an elite conscious of the obligations of its own nobility selflessly cultivated the most exalted reaches of human potentiality.

The

preciosity of such a view ...is not so sympathetic to 1960 America.” The second edition of Humanistische Reden differs from the first in containing six later studies of Jaeger written during his American years plus the essay Staat und Kultur of 1932. Some changes are noticed by Thomas G. Rosenmeyer:” “The early essays are characterized by a certain speculative

severity. ... The discussion tended to be hinged upon specific cultural antinomies which are not, and perhaps have never been, relevant to the American experience. ... Perhaps the most striking difference between the American neo-humanists and the pre-American Jaeger is that the former rarely talk about the state....It is a mark of Professor Jaeger’s

Americanization, if we may call it so, that the term ‘state’ is absent from the more recent essay.” Both the reviews confirm, once again, that Jaeger’s approach was understood but was not part of the mainstream of American classical scholarship or American culture. There is no need to say that this was, however, a mutual feeling.

During his twenty-five American

years

Jaeger did not actually draw very far away from his previous scholarly interest and themes.’ He went on with the edition of Gregory of Nyssa (a project that goes back to Wilamowitz),’5 concluded his work on the evolution of Greek paideia,’® and finally brought to completion the critical

edition of Aristotelis Metaphysica for the Oxford Classical Texts (1957).77

Of his books there are at least English and German editions, and most of his essays are published twice, in American- and German-speaking journals. In

most of his own books, which are now part of the library at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., there are his notes in the margins in old German Gothic script. He enclosed himself (or let himself be enclosed?)

in his Harvard ivory tower:”® his sadness, disappointment, and regret can be 72M. Hadas, CJ 56 (1960) 282-84.

73 T. G. Rosenmeyer, CW 54 (1961) 155. 7^ Transformations involving professional goals and political interests have been pointed out by J. P. Hallett, "Werner Jaeger and the American Philological Association," in this volume. 75 H. Hómer, "Über Genese und derzeitigen Stand der grossen Edition der Werke Gregors von Nyssa," in Écriture et culture philosophique dans la pensée de Grégoire de Nysse

(Leiden 1971) 18-49.

76 W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge 1961).

ΤΊ As is shown by a series of contributions published between 1912 and 1923, Jaeger worked at the text in those years. His edition should have been published by the German publisher Teubner, and it was almost finished when in 1924 appeared the edition of W. D. Ross for Oxford.

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini

121

read in his own words of 1960, almost always quoted:

“Ohne die dauernde

Geltung der antiken Idee des Menschen in der menschlichen Kultur schwebt die klassische Altertumswissenschaft in der Luft. Wer dies nicht sieht, der sollte nach Amerika kommen und sich vom Gang der Entwicklung der

klassischen Studien dort belehren lassen.”

Marcuse’s reflections have found confirmation, at this point. But did what happened to Jaeger happen to all other German classical scholars who

came to the U.S.? From the studies of Calder, the essay of Ludwig and the one of Clay, we should answer “yes” to the above question. They all stressed the fact that these émigrés had not founded or left behind a “school,”

although a sort of “oral tradition” seems to have been spread around. But, on the other hand, they recognize that it is thanks to them that American classical

studies

have

reached

a high

level

of professionalism

and

internationalism. What has always been said about American society—that it is open and eager to accept what is considered “good” and “useful”—is

probably true also in this case.

Their acceptance, to some extent, is

confirmed by the fact that L. Edelstein was President of the History of Ideas Club in the year 1944-45, the American Philological Association published in German the work of H. Fränkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums, in 1951, and H. Bloch was the 100th President of the

American Philological Association in 1968-69, just to mention some positions reached by German classicists. And they were all German refugees, and they did not return permanently to Germany after the war. K.

von Fritz went back in the middle of the fifties after seventeen years of teaching at Columbia. In his American years he focused his interests on ancient politics, and his book on The Theory of a Mixed Constitution in Antiquity won in 1954 the yearly prize of the American Philological Association.

This book, and Edelstein’s The Idea of Progress in Classical

Antiquity (published unfinished in 1967 two years after his death), were written in America and try to be close to American themes. Both quote American studies and both are still often quoted. These examples may be few, but they are meaningful, coming less than half a century after Paul Shorey had said, referring to German classical scholarship, “Anything you

can do, we can do better.” Still, I believe there are some differences among these émigrés:

some

tried to understand and to get closer to the new environment and to take advantage

(L. Edelstein,

K. von Fritz, F. W.

Lenz, P. O. Kristeller, F.

Solmsen) and others did not even try (W. Jaeger).

Some found a position

easily, others had difficulties or never found a proper place (R. Laqueur, Th. 78 The Harvard Studies in Classical Philology of 1958 is dedicated to Jaeger for his seventieth birthday. It is a fine collection of 31 studies from Homer to the Church Fathers written by German and American scholars, colleagues, and students of his. Few journals

noticed it. 79 W. Jaeger, "Zur Einführung," in Scripta Minora, vol. I: xxvi (Roma 1960).

122 Gomperz).

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Some recognized an intellectual debt to the U.S. (K. Lehmann-

Hartleben), some probably always felt regret and uneasiness (W. Jaeger, E. Kapp). Most of them, however, decided not to leave the U.S., and this says alot. But how much did they have to change and did they eventually change to fit into American culture? And what about their disappointments? Unfortunately,

since

none

of them,

from

what

I know,

have

written

memoirs or autobiographical sketches, it is difficult to understand their

approaches, their reactions, or their hopes.

We can just guess at these by

their works (and dealing with classicists it is a difficult task) and their

professional lives, as we have tried to do with Jaeger. And, as is shown by those who wrote about their American years, every one of them had a

different experience. However, statements about them without the support of their intellectual productions and their ties to or estrangement from American intellectual and political history cannot give an exhaustive picture. Th. Adorno felt uneasy in a world where empiricism dominated;?® P. Lazarsfeld, thirty-six years after his arrival in the U.S., considered himself

lucky to have been a carrier of new trends in American social thoughts;?! L. Spitzer was at the same time a strong critic and a passionate lover of the American world and its culture,82 just to mention the first of several other

different voices that could be quoted.

But two thoughts, very recently

formulated, seem to me striking and worthy of a final quotation.

The first

comes from a philosopher, the second from an historian, both somewhat

influential in their fields in American culture in the second half of the twentieth century. Eric Voegelin, referring to his attitude toward the new environment, recalled, “I had firmly decided that once I had been thrown out

of Austria by the National Socialists I wanted to make the break complete and from now on be an American. This aim, however, I could hardly achieve if I was stigmatized as a member of a refugee group. ... So I

accepted an offer from the University of Alabama. There I would come into an environment definitely free of refugees, so that adjustment and introduction to America society would at least not be externally handicapped

from the beginning.”®? Felix Gilbert, on the other hand, looking back at his studies carried out at the beginning of his arrival in the U.S., has this reflection: "Whatever the value of these studies [To the Farewell Address; 80 Th. W. Adorno, “Scientific Experiences of a European Scholar in America,” in The Intellectual Migration (note 12 above) 338-70. 81 p, E, Lazarsfeld, “An Episode in the History of Social Research:

Intellectual Migration (note 12 above) 270-337.

8217, Levin, "Two Romanisten in America:

A Memoir,” in The

Spitzer and Auerbach,” in The Intellectual

Migration (note 12 above) 463-84. For the evaluation of Spitzer in America and his engagements with American cultural trends see D. Della Terza, Da Vienna a Baltimore: La diaspora degli intellettuali europei negli Stati Uniti d' America ( Roma 1987) 29-52. 35 E. Voegelin, Autobiographical Reflections, ed. with an introduction by E. Sandoz (Baton Rouge and London 1989) 58.

Alessandra Bertini Malgarini

123

Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy], they had great personal importance for me.

In teaching European history in the United States I could not help

wondering why the young people sitting before me should find the subject I taught them relevant to the world in which they were living.

By studying

the connections

past,

between

the European

and

the American

I felt

reaffirmed in the significance of what I was doing. I might add that I never thought I knew anything about a country if I didn’t know its history, whereas contributing to the understanding of a country’s history gives one a

feeling of being at home.”*

I wonder how many of the émigré classicists would have thought and

said something similar. University of Rome *4 E. Gilbert, A European Past. Memoirs 1905-1945 (New York and London 1988) 176-77. For a discussion of this book see A. Bertini Malgarini, “A proposito delle recenti

memorie europee di Felix Gilbert," La Cultura 27 (1989) 426-34.

Werner Jaegers Paideia: Entstehung, kulturpolitische Absichten und Rezeption BEAT NAF Paideia—der Titel von Werner Jaegers dreibändigem Werk war Programm. Er wollte die Literatur der Griechen, und damit auch die gesamte griechische Kultur, in neuer Gesamtbetrachtung unter dem Gesichtspunkt der “Paideia” darstellen. Zugleich sollte das Dargestellte selbst zur “Paideia” fiir die Gegenwart werden, eine Gegenwart, welche als Zeit des Umbruchs erschien, und es in der Tat auch in unheilvoller Weise war. Der erste Band erschien 1934 (IE: 1944; III: 1947; engl. II und III bereits 1943-1944). Das Vorwort ist mit dem Oktober 1933 datiert. Es lässt sich ganz einer Zeit zurechnen, in welcher im Bereiche der Altertumswissenschaft und insbesondere der klassischen Bildung zahlreiche Programmschriften verfasst wurden,! die insgesamt die Antike bedenklich in die Nahe des neuen inhumanen Staates

zu rücken versuchten. Gilt das auch für Jaegers Paideia? Auf diese Frage sind in den letzten Jahrzehnten sehr unterschiedliche Antworten gegeben worden. Ebenso weicht die Gewichtung der für die Paideia bedeutenden thematischen, geschichtlichen und wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Zusammenhänge voneinander ab. Im allgemeinen wird die Paideia heute nicht mehr zu den grössten Leistungen Jaegers gezählt, ein Urteil, das freilich zur Hauptsache durch Vergessen dokumentiert ist. Immerhin werden Jaegers mit der Paideia verknüpfte wissenschaftstheoretische und kulturphilosophische Vorstellungen hie und da zitiert, wenn über die klassische Philologie, ihre Stellung und grundsätzliche methodische Ausrichtung oder die Berechtigung der Rede vom “Klassischen” nachgedacht wird. Das gleiche gilt für Darstellungen der Geschichte und der Thematik des Humanismus, wobei die entsprechenden Bücher von mit Jaeger vertrauten und oft sogar persönlich mit ihm bekannten Autoren verfasst sind. In all dieser Literatur versteht man die “Paideia” als grundsätzliche theoretische Konzeption, die Jaeger als Antwort auf Probleme formuliert habe, welche unabhängig von der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung schon vor dieser vorgelegen seien. ! V. Losemann, “Programme deutscher Althistoriker in der ‘Machtergreifungsphase,"” QS 11 (1980) 35-105. Zeitschriftenabkürzungen folgen dem L’ Année philologique.

126

Wemer Jaeger Reconsidered

Sie lassen sich mit den folgenden Stichworten bezeichnen:

Kulturkrise,

Rückgang des altsprachlichen Unterrichts und positivistische Ausrichtung der Altertumswissenschaft (Historismus).

Jaeger habe seine Auffassungen

zu einem grossen Teil schon in seiner Basler Antrittsvorlesung von 1914 über Philologie und Historie dargelegt und dann in den kommenden Jahren weiterentwickelt. Durch den Nationalsozialismus sei seinem Wirken in Deutschland ein Ende gesetzt worden, wobei der “Dritte Humanismus” freilich auch an inneren Widersprüchen gekrankt habe. Die Paideia erscheint aber

auf

alle

Fälle

nicht

in einem

Bereich

mit

Affinitäten

zum

Nationalsozialismus.? Diese Darstellung deckt sich in weiten Teilen mit der intellektuellen Selbstbiographie Jaegers? sowie mit dem Bild, das die Nachrufe geben* und

das auch sonst recht verbreitet ist.

2 Wissenschaftstheoretische Diskussionen mit Wissenschaftsgeschichte: G. Jäger, Einführung in die klassische Philologie (München? 1900) 11-16, 28-31 (mit weiterer Literatur); A. Neschke, “Noch einmal: Philologie und Geschichte. Überlegungen zur Stellung der klassischen Philologie,” Gymnasium 88 (1901) 409-29. Wissenschaftsgeschichtlich mit stark wissenschaftstheoretischem Interesse:

A. Hentschke, U. Muhlack,

Einführung in die Geschichte der klassischen Philologie (Darmstadı 1972) 128-35. Humanismus: H. Oppermann (Hrsg.), Humanismus, Wege der Forschung 17 (Darmstadt 1970) (mit Beiträgen Jaegers von 1914 europäische Entwicklung in Dokumenten

(Freiburg, München 3 “Die

und 1925); A. Buck, Humanismus. und Darstellungen, Orbis academicus

Seine 1, 16

1987) 425-29.

klassische

Philologie

an

der

Universität

Berlin

von

1870-1945,”

Studium

Berolinense. Gedenkschrift zur 150. Wiederkehr des Gründungsjahres der FriedrichWilhelm-Universität zu Berlin (Berlin 1960) 459-85, 484 f. (= W. Jaeger, Five Essays, translated by A. M. Fiske, with a bibliography prepared by H. Bloch (Montreal 1966] 45— 74); "Zur Einführung," Scripta minora I, Storia e letteratura 80 (Roma 1960) ix-xxvii, xxvi f. (2 Five Essays, 22-44). * H. Bloch, American

Philosophical

Society Year Book (1963)

153-58,

155 f.:

"But

the catastrophe of 1933 brought a quick end to these bright hopes. There was no place for Jaeger's humanism in the Third Reich." Die Glückwunschadresse Jaegers im Namen der Preuss. Akademie an der 300-Jahrfeier in Harvard sei zensuriert worden. Die Bezichungen zu den USA hätten die Annahme des Rufes von 1936 erleichtern: J. H. Finley, Gymnasium 69 (1962) 377-80; vgl. CJ 58 (1962) 94 f.; K. von Fritz, Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1962) 195-97; H. Langerbeck, Gnomon 34 (1962) 10105; O. Gigon, ZPAF

18 (1964) 156-64,

163; W. Schadewaldt, Schweizer Monatshefte 42

(1962) 755-69, 764 f., 766—"kein Platz" für Jaegers "historischen Humanismus" im Dritten Reich (auch separat mit Schriftenverzeichnis Berlin 1963 sowie in Hellas und Hesperien, 2. Aufl, Bd. 2 [Zürich, Stuttgart 1970] 707-22, überarb.); Th. S. Tzannetatos,

Athena 65 (1961), 249-53, 250; F. Wehrli, wiederabgedruckt in: Theoria und Humanitas.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung 31.10.1961, Gesammelte Schriften zur antiken

Gedankenwelt

“Diese ganze Wirksamkeit wurde aber

[Zürich, München

1972] 299—302):

durch den Nationalsozialismus abgebrochen, und im Jahre 1936 verliess Jaeger selbst Deutschland freiwillig." Vgl. auch bereits E. Lebek, ZPhF 3 (1948) 270-74. Vgl. weiter: F. Solmsen,

NDB

10 (1974) 280 f. ("Als im geistigen Verfall nach

1933 die Aussichts-

losigkeit einer auf den Werten der Antike basierten Bewegung immer deutlicher wurde, entschloss sich J. zur Umsiedlung nach den USA.”); A. Fontán, Atlántida 1 (1963) 312-25 (unterscheidet nur die verschiedenen Lebensabschnitte). Eine Ausnahme unter den

Beat Naf

127

Im Unterschied dazu wies A. Momigliano auf die mögliche Nähe der “Paideia”-Konzeption zu nationalsozialistischen Auffassungen hin. In seiner Prospettiva 1967 della storia greca gibt er einen Katalog von unheilvollen Interpretationsmustern deutscher Altertumswissenschaftler, in dem unter anderem die bei Jaeger wichtigen Gedanken der Paideia, des Gegensatzes zwischen Osten und Westens und der Nähe von Griechen und Deutschen

genannt sind.

Allerdings sah Momigliano einen deutlichen Unterschied

zwischen Jaeger und nationalsozialistischem Gedankengut, und er meinte

überdies, für Jaeger sei die Paideia nur eine vorübergehende Phase gewesen.$ Nicht ohne teilweise auf Verständnislosigkeit oder sogar Vorwürfe zu stossen, ist das Verhältnis Jaegers zum Nationalsozialismus seit den 60er Jahren bei mittlerweilen recht vielen Autoren weiter erörtert worden und zur Sprache gekommen. Dabei hat man keineswegs von der Auseinandersetzung Jaegers und seiner "Paideia"-Vorstellungen mit Fragen abgesehen, welche sich unabhängig vom Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus stellten. Nur wurde

die Paideia nun ebenfalls aus dem Zusammenhang des Werbens um die Sympathien der neuen politischen Macht verstanden, von der Jaeger sich nicht distanzierte. Vor allem W. M. Calder III hat darauf aufmerksam gemacht,

dass

es

in

der

Folge

dann

aber

weniger

wegen

des—

Nachrufen bildet das kritische Urteil von L. Sichirollo, Società 17 (1961) 957-61 (mit Bezug auf G. Calogero). 5K. Reinhardt, “Die klassische Philologie und das Klassische" (1941), in: Vermächtnis der Antike. Gesammelte Essays zur Philosophie und Geschichtsschreibung, hrsg. von C. Becker (Göttingen 1960) 334-60, 348-50; H. Kressig, in: C. Kirsten (Hrsg.), Die Altertumswissenschaften an der Berliner Akademie. Wahlvorschläge zur Aufnahme von Mitgliedern von F. A. Wolf bis zu G. Rodenwaldt 1799-1932, bearbeitet von H. Battré und 1. Nessler, mit einer Einführung von H. Kressig, Studien zur Geschichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR 5 (Berlin 1985) 48; E. Vogt, "Wilamowitz und die Auseindandersetzung

seiner Schüler mit ihm,"

in:

W. M.

Calder III, H.

Flashar,

Th.

Lindken (Hrsg.), Wilamowitz nach 50 Jahren (Darmstadt 1985) 613-31, 620-22; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, History of Classical Scholarship, translated by A. Harris, edited with an introduction by H. Lloyd-Jones (London 1982) xxvi f.; H. Lloyd-Jones, Blood for the Ghosts. Classical Influences in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London 1982) 178, 269; H. Overesch, "Dokumentation zur deutschen Bildungspolitik nach dem 2. Weltkrieg. Werner Jaegers Brief an Eduard Spranger vom 26. Mai 1948," Gymnasium 89 (1982)

109-21,

114;

W.

Ludwig,

"Amtsenthebung

und

Emigration

klassischer

Philologen," Berichte zur Wissenschafisgeschichte 7 (1984) 161-78, 168. Zum Problem der Emigration vgl. A. Bertini Malgarini, “I classici tedeschi in America fra 1933 a il 1942: aspetti storici e metodologici," La Cultura 27 (1989) 155-66. $ Die “Prospettiva 1967...” zuerst als Einleitung für die Storia dei Greci von G. De Sanctis (auch

in Neuauflage

1975),

wiederabgedruckt

in:

Quarto contributo alla

Storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, Storia e letteratura 115 (Roma 1969) 43-58. “L’ereditä

della filologia antica e il metodo

abgedruckt in:

Secondo

storico,"

RS/ 70

(1958)

contributo ..., Storia e letteratura 77 (Roma

442-58,

wieder-

1960) 463-80,

477. "Le conseguenze del rinnovamento della storia dei diritti antichi," RS7 76 (1964) 133-49, wiederabgedruckt in: Terzo contributo ..., Storia e letteratura 108 (Roma

1966) 285-302, 300 f.; englisch in: Studies in Historiography (London 1966) 253 (vgl. Terzo contributo 268 f. und 700 £.). Vgl. M. 1. Finley, The Use and Abuse of History (London 1975) 78 f.

128

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

offenkundigen—Scheiterns des Dritten Humanismus zur Emigration kam als

vielmehr dadurch, dass Jaeger in zweiter Ehe mit einer jiidischen Frau, Ruth

Heinitz, verheiratet war und verheiratet bleiben wollte.’

I. Jaegers “Paideia”-Konzeption und sein Artikel fiir Volk im Werden (1933): anpasserische Neuausrichtung auf das Dritte Reich? Im Vorwort zur ersten Auflage der Paideia beansprucht Jaeger, eine “neue Gesamtbetrachtung des Griechentums” zu geben. Seine Darstellung wende sich “nicht nur an die gelehrte Welt sondern an alle, die in dem Kampfe unserer Zeit um den Bestand unserer mehrtausendjährigen Kultur heute wieder den Zugang zum Griechentum suchen.” Wen meinte Jaeger konkret,

wen sprach er an?

Denkt man an Jaegers am 3. Februar 1932 in der

“Vereinigung für staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung” (Berlin) gehaltenen Vortrag Staat und Kultur, so kann man sich kaum vorstellen, dass er beim Schreiben dieser Worte an nationalsozialistische Parteileute dachte. Auf die

Gebildeten, die Träger der Kultur, d.h. von Kunst, Wissenschaft und Erziehung, auf die “um Klarheit ringende Jugend” und den “gesunden Kern unseres Beamtentums" (214) setzte Jaeger die Hoffnung, und er sah sie im Gegensatz zur Masse der Nichtgebildeten, welche seiner Meinung nach den

Staat beherrscht hätten (213). “Kultur” hielt Jaeger dabei klar von “Staat” 7 Kritisch bereits Κα. Lehmann-Hartleben, Sichirollo (siehe oben, Anm.

4).

Von

CW

36 (1942-1943)

172-75,

173, und L.

W. M. Calder III bereits vor seinem Beitrag für

Berlinische Lebensbilder. Geisteswissenschaftler, hrsg. von M. Erbe (Berlin 1989) 34363: Dictionary of American Biography, Suppl. 7, 1961—1965 (1981) 387-89; “Wemer Jaeger

and

Richard

Harder:

an

'Erklürung,"

QS

17

(1983)

99-121,

beides

wiederabgedruckt in: Studies in the Modern History of Classical Scholarship, Antiqua 27 (Napoli 1984) 55-57, 59-81. M. Fuhrmann, "Die humanistische Bildungstradition im Dritten Reich," Humanistische Bildung 8 (1984) 139-61, 143 f., vgl. aber 155 (Opfer). Von J. Irmscher v.a.: “Altsprachlicher Unterricht im faschistischen Deutschland,” Jahrbuch für Erziehung und Schulgeschichte 5/6 (1965-1966) 223-71, v. a. 236-42; "Werner Jaeger zum 100. Geburtstag" (noch ungedruckt). /I pensiero 17 (1972) mit mehrere Beiträgen. — V. Losemann, Nationalsozialismus und Antike. Studien zur Entwicklung des Faches Alte Geschichte 1933-1945, Historische Perspektiven 7 (Hamburg 1977) 86, 97 f.; "Programme deutscher Althistoriker" (siehe oben, Anm. 1), 9— 54. G. Müller, Die Kulturprogrammatik des dritten Humanismus als Teil imperialistischer Ideologie in Deutschland zwischen Erstem Weltkrieg und Faschischmus (Diss. Berlin 1978). B. Naf, Von Perikles zu Hitler? Die athenische Demokratie und die deutsche Althistorie bis 1945, Europüische Hochschulschriften 3, 308 (Bern, Frankfurt a. M., New York 1986) v. a. 187-91. U. Preusse, Humanismus und Gesellschaft. Zur Geschichte des

altsprachlichen

Unterrichts

in

Deutschland

von

1890

bis

1933,

Europäische

Hochschulschriften 15, 39 (Frankfurt a. M., Bern, New York, Paris 1988) v. a. 145-49, 175 f. F. Solmsen, "Classical Scholarship in Berlin between the Wars," GRBS 39 (1989)

117-40, 31 ff. (verteidigt jedoch Jaeger). Zu Solmsen siehe E. Mensching, Latein und Griechisch in Berlin 32 (1989) Heft 1, 26-76. 9 Ich zitiere die Humanistischen Reden und Vorträge (Berlin? 1960), welche die früheren Texte unverändert wiedergeben.

Beat Naf

129

auseinander und billigte ihr ein höheres Recht zu. Der Staat dürfe sie nicht auf ein Programm

festlegen,

und sie sei nicht an nationale Grenzen

gebunden. Sogar an den möglichen Konflikt zwischen Kultur und Staat dachte er (212). Die 1937 erschienene erste Auflage der Humanistischen Reden und Vorträge enthält diesen Vortrag nicht—sie schliesst mit dem Beitrag über Wilamowitz (ebenfalls 1932), dem er dann in der 2. Aufl. vorangestellt wurde. Weggelassen ist in beiden Auflagen Jaegers Aufsatz “Die Erziehung des politischen Menschen und die Antike” für die von Ernst Krieck? herausgegebene Zeitschrift Volk im Werden. Dieser Beitrag diente u. a. zur Begründung der von Jaeger mitformulierten Leitsätze des Deutschen Altphilologen-Verbandes vom 30.9.1933.19 Nun befanden sich 1933

einmal

mehr

die

Anhänger

des

humanistischen

Gymnasiums

in

Abwehrstellung, insbesondere in Preussen, eine Situation, die man freilich

schon seit dem letzten Viertel des 19. Jahrhunderts so empfand.!! Hier griff Jaeger zugunsten des altsprachlichen Unterrichts ein. Artikels lautet:

Das Ziel seines

Statt der Verflachung und Materialisierung der echten humanistischen Zucht und Kraft, wie die von uns stets bekämpfte Schulreform von 1924

sie mit ihrem falschen Idol der Kulturkunde in das Gymnasium getragen hat, gebe man der unerlüsslichen gründlichen Erlemung der beiden alten Sprachen durch ihre Abzweckung auf eine in diesem echt antiken Sinne "allgemeine Bildung" ihre im nationalen Erziehungsaufbau wieder

festverankerte Begründung.

(49)?

Es versteht sich von selbst, dass nach der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung nur mit einer Anpassung an die neue Ideologie Aussichten auf die Erhaltung des altsprachlichen Unterrichtes zu erreichen war. Der Prozess der Anpassung der Konzepte, welche die Beschäftigung mit der Antike

der

Gegenwart

verstándlich

und

attraktiv

machten,

wurde

? Was das Verhältnis von Krieck zu Wilamowitz und Spranger betrifft, vgl. G. Müller, Ernst Krieck und die nationalsozialistische Wissenschaftsreform. Motive und Tendenzen einer Wissenschaftslehre und Hochschulreform im Dritten Reich, Studien und Dokumentationen zur deutschen Bildungsgeschichte 5 (Weinheim, Basel 1978) 368—78. 10 Jaegers Beitrag: Volk im Werden 1 (1933) 43-49. Die Leitsätze sind abgedruckt in: HG 44 (1933) 209-11 (Verweis in Anm. 1 S. 210 zur Mitarbeit J.); NJW 9 (1933) 570-72 (Verweis in Anm. 1 S. 571 zur Mitarbeit J.). Vgl. Irmscher 1965-1966 (siehe oben, Anm. 7), 238-40, und Losemann

1980 (siehe oben, Anm.

1), 49-54.

H Vgl. J.C. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton 1983); Preusse 1988 (siehe oben, Anm. 7). 12 1924-1925 wurde das preussische höhere Schulwesen neugeordnet. Die Neuordnung —theoretisch durch H. Richert vorbereitet —wurde zum Vorbild für die meisten grösseren (ohne Baden und Bayern) und kleinen deutschen Länder. Die alten Sprachen wurden primär. als Mittel zum Zweck, nümlich zur Kulturkunde, zur Einführung in die Kultur der Antike, betrachtet. Das Latein wurde in seiner Stundenzahl beschnitten, das lat. Skriptum, die Übersetzung in die Fremdsprache, als Zielforderung der Reifeprüfung abgeschafft.

130

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

möglicherweise noch verstärkt durch die Konkurrenz der verschiedenen Humanismusauffassungen. Der Begriff der Anpassung könnte die Vorstellung von einem nationalsozialistischen Verständnis der Antike implizieren. Ein solches Verständnis gab es in einer klar umrissenen Form nicht. Zwar darf man u.a. Rassenlehre, Vorstellungen von biologischen Gesetzmässigkeiten, Antisemitismus, Führerprinzip, völkischer Gedanke, Primat der Gemeinschaft, Ablehnung aller anderer Geschichtsphilosophien sowie von Demokratie, Liberalismus und Sozialismus, schliesslich auch die Helden-

verehrung und die Vorliebe für die monumentale Geschichtsdarstellung als

Elemente nationalsozialistischen Denkens bezeichnen, welche für die Darstellung

der Antike

Bedeutung

gewinnen

konnten.

Doch

unter

Umständen finden sich solche Konzepte auch bei Autoren, die man nicht als

Nationalsozialisten bezeichnen möchte.

Unter nationalsozialistischem

Verständnis der Antike lassen sich dann aber auch eine Reihe von Texten subsumieren, welche von parteiamtlichen Stellen Unterstützung erhielten. Ein Musterbeispiel dafür ist Walter Eberhardts Aufsatz “Die Antike und wir” in den Nationalsozialistischen Monatsheften.!? Der Dresdener Altphilologe —seit 1932 Mitglied der NSDAP—gelangte gegen den Willen der Fakultät auf den Lehrstuhl H. Schönes in Münster mit Ernennung zum ord. Prof. 1937. Beliebt waren im Dritten Reich Zitate aus Mein Kampf, unter

Umständen auch von führenden Politikern und Ideologen.!^ Als Anpassung bezeichnen lässt sich die Verwendung solcher Zitate, wobei es einen breiten Spielraum hinsichtlich ihrer tatsächlichen Bedeutung gibt. Bereits auch schon in den Bereich des Versuchs zur Ausarbeitung eines nationalsozialistischen

Antikebildes

gehören

die

Bemühungen,

die

Vereinbarkeit der eigenen theoretischen Konzepte mit den als nationalsozialistisch gesehenen und verstandenen Ideen herzustellen oder bewusst solche Gedanken für die eigene Arbeit zu verwenden. Der Zusammenhang zwischen der beabsichtigten politischen Botschaft von Texten aus der Altertumswissenschaft und den in diesen verwendeten politisch deutbaren Konzepten wird oft klarer, wenn man vergleicht, wie Autoren vor und nach der Machtergreifung sowie nach dem Ende des Dritten Reiches schrieben. Allerdings ist auch bei solchen Vergleichen die Schwierigkeit der Definition dessen, was nationalsozialistisch sei, nicht aufgehoben.

Bei Jaeger ergibt der Vergleich seines Aufsatzes in Volk im Werden mit den aus früherer Zeit vorliegenden Texten keinen eigentlichen Bruch. Anders als im Falle von F. Schachermeyr,!5 der ab 1933 die Rassenkunde 13 Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte 6 (1935) 115-27. Zu Eberhardt: Losemann 1977 (siehe oben, Anm. T), v. a. 49. 14 Bezeichnend die Zusammenstellung solcher Zitate im HG 44 (1933) 193-201 (u. a. auch mit dem Artikel von M. Pohlenz, “Das humanistische Gymnasium und das neue Reich,” Beilage zum Hannoverschen Kurier, 3.5.1933.) 15 “Die nordische Führerpersönlichkeit im Altertum. Ein Beitrag zur Weltanschauung des Nationalsozialismus,” in:

Humanistische

Bildung

im nationalsozialistischen Staate,

Beat Naf

131

systematisch aufgriff (und deren Konzepte in geänderter Form auch nach 1945 beibehielt), sind bei Jaeger die Grundzüge der Argumentation weit zurückzuverfolgen. Neu war allerdings, dass Jaeger seine Ideen mit dem Nationalsozialismus für vereinbar erklärte, für unvereinbar hingegen diejenige Form des Humanismus, welche er selbst auch schon seit der Zeit kurz vor dem Kriege bekämpft habe, wie er es rühmend und heroisierend darstellte (44 f.). Jaeger wusste um die möglichen Angriffe gegen seine Vorstellungen und versuchte sie auf den Historismus abzulenken. Er charakterisierte

ihn

durch:

Liberalismus,

Epigonentum,

Trivialismus,

Individualismus, Ästhetizismus, Klassizismus, Formalismus, Mechanismus, Positivismus, unpolitischen Charakter, fehlenden Gemeinschaftsgedanken und Schulbewegung. Sein Humanismus dagegen sei wissenschaftlich, lebensnah, erzieherisch, ethisch, im Kampfe gegen den Historismus

bewährt, politisch und auf das Volksganze bezogen. Er eröffne die Gehalte der grossen Erzieher: das spartanische Staatsideal bei Tyrtaios, Solons Staatserziehertum, Hesiods soziale Ethik (“Arbeit ist keine Schande, Nichtarbeiten ist Schande”), den heroischen Geist der homerischen Welt, das

Bewusstwerden des politischen Ethos im attischen Drama, das Ringen des

Staatsmannes

mit dem

in Krieg und Zusammenbruch

selbsterlebten

Schicksal seines Staates bei Thukydides, das Führertum des Perikles, den

Staatsgründer und Gesetzgeber Platon, den leidenschaftlichen Kämpfer Demosthenes, die Darstellung des politischen Geschehens bei den römischen Historikern, Ciceros politische Ethik, die politische Dichtung des Principats—solcher Atem grosser Staatsgesinnung wehe in der deutschen Dichtung nicht. Jaegers Artikel war in bildungspolitischer Hinsicht kein Erfolg: Volk im Werden brachte gleich danach ein eindeutiges “caveat.” Eine der warnenden Stimmen gehörte Ernst Krieck selbst. Schwerlich könne der idealistische Humanismus zum völkischen Realismus führen. Von den antiken Inhalten würden die eigene, heutige Aufgabe betreffen: “1. die Lebensganzheit und Lebensordnung der frühen Polis, 2. die politischwehrhafte Zucht der Staatsbürger und der Jugend, insbesondere die römische Staatszucht, 3. die bündnisch-körperschaftliche Lebensform der wehrhaften

Männer und des Nachwuchses in den aufsteigenden Altersklassen, 4. das gymnastisch-musische Bildungssystem.”!6 Die Dissonanzen zwischen Drittem

Humanismus

und

den

vom

nationalsozialistischen

System

bevorzugten Vertretern steigerten sich schnell und wurden bis in die 40er Neue

Wege

zur Antike

1, 9 (Leipzig,

Berlin

1933)

36-43;

“Die

Aufgaben

der alten

Geschichte im Rahmen der nordischen Weltgeschichte,” V & G 23 (1933) 589—600; Lebensgesetzlichkeit in der Geschichte. Versuch einer Einführung in das geschichtsbiologische Denken (Frankfurt a. M. 1940). 16 E, Krieck:

“Unser Verhältnis zu Griechen und Römern,” Volk im Werden

1 (1933)

T7 f., zit. 77. Krieck wurde u.a. beachtet von H. Weinstock, Polis. Der griechische Beitrag zu einer deutschen Bildung heute an Thukydides erläutert (Berlin: Die Runde 1934, mit dem Zeichen des Georgekreises) 47.

132

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Jahre Gegenstand der Diskussion. Die Art der Interpretation freilich, wie sie Jaeger zusammenfassend skizziert und in der Paideia ausfiihrt, sie fand vielfaltige Nachahmung, Parallelen und auch direkte Wirkung. Die Geschichte der Interpretation der antiken Autoren zugunsten des

nationalsozialistischen Systems ist ein langes und trauriges Kapitel.

Hier

ist nur zu untersuchen, wie weit die Konzeption der “Paideia” selbst von

Jaeger inhaltlich in die Nahe der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie gebracht wurde.

II. Jaegers Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Geschichte und Philologie Einen ersten Komplex bildet das Verhältnis zwischen Geschichte und Philologie. Als ein “Werk geschichtlicher Forschung” bezeichnete Jaeger sein Opus (Vorwort, 1. Aufl., Okt. 1933) und präzisierte in der 2. Aufl. (1935), selbstverständlich wolle sein Buch “die Geschichte im herkömmlichen Sinne d. ἢ. die Geschichte des Geschehens” nicht ersetzen. Gerade

auf den Historismus hatte Jaeger aber tatsächliche und mögliche Angriffe gegen seinen Humanismus ablenken wollen.

Mit Historismus—der Begriff

hat nichts mit seiner damaligen und heutigen Verwendung im Bereiche der Geschichtswissenschaft Philologie, welche

zu

tun— meinte

sich arbeitsteilig und

eine Richtung

in der

im wissenschaftlichen

Jaeger

Betrieb

organisiert in der Tradition der von A. Boeckh entworfenen Altertums-

wissenschaft mit der gesamten antiken Kultur befasste, und zwar unter dem gewissermassen historischen Gesichtspunkt des Wissens, jedoch ohne die “Werte” der Antike zu berücksichtigen. Beim Begriff der “Werte” liess Jaeger sich von der Theorie des Neukantianismus anregen, mit dem er noch als Student in Berührung gekommen war, jedenfalls was die Marburger Richtung (Hermann Cohen und u. a. dessen Schüler Paul Natorp) betrifft. Heinrich Rickerts Wertbegriff dürfte jedoch mindestens so wichtig in diesem freilich lockeren Zusammenhang

sein.

In Wilhelm Diltheys Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den

Geisteswissenschaften findet sich ebenfalls eine Definition des Wertbegriffs,

welcher dem Gebrauch bei Jaeger nahekommt.!? Im Grunde genommen entspricht das Bild von einer Frontstellung und

einem Kampf zwischen Jaeger und dem Gegner des Historismus nicht einer wirklichen Auseinandersetzung.

Wohl vermisste Jaeger—vielleicht am

ehesten bei Hermann Diels—die Wertgesichtspunkte.

Wilamowitz jedoch

billigte er zu, sowohl Historiker (“der nichts anderes wissen will als was gewesen ist”) als auch wert- und erlebnisorientierter Humanist und Philologe gewesen zu sein (219). Das gleiche nahm er für sich in Anspruch. In seiner

Basler Antrittsvorlesung von 1914 Philologie und Historie geht Jaeger also 17 Neu hrsg. von H. Riedel (Frankfurt a. M. 1970) 298-301.

Beat Naf

133

zunächst von den Gemeinsamkeiten der beiden Bereiche aus. Erst danach rückt er die grundsätzlichen Unterschiede

in den Vordergrund.

Dem

Philologen ordnet er als letztlich entscheidende Tätigkeit ein auf Werte bezogenes Verstehen zu, dem Historiker das Erkennen, welches die Klärung der Zusammenhänge von Tatsachen kausaler und zeitlicher Art beabsichtige. Die Wert- und Kraftorientiertheit der Philologie macht diese zur einzig universellen Wissenschaft des Altertums und ergibt sich durch den Gehalt und die unvergängliche Form der sprachlichen Werke der Antike. In der Paideia wird zwar der Historismus noch immer angegriffen (vgl. 15), aber doch weniger scharf als im Aufsatz für Volk im Werden, wo die

Ausfälligkeiten gegen den Historismus einen Gipfel erreichen. Den bedeutenden Vertretern des Historismus wird zugebilligt, weit weniger wertfreie Wissenschaft betrieben zu haben, als es ihnen selbst erschienen sei (19). Darüber hinaus stellt sich Jaeger aus verschiedenen Gründen selbst auf den Boden geschichtlicher Erkenntnis. Er will dadurch einerseits seinen

Humanismus vor der Gefahr des Klassizismus schützen und andererseits, was dieser Absicht gerade entgegengesetzt ist, die übergeschichtliche, klassische Bedeutung der durch ihn vertretenen Werte sichern. Dem subjektiven Erlebnischarakter der Darstellung der griechischen Kultur wird die objektive Geschichtlichkeit zur Seite gestellt. Aus geschichtlicher Sicht kommt nach Jaegers Auffassung den Griechen und ihrer Kultur eine besondere Stellung

zu, welche sie insbesondere über die Völker des Ostens stellt. Griechentum bedeutete Kulturschöpfung. Diese Geschichtsphilosophie benützt Jaeger zugleich für die Deutung

der Gegenwart. Das Problem der Gegenwart war für Jaeger auch noch in der Paideia die Kulturkrise. Die Aufrüttelung durch “ein ungeheures eignes Erleben der Geschichte” (19) bedeutete ihm eine Verschärfung der mit der Kulturkrise im Zusammenhang stehenden Fragen. Als Heilmittel kam nur die klassische Bildung in Frage, welche die Antike zwar nicht zum Vorbild nehmen, sondern deren richtunggebenden Anstoss fruchtbar machen sollte. Wie die Zuwendung der Gegenwart zur Antike auszusehen hatte, das war Gegenstand des 1919 gehaltenen Vortrags Der Humanismus als Tradition

und Erlebnis. Der Rhythmus des historischen Prozesses sei bestimmt durch die beiden Kräfte der Tradition und der Produktion (21). Jaeger kommt es darauf an, dass Gegenwart und antike Tradition in einem Verhältnis stehen,

in welchem die mögliche lebendige Kraft der Tradition sich entfaltet, und die Gegenwart schöpferisch tätig ist. Zwischen den Extrempositionen eines “orthodoxen Humanismus,” dem die Tradition alles ist, und einem nur auf die Produktion der Gegenwart bezogenen “Realismus” steht der Humanismus Jaegers, der sich auf die herausragenden Perioden der Weltenscheiden beruft, die sowohl ihr eigenes Sein in ihrem Schaffen verkörperten, als auch aus dem Anstoss der Tradition lebten (23 f.). Die Besinnung auf die griechische Tradition in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte aller Nationen, für Jaeger das wichtigste Verhältnis der Gegenwart zur Tradition, nennt er das

134

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

“hellenozentrische Phänomen,” und zeigt nur schon begrifflich, welche

Bedeutung er ihm zumisst (so auch wieder in Paideia, S. 3). Zutiefst war Jaeger das Aufkommen des Nationalsozialismus gleichgültig. Ihm kam es nur auf die Verankerung der Antike in der Kultur,

faktisch primär der Altertumswissenschaften und des altsprachlichen Unterrichts, in Gesellschaft und Staat an. Dafür war es ihm auch recht, die mögliche Vereinbarkeit seiner humanistischen Konzeption und der nationalsozialistischen Auffassungen als Propagandamittel nachzuweisen. Wie Bruno Snell in seiner Besprechung der Paideia in den Göttingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen 1935 schrieb, beschränke sich Jaegers Humanismus auf

blosse Hexis und reines Ethos. Er sei damit“... geradezu unpolitisch, weil er nicht der Politik dient,—oder weil er sich jeder Politik dienstbar machen kann; das heisst aber, dass er ständig in Gefahr ist, Literatentum zu

werden.”!®

Die gleiche Kritik wurde von nationalsozialistischer Seite

angebracht, wofür vor allem Hans Drexlers Kritik Der Dritte Humanismus. Ein kritischer Epilog in der Reihe Auf dem Wege zum nationalpolitischen Gymnasium repräsentativ ist (1937; 2. Aufl. 1942):!9 Jaegers Humanismus wurde auf dieser Seite von vielen als rein akademische Bewegung gesehen, welcher der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung schon gar nicht nützen konnte. III. Die Kategorie des Politischen und ihre Entdeckung durch Jaeger Damit ist ein zweiter Komplex des Verhältnisses von Jaegers Paideia und der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie angesprochen, nämlich die Frage, wieweit Jaeger die Definition der 1914 verlangten Wertorientierung der Altertumswissenschaft im Hinblick auf die Gegenwart veränderte. In der Basler Antrittsvorlesung von 1914 sind in diesem Zusammenhang drei entscheidende Konzepte von Jaegers Paideia noch nicht klar entwickelt, 18 GGA 197 (1935) 329-53, zit. 353, wiederabgedruckt in: B. Snell, Gesammelte Schriften (Göttingen 1966) 32-54, zit. 54. Zu Snell: P. Innocenti: “Bruno Snell e il terzo umanesimo," in: ders., 1] bosco e gli alberi. Storie di libri, storie di bibliotece, storie di idee, Bd. 1, Archivi e biblioteche 10 (Firenze 1984) 3-27, ursprünglich mit anderem Titel in: 1] pensiero 17 (1972) 123-49; D. Lanza: “Bruno Snell: filologia e storia dello

spirito," in: RSF 25 (1970) 428-47.

19 Vgl. auch H. Drexler, “Die Idee des neueren Humanismus.

Kritik" (1962), in:

ders., Ausgewählte

Versuch einer positiven

kleine Schriften, Collectanea 9 (Hildesheim, New

York 1982) 346-52. Zentralbegriffe für Drexlers Humanismuskonzeption: φύσις und λόγος. Zu Drexler: H.-U. Berner, in: Gnomon 60 (1988) 188-91; C. Wegeler, Die Selbstbeschrünkung der Wissenschaft. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der klassischen Philologie seit dem ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, untersucht am Beispiel des Instituts für Altertumskunde der Universität Göttingen 1927-1962 (Diss. Wien 1985) (Druckfassung erscheint demnächst);

dies., “Das Institut für Altertumskunde

der Universität Göttingen

1921-1962: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der klassischen Philologie seit Wilamowitz,” in: Die Universität Göttingen unter dem Nationalsozialismus. Das verdrängte Kapitel ihrer 250jährigen Geschichte, hrsg. von H. Becker, H.J. Dahms, C. Wegeler (München, London, New York 1987) 246-71, 262 f.

Beat Naf

135

nämlich der Gedanke der “Paideia” selbst, mit diesem verbunden die Berücksichtigung des Politischen sowie die Konzeption einer mit

Geistesgeschichte verbundenen Philologie. Insbesondere dem Politischen kommt nicht seine spätere Bedeutung zu. Es wird der Geschichte zugeordnet, und nicht der Philologie, welche die

“Schau der unbegreiflich hohen Werke” verkündet: Die Sphäre der politischen Gebilde und Vorgänge lebt für den Tag von dem Tag. Sie ist eine Welt des Relativen und Zeitlichen. Mitten in ihr behauptet sich sieghaft die andere Welt, die der menschliche Geist über

dem Abgrunde des Daseins “befestigt hat mit dauernden Welt des Schönen, der Erkenntnis und der Freiheit, Griechen und kein anderes Volk auf Erden entdeckt haben. Von dem Ethos ihres Gegenstandes ist die erfüllt. (11)

Gedanken”: die welche uns die und geschaffen Philologie ganz

Ganz anders argumentiert Jaeger in der Paideia: Sein Humanismus will nun Politicum sein. Die ethische Orientierung ist zur politischen Orientierung geworden, und gerade darin will Jaeger den Neuhumanismus der Goethezeit wie den Renaissancehumanismus übertreffen. Was Jaeger 1914

selbst für sich in Anspruch nahm, nämlich die Ausrichtung an Werten jenseits des Politischen, wird nun als “klassizistische Theologie des Geistes” abgetan.

(15)

“Historismus” und frühere humanistische und pädagogischen Bewegungen erscheinen diskreditiert durch ihren Individualismus, ihr Verkennen der in den Werken der Griechen enthaltenen politischen Werte. Für einen im Sinne des Nationalsozialismus denkenden Leser sollte es scheinen, als sei Jaegers Humanismus durch die Gegenwart auf den richtigen Weg gebracht worden. Klassische Bildung wird von Jaeger angeboten, um im Dienste des Unrechtsstaates Menschen von der Notwendigkeit der Unterordnung zu überzeugen: Die griechische Erziehung ist nicht eine Summe privater Künste und Veranstaltungen, deren Endziel die seibstgenugsame Vervollkommnung des Individuums bildet. So hat es erst die staatlose Verfallszeit des Spätgriechentums aufgefasst, aus der die Pädagogik der Neuzeit in gerader Linie abstammt. Es ist erklärlich, dass der Philhellenismus einer noch unpolitischen Zeit des deutschen Volkes, wie es unsere Klassik war, diesen Weg zunächst weiter verfolgt hat. Aber unsere eigene geistige Bewegung zum Staate hin hat uns wieder die Augen geöffnet für die Tatsache, dass ein staatsfremder Geist dem Hellenen der besseren Zeit ebenso unbekannt war wie ein geistfremder Staat. Die grössten Werke des Griechentums sind Monumente einer Staatsgesinnung von einzigartiger Grossartigkeit, deren Ringen sich in einer lückenlosen Reihe durch alle Stufen der Entwicklung entfaltet

vom Heroentum der Gedichte Homers bis zu Platos autoritärem Staat der herrscherlichen

Wissenden,

in

dem

Individuum

und

soziale

136

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Gemeinschaft auf dem Boden der Philosophie ihren letzten Kampf ausfechten. Ein künftiger Humanismus muss (1934: Der kommende dritte Humanismus ist...) wesentlich an der Grundtatsache alles griechischen Erziehertums orientiert sein, dass die Humanität, das

“Menschsein”, von den Griechen stets wesenhaft an die Eigenschaft als

politisches Wesen geknüpft worden ist"? (16, ähnlich S. 19). D Vgl. meine Rede zur Reichsgründungsfeier der Berliner Universität 1924: Die griechische Staatsethik im Zeitalter des Plato, ferner die Vorträge: Die geistige Gegenwart der Antike (Berlin 1919) S. 38 ff. (= Die Antike, Bd. 5, 185) und Staat und Kultur, Die Antike, Bd.

8, 78 ff.

Jaeger selbst verweist auf seine früheren Äusserungen.

In der Tat

beginnen für ihn die politischen Werte der Antike in den 20er Jahren bedeutungsvoll zu werden. Wie wohl alle Zeitgenossen war auch er erschüttert von den Erfahrungen des Ersten Weltkrieges, dem Trauma der Niederlage, den sich öffnenden sozialen Spannungen und den Problemen der

Weimarer Republik.?! Dass der Gegensatz zwischen der ursprünglichen und der politischen Interpretation der Wertorientierung sich in Grenzen hält, hüngt damit zusammen, dass das Politische natürlich nicht im Sinne eines

scharfen Begriffs wie etwa Carl Schmitts Freund-Feind-Unterscheidung oder von auf die Gegenwart bezogenen Handlungsanweisungen gemeint war. Nietzsche hatte in seiner Basler Antrittsvorlesung Homer und die klassische

Philologie (1869) nicht zuletzt im Hinblick auf die pädagogische Aufgabe gefordert, dass die aus verschiedenen wissenschaftlichen Tätigkeiten zusammengebundene Philologie von einer “philosophischen Weltanschauung” umschlossen und eingehegt sein solle, damit das Ganze und Einheitliche bestehen bleibe. Die Wertorientierung der Philologie, die Jaeger wollte, knüpfte an solchen Vorstellungen an. Sie fand in der Paideia, dann im Politischen, Kategorien für die inhaltliche Bestimmung der Wertorientierung. Das Politische blieb dabei wesentlich ein auf Grundsätz-

liches bezogener Begriff. Immerhin finden sich bei Jaeger konkretere Interpretationen mit politischem Gehalt, als es die Kritik Snells oder Drexlers wahrhaben wollte, 291917 verlangte Jaeger allerdings bereits in einer Besprechung von E. Sprangers Begabung und Studium (Leipzig, Berlin 1917) die "Erziehung zum politischen Menschen." Er forderte dabei “politisch reife Lehrer" und lehnte einen "panegyrischen Patriotismus” ab (NJP 20 [1917] 265-82, zit. 279).

Die Erziehung zum politischen Menschen

sollte durch

geschichtliche Bildung gewährleistet werden. Vgl. eine ähnliche Trennung zwischen Humanismus und Politischem bei E. Spranger, “Das humanistische und das politische Bildungsideal im heutigen Deutschland,” (1916) in: ders., Volk. Staat. Erziehung. Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze (Leipzig 1932) 1-33.

21 Vgl. W. M. Calder III, "The Correspondence of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff with Werner Jaeger," HSPh 83 (1979) 369-96 (= Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Selected Correspondence 1869-1931, ed. W. M. Calder III, Antiqua 23 [Napoli 1983] 167-211, 177-81). W. Jaeger, "Die griechische Staatsethik im Zeitalter des Plato" (1924), in: Humanistische Reden und Vorträge (1960) 87 f.

Beat Naf und

zwar

Interpretationen,

welche

mit

137 einer

nationalsozialistischen

Weltanschauung zu vereinbaren waren. Die Orientierung an den grossen Persinlichkeiten, die Vorliebe fiir den starken Staat und das Heroische, die

Vernachlässigung

der griechischen

Demokratie,

die Schätzung

der

Gemeinschaft vor dem Wert des Individuums, Anspielungen auf den völkischen Gedanken und das Führerprinzip—solche Konzepte konnten Philologen oder Historiker, welche beispielsweise eine energische Plato- und

Thukydidesapotheose

zugunsten

des nationalsozialistischen

Systems

betrieben, nur bestätigen.?? Nicht zu übersehen ist auch, dass die politische Interpretation der Antike für das nationalsozialistische Antikebild vielleicht noch entscheidender war als die letztlich im Abstrusen endende und unglaubwürdige rassentheoretische Deutung. Bezeichnend dafür ist Herbert Holtorfs Artikel Griechische Staatsgesinnung—Staatsgesinnung des Dritten Reiches (Festansprache im Staatl. Jahn-Gymnasium Salzwedel) im Humanistischen Gymnasium 48 (1937) 122-26.

IV. Kulturbiologische und rassenkundliche Begriffe und das im Widerspruch dazu stehende Konzept des Kosmopolitismus Eine ähnliche Feststellung ergibt sich in bezug auf einen dritten Bereich im Verhältnis Jaegers zum Nationalsozialismus, den in der Paideia aufgegriffenen kulturbiologischen und rassekundlichen Begriffen. 1927 hatte

Jaeger den Begriff Kultur in einem doppelten Sinne verstanden: Einerseits wie Spengler und der Historismus als "naturwissenschaftlich-anthropologischen beschreibenden Begriff, der eine Fülle morphologischer Artunterschiede unter sich befasst, aber keine einheitliche historische Urform" voraussetze (117), andererseits als ““Wertidee und letztes Ziel des irdischen Strebens der einzelnen Persónlichkeit wie ganzer Nationen" (119). Diese Vorstellung, welche dem Griechentum eine absolute Sonderstellung

einräumt und den Kulturbegriff allen anderen Völkern abspricht, sofern sie nicht ihrerseits in der Tradition der Griechen stehen, wird auch im einleitenden Kapitel der Paideia dargestellt, aber mit bezeichnenden Unterschieden in der Form der Präsentation. Vom ersten, ungenügenden

Begriff der Kultur distanziert sich Jaeger erst im nachhinein (6 f.), um stattdessen mit den Konzepten einer von ihm zwar letztlich abgelehnten anthropologischen Kulturtheorie zu beschreiben, welche Funktion die “Paideia”, der Inhalt der Kultur schlechthin, ausübt: Erziehung sei

22 Die Reaktion gegen sie hat insbesondere auch Karl Popper beeinflusst: Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde, Bd. 1, Der Zauber Platons (Bern? 1970) 290 Anm. 63: Verweis auf die Polemik von R. H. S. Crossman, Plato To-Day (London 1938). Siehe dort v.a. 228-57. Popper selbst fasste den Entschluss, sein eigenes Buch zu schreiben, als

ihn die Nachricht von der Invasion Osterreichs erreichte.

138

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered das Prinzip, dessen sich die menschliche Gemeinschaft bedient, um ihre leibliche und geistige Art zu erhalten und fortzupflanzen. (1)

Wie sehr Jaeger sich bemiihte, seine Humanismuskonzeption dem Nationalsozialismus attraktiv zu machen, zeigt sich insbesondere an den Formulierungen, welche Zugeständnisse an den Rassegedanken machen: Selbst die körperliche Natur des Menschen und ihre Eigenschaften vermag bewusste Züchtung zu verändern und zu höherer Leistungsfähigkeit zu steigern. (1)

Dieser Aussage wird zwar entgegengestellt, dass der Geist des Menschen noch reichere Möglichkeiten der Entfaltung trage. Bei der Untersuchung des Verhältnisses des deutschen Volkes zu den Griechen kommt das “Nähegefühl rassischer Verwandtschaft” zur Sprache, bzw. die Fremde zu den “rasse- und

geistesfremden Völkern des Orients” (4). Auch bei diesen beiden Stellen ist für Jaeger die “Geistesverbundenheit” eindeutig wichtiger, doch dem

Rassegedanken wird trotzdem Tribut gezollt. Die Leistungen der Griechen für die Weltgeschichte gründen letztlich auf einem nicht weiter abzuleitenden “anthropozentrischen Lebensgefühl” (13); aber auf der anderen Seite spricht Jaeger dennoch von “rassemässigen Formanlagen des griechischen Geistes": Wir gehen dazu wohl am besten von der rassemüssigen Formanlage des griechischen Geistes aus. Die spontane Munterkeit, leichte Beweglichkeit und

innere Freiheit des griechischen Menschen,

die die Voraus-

setzung für die rapide Entfaltung dieser Nation in einer Formenwelt von unerschópflicher Fülle der Gegensátze zu sein scheint und die man bei jeder Berührung mit griechischen Schriftstellem von den frühesten Zeiten an aufs neue bewundert, wurzelt keineswegs in modern bewusster

Subjektivität, sondern sie ist Natur...

(9)

Eine klare Abgrenzung zu Rassevorstellungen im nationalsozialistischen Sinne schuf der “Kosmopolitismus”, der in der nationalsozialistischen Kritik häufig zitiert wird.

Gemeint ist Jaegers immer

vertretene Auffassung, die Pflege der Antike sei bei allen Nationen Zeichen ihrer Kultur und natürlich keineswegs ein deutsches Privileg.

Freilich

beschränkte sich Jaegers Kreis der Kulturvölker auf die abendländischen Nationen (5). 2 Vgl. auch S. 7: "artverwandter Geist des griechischen Volkes". 4 Vgl von den früheren Texten z. B. "Die Antike im wissenschaftlichen Austausch der Nationen," (1930) in: Humanistische Reden ...(1960) 178-85. "Einführung," Antike 1 (1925) 1-4, 2: "Allein trotz aller seelischen und rassemässigen Verschiedenheit hat unsere Kultur mit den übrigen nationalen Formen abendländischer Gesittung doch das eine gemeinsam, dass sic nicht aus eigenen Wurzeln frei erwachsen und ihre Form nicht aus sich selbst geworden ist."

Beat Naf

139

Jaegers Argumentieren mit kulturbiologischen und rassekundlichen

Begriffen ging viel weniger weit als die Verwendung der Rassentheorie bei anderen im Bereiche der Altertumswissenschaft schreibenden Autoren jener Zeit. Es kommt hinzu, dass in der Altertumswissenschaft eine lange Tradition bestand, welche davon ausging, dass die Griechen und die griechischen Stämme ein bestimmtes Wesen, einen eigenen Nationalgeist und besondere blutsmässig bedingte Anlagen besassen.?° Ebenso verbreitet

war die Theorie der Nähe deutscher und griechischer Geistigkeit. Die in einem

weiteren

Kreis wohl bekanntesten

rassentheoretisch

geprägten Bücher zur griechisch-römischen Antike stammten von Hans F. K. Günther, der bereits 1930 vom thüringischen nationalsozialistischen Innen-

und

Volksbildungsminister

W. Frick

auf den

Lehrstuhl

für

Sozialanthropologie in Jena berufen worden war.2$ Der Versuch, Rasse auch empirisch zu definieren, der Glaube an die in der nordischen Rasse angelegten hohen Werte und Anlagen, die Theorie von der sich in der Geschichte abzeichnenden Entnordung und Entartung—das alles weist ohne Zweifel eine dem Nationalsozialismus viel mehr entsprechende Qualitát

auf." Vergleiche mit Jaegers Schüler Richard Harder, der Ende 1940 zum Leiter der Aussenstelle der "Hohen Schule" in München, dem "Institut fur

Indogermanische Geistesgeschichte" wurde, oder mit dem Althistoriker Fritz Schachermeyr kónnten den Abstand Jaegers zu nationalsozialistischen Ansätzen weiter belegen. Dennoch aber bleibt die Tatsache, dass einer der einflussreichsten Altphilologen stärker als er das früher getan hatte und in der Absicht, die

Sympathien des neuen Systems zu gewinnen, die griechische Antike in dessen Dienst stellte. V. Das Konzept der “Paideia” und des Humanismus; 75 Eine reiche Fundgrube von Belegen bei G. Billeter, Die Anschauungen vom Wesen des Griechentums

(Leipzig, Berlin

1911).

Vgl. auch:

I. Weiler, “Von

'Wesen,'

‘Geist’ und

*Eigenart' der Völker der Alten Welt. Eine Anthologie altertumswissenschaftlicher Typisierungskunst,” in: F. Hampl, I. Weiler (Hrsg.), Kritische und vergleichende Studien zur Alten Geschichte und Universalgeschichte, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft 18 sbruck 1974) 243-91. Vgl. die Selbstdarstellung Günthers: Mein Eindruck von Adolf Hitler (Pähl 1969) 18 f. Das Buch wird vom “Verlag Hohe Warte. Franz von Bebenburg” herausgegeben, u.a. zusammen mit vielen anderen nach wie vor erhältlichen Schriften Günthers (Ziel des

Verlags: “weltanschauliche und politische Erneuerung des deutschen Volkes”). Günther 1969 zu seinem Verhältnis zum Nationalsozialismus: “Ehemalige Studenten bezeugten, es sei in meinen Vorlesungen und Kolloquien immer deutlich zu erkennen gewesen, dass ich zwischen ‘nationalsozialistisch’ und 'vólkisch' unterschieden hätte. ‘Völkisch’ war mir immer und ist mir diejenige adelstümliche (aristokratische) Anschauung, die nach den Mitteln sucht, ein Volkstum freier Menschen von Grund auf, von seinen Erbanlagen her, zu

emeuern" (6 f.). 7! Vgl. v. a. H. F. K. Günther, Rassengeschichte des hellenischen und des rómischen Volkes. Mit einem Anhang: Hellenische und römische Köpfe nordischer Rasse (München 1929; bearbeitete und erweiterte Neuauflage: Pahl 1956).

140

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered die Wesensinterpretation

Weniger eindeutig ist dieser Befund bei einem vierten Thema von Jaegers in

der Einleitung seiner Paideia entfalteten Konzeption, dem Begriff der *Paideia" selbst und der Methode der geistesgeschichtlichen Interpretation der Griechen “aus ihrem eigenen geistigen Wesen" (20). Wie bereits festgehalten worden ist, fehlt in der Basler Antrittsvorlesung von 1914 noch die Ausarbeitung von beidem, obwohl durch die geforderte Wert- und Kraftorientierung die Richtung gegeben war. Ein zentrales Problem in der Empfindung der Kulturkrise war nicht nur das Gefühl, der Werte verlustig gegangen zu sein, sondern auch statt eine gewünschte Einheit zu haben, der

Auflósung und Vereinzelung anheimzufallen. Wertstiftende Einheit vermochte der Begriff der Erziehung zu schaffen. Der Humanismus Fichtes, auf den—und natürlich Platon—sich wiederum Paul Natorps politische Pádagogik berufen sollte, hatte als Mittel zur Verwirklichung der von ihm

erstrebten Moralität, der Übereinstimmung zwischen Wollen und Handeln,

die Erziehung als Vermittlerin gesehen, die schliesslich das Ganze des

Lebens umfasst. Ahnlich griff Jaeger den Erziehungsgedanken auf. In einem Brief an Hermann Diels vom 9. Mai 191875 schreibt Jaeger: “Ich bin in erster Linie von den Alten erzogen, u. die παιδεία durch die Alten ist mir hóchstes Lebensideal. Dies schliesst Wertgefühle, Glaubenkräfte ein, u. das haben die Philosophen, die mich wollten, wohl als das *Philosophische' an mir im Auge gehabt.”

Drei Jahre später findet sich die Formulierung:

“Humanismus ist

überall zugegen, wo die Antike als lebendige Grósse empfunden wird und als

erzieherische Kraft gegenwärtig ist."

So beginnt Jaeger seinen Vortrag

*Humanismus und Jugendbildung" (1921). Die Griechen seien die Erzieher schlechthin. Wo immer man sich auf sie besonnen habe, sei Humanismus. Das Erziehertum der Griechen richte sich auf den Menschen, und zwar rein

als Menschen. Mit dem griechischen Erziehertum sei die Kultur als System der “Paideia” geschaffen worden, die Kultur der reinen Gestalt, der Formen

ohne Nutzanwendung. Die Auseinandersetzung mit Platon brachte Jaeger dann dazu, seinen

Humanismus auch als politischen Humanismus, seine *Paideia" auch als politische "Paideia" zu verstehen. In seinem ersten Semester, berichtet Jaeger in der Einführung zu seinen Scripta minora (xiii), habe ihn die

neukantianische Interpretation Platons in Marburg sehr beeindruckt: “im Mittelpunkt des geistigen Lebens der Universität” gestanden.

Sie sei Dennoch

brauchte es offenbar Jahre, bis es zu dieser entscheidenden Ausgestaltung seiner “Paideia”- und Humanismusvorstellungen kam. Ihr voraus ging die Zuwendung zur Geistesgeschichte: Wenn griechische Kultur Kultur schlechthin war, so musste ihre verehrende, aber 28 Die Edition der Briefe ist von D. Ehlers in Zusammenarbeit mit W. vorbereitet worden; die Publikation steht bevor.

M. Calder III

Beat Nuf zugleich

geschichtlich-objektive

141

auf die geistigen

Werke

gerichtete

Darstellung von selbst die gesuchte Wertorientierung schaffen und damit die Grundlagen fiir den neuen Humanismus abgeben. Der Gedanke dazu ist erstmals in einem Brief an Wilamowitz vom 24.7.1917 schriftlich fest-

gehalten.? Der Begriff des Dritten Humanismus, vermutlich durch Spranger 1921 zum ersten Mal aufgebracht,?? kam in Umlauf, als Jaeger Nachfolger

von Wilamowitz geworden war, seine Humanismuskonzeption in der Tat— mit Ausnahme der Berücksichtigung des Politischen—vorlag und Jaeger daran ging, auch für die Breitenwirkung seiner Ideen zu sorgen. Der Humanismus Jaegers war freilich von Beginn an ein Humanismus

für einen kleinen Kreis, die "Paideia" in ihrer Wirkung auf die Gegenwart eine Kraft, welche nur wenigen

Auserwählten

das Erlebnis ihrer Geist-

befreiung zuteil werden lässt (1921, 49), nämlich denjenigen, welche fähig sind, die antiken Sprachen zu lernen und erst noch zu verstehen und erleben, was ihnen durch diese sich eröffnet. Man hat den Eindruck, Jaeger habe bewusst die Mystifizierung dieses Kreises betrieben. Es sind die besseren Menschen, welche sich der Antike zuwenden. Zum einen ist die Aristokratisierung des Bildungsbegriffes in einer Zeit ohne Liebe zur Demokratie so gut wie selbstverstindlich und darf ebensowenig als Widerspruch gegenüber den zweifellos ernsthaften Bemühungen Jaegers für eine Breitenwirkung des Humanismus gesehen werden. In mancher Hinsicht verdankt der Dritte Humanismus seine Anziehungskraft sogar gerade seinem

aristokratischen Anspruch. Das gilt zwar nicht für die nationalsozialistischen Padagogen und Philologen, welche hinter der aristokratischen Ausrichtung

das

Akademische,

Realitätsferne

und

die

Schulmeisterei

vermuteten und zum Schluss kamen, der Dritte Humanismus sei für die neue Weltanschauung untauglich. Das von der nationalsozialistischen Kritik negativ empfundene geradezu

religiöse Pathos,?! welches den Dritten Humanismus in die Nähe eines Glaubens?? brachte, findet in anderen Bewegungen, welche sich mit der Antike befassten, ihre Parallelen—nicht zuletzt übrigens auch in Hitlers oder

Albert Speers Verhältnis zur Antike. Insbesondere besass die Antike eine mythisch-religiöse Bedeutung im Kreis um den Dichter Stefan George, mit 2 W. M. Calder III, "The Correspondence . . ." (siehe oben, Anm. 21) 178 f. 30 E. Spranger, Der gegenwärtige Stand der Geisteswissenschaften und die Schule. Rede gehalten auf der 53. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner in Jena am 27. September 1921 (Berlin 1922) 10.

31 Vgl, z. B., H. Drexler, Der Dritte Humanismus . . . (siehe oben, zu Anm. 19) 23.

32 Den Humanismus mit einem Glauben in Zusammenhang zu bringen, sowohl unter negativem Goethezeit.

wie positivem

Aspekt, war nicht unüblich:

W. Rehm, Griechentum

und

Geschichte eines Glaubens, Das Erbe der Alten 2, 36 (Leipzig 1936); in einem

anderen Sinne das bis heute viel geschmihte Buch von E. M. Butler, The Tyranny of Greece over Germany: A Study of the Influence Exercised by Greek Art and Poetry over the Great German Writers of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Century (Cambridge 1935) (ohne Auseinandersetzung mit Jaeger).

142

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

dem Jaegers Humanismus dartiber hinaus in seiner Vorliebe fiir das Aristokratische und die dem Positivismus entgegengestellte geistige Vertiefung weitere Gemeinsamkeiten besitzt. Karl Reinhardt, welcher Sympathien fiir George hegte, berichtet von einer bezeichnenden Kritik

Friedrich Gundolfs an Wilamowitz: Gundolf habe fiir den “Platon fiir Dienstmädchen” von Wilamowitz wenig übrig gehabt.?? An der Generation von Wilamowitz vermissten in den 20er und 30er Jahren viele das Tiefe und Hohe—die Wertorientierung, wie Jaeger es ausdrückte. Der Zugang unter der Führerschaft eines seherischen Dichters bot sich als neuer Weg an.”* Nach dem Zeugnis von Kurt Hildebrandt habe Jaeger Georges Dichtung—anders als Wilamowitz—geschätzt, sich jedoch, als es um die

Habilitation Hildebrandts ging, seinem Lehrer angeschlossen und damit Hildebrandts Habilitationsschrift, eine Vorarbeit für sein späteres (vom Rassegedanken tief getränktes) Platonbuch, abgelehnt.*5 Jaegers Streben sei, so Hildebrandt, “auf eigene geistige Herrschaft” gegangen. Wichtiger im Dritten Humanismus waren von den Dichtern Rudolf Borchardt und insbesondere Hugo von Hofmannsthal.?® Jaeger sah jedoch in seiner “Paideia” für die Dichter der Gegenwart keine besondere Funktion für die Erschliessung der Antike vor.

Seiner Meinung nach war die “Paideia” durch die Lektüre und die Interpretation der griechischen Werke aus ihrem eigenen Geist erfahr- und wissenschaftlich darstellbar. Schon den Begriff der “Paideia” verstand Jaeger als Vorstellung aus griechischem Geist. Der griechische Begriff ist jedoch wesentlich enger als ihn Jaeger selber gebraucht. Die bekannte, häufig zitierte Kritik Bruno Snells ist hier nach wie vor treffend. Die Geschichte der eigentlichen Erziehung, d. h. der Erziehung im Sinne des Wortes, schrieb nicht Jaeger, sondern erst Henri-Irénée Marrou. Die Verwendung des griechischen Begriffes für sein viel weiteres grundsätzlicheres Anliegen entsprach aber der innersten Absicht Jaegers. Es ging um eine vertiefende 33K. Reinhardt, “Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1848-1931" (1957), in:

ders.,

Vermáchtnis der Antike (siehe oben, Anm. 5) 361—68, 367.

34 Vgl. die diplomatischen Ausserungen von W. Jaeger, "Einführung," Antike 1 (1925) 1-4, 3: "Solange uns der bestimmende Reprüsentant, der Dichter und geistige Führer fehlt, bleibt uns die letzte Sicherheit der Erkenntnis des ‘Klassischen’ auch im Vergangenen, Ererbten unerreichbar. Das Altertum soll deshalb in der neuen Zeitschrift nicht in irgendwelche dogmatische Beleuchtung gerückt, sondern es sollen zunüchst einfach in reichem Wechsel Werke, Menschen, Schicksale und Umwelt der Antike dargestellt werden.”

35 K. Hildebrandt, Erinnerungen an Stefan George und seinen Kreis (Bonn 1965) 189 f. 36 Vgl. H. Stachelin: “'... bei den Meinigen, nicht immer unter Wildfremden!' Hugo von Hofmannsthal in Briefen an Werner Jaeger,” in: Catalepton. Festschrift für Bernhard Wyss zum 80. Geburtstag, hrsg. von Ch. Schäublin (Basel 1985) 203-12. H. von Hofmannsthal, “Vermächtnis der Antike. Rede anlässlich eines Festes von Freunden des humanistischen

Gymnasiums,”

Antike 4 (1928) 99-102.

Vgl. U. Ou, “Rudolf Borchardt

und die klassische Altertumswissenschaft,” in: H. A. Glaser in Verbindung mit E. De Angelis (Hrsg.), Rudolf Borchardt (1877-1945). Referate des Pisaner Colloqiums, Akten int. Kongresse auf den Gebieten der Asthetik und der Literaturwissenschaft 4 (Frankfurt a. M., Bern, New York, Paris 1987) 295—320.

Beat Naf

143

geistesgeschichtliche Wesensdeutung unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Einheit, welche die Unterscheidung des Normativen und des Kognitiven beim hermeneutischen Prozess aufgeben wollte und zu diesem Zwecke die

griechischen Begriffe einsetzte. Die damit erreichte Distanz zum anderen, nämlich der griechischen Welt, wurde gleichzeitig auch wieder aufgehoben, das Subjekt der Gegenwart mit der griechischen Klassik in eins aufgehoben. Solche Wesensdeutung hatte keine besondere Affinitäten mit einer nationalsozialistischen Auffassung, sofern sie nicht mit der Theorie der

rassischen Nähe von Deutschen und Griechen verbunden wurde. Wie bereits gezeigt worden ist, klingt das bei Jaeger an, aber der Primat des Geistes und die sogenannte “kosmopolitische” Ausrichtung standen dem entgegen. Vergleicht man mit dem Althistoriker Helmut Berve, der wiederum dem Nationalsozialismus näher stand als Jaeger, so wird der Unterschied klarer.

Berve lehnte den Dritten Humanismus trotz Würdigung grundsätzlicher Verdienste letztlich ab, weil er ihm “zu gedanklich, zu wenig vital” war.?? Auch Berve empfand die positivistische Sachlichkeit, die sich seines Erachtens im Enzyklopädischen nutzlos zu verlieren drohte, als Mangel. Er wollte eine neue, lebenswärmere Auseinandersetzung mit der Antike, bei der sowohl die Gegenwart als auch die Darstellung der Vergangenheit hätten gewinnen sollen. Das Antike sollte das “Originale” sein, das Besondere, Andere und doch in affiner Hingabe zu Erschliessende. Während Jaeger hier die antike Geistigkeit hatte zeigen wollen, kam es Berve hingegen auf das irrational-individuelle Wesen, letztlich die blutsmässige Einheit der

griechischen Stämme an.

Den hermeneutischen Zugang zur griechischen

Antike traute er in seinen radikalsten Formulierungen nur den Ariern zu. So weit ging Jaeger nicht. Der Gedanke der “Paideia” umfasst die Lebensorientierung, die Deutung aus dem griechischen Wesen, die Ablehnung einer

über die griechisch-römische Welt hinausgehenden Altertumswissenschaft und sie lässt Raum für die Theorie rassischer Anlagen—aber der Rassengesichtspunkt ist weit weniger durchgeführt. Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen Berve und Jaeger gibt es hingegen wieder in der Bewunderung des Aristokratischen, der griechischen Staatlichkeit und in der Erneuerung des

Klassizismus.? Jaeger behielt auch nach der Emigration seine Auffassungen bei. In seinem Brief vom 26.5.1948 an Spranger, meinte er, der Schade welcher der deutschen Erziehung zugefügt worden sei, müsse durch klassische Bildung geheilt werden, und Deutschland solle dabei wieder den Weg der westlichen Kulturnationen nehmen. Er verwies auf den sich abzeichnenden Erfolg in 37H. Berve, "Antike und nationalsozialistischer Staat," V & G 24

(1934)

258-72,

zit.

264.

38 Von H. Berve u. a. neben dem in der vorhergehenden Anm. zit. wichtigen Artikel:

Griechische Geschichte, 2 Bde., Geschichte der führenden Völker 4/5 (Freiburg Br. 1931-

1933);

Rez.

"The

Kulturgeschichte

des

Cambridge Alten

Ancient

Orients,”

AKG

History," 25

Gnomon

(1935)

7 (1931)

216-30;

“Was

65-74; ist

griechischen Geschichte lebendig?” Süddeutsche Monatshefte 33 (1936) 720-27.

von

"Zur der

144

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

den USA, wo man sich nicht zuletzt auf seine Paideia besinne.?9 Weitere Zeugnisse für die Fortführung der “Paideia”-Konzeption in Jaegers Publikationen sind zahlreich. Stärker wurde die Verbindung des “Paideia”Gedankens mit dem Christentum, wodurch dieser nochmals eine Ausweitung erfuhr. VI. Reaktionen auf die Paideia

Das Schicksal des Dritten Humanismus hatte sich entschieden, als die Paideia erschien. Trotzdem fand das Werk in Deutschland ein grosses Echo, genauso auch in internationaler Hinsicht. Die ausführlichste Kritik von einer Seite, welche sich als nationalsozialistisch verstand, stammt wie erwähnt (s. oben) von Hans Drexler.*?

Ein “Gleichschaltungsversuch” sei Jaegers Artikel für Volk im Werden gewesen (67; alle Zitate nach der 2. Aufl. von 1942).

Seinem Humanismus

fehle es in Wirklichkeit an der richtigen Weltanschauung.

Er habe seinen

Ursprung im niedergehenden Altertum, bzw. im modernen Liberalismus und

Individualismus. sondern

Nicht das Kriegserlebnis sei für ihn prägend gewesen,

die Wertkrise.

Er beschrünke

sich auf die wissenschaftlich-

schulische Welt, das Pathos des Antikeerlebnisses sei epigonal und nicht echt, der falsche Antikeglauben inhaltsleer. Die “Paideia”-Konzeption könne

zu einem unguten Bildungsstolz führen. Sie sei zu sehr auf das Abstrakte, auf das nur Geistige und auf die reine Menschenbildung ausgerichtet. Sie laufe in ihrer normativen Verbindlichkeit Gefahr, die eigene Kultur zu verdrángen und die Bindungen an Rasse, Gemeinschaft und Staat zu Schwüchen.

Die gleichen Folgen hátten Jaegers Internationalismus, sein

Individualismus und die Reverenz vor dem Christentum. Wolfgang Aly gab seiner Ablehnung 1935 in Voik im Werden 3 (1935) 428 folgendermassen Ausdruck: Die unzeitgemüsseste Form des Unterrichtes ist der sogenannte Humanismus. Denn er predigt Menschentum vor Volkstum. Das ist verkehrte Weit.

Aus

nationalsozialistischer Sicht war das Ziel der "Paideia,"

die

Menschenbildung, etwas Untergeordnetes. Jaegers Propaganda, die "Paideia" zeige Politisches und führe zum Politischen, überzeugte nicht. Härtere,

ungeistigere

Vorstellungen

von

der

Politik

waren

gewünscht.

Verschiedentlich wurde in diesem Zusammenhang auch das Argument vorgebracht, die frühe Polis würde einheitliche Lebensordnung, Staatszucht, 39 Gymnasium 89 (1982) 116-21 (siehe oben, Anm. 5). 40 Es ist merkwürdig, aber bezeichnend, wie die Besinnung auf humanistische Werte nach 1945 sich ebenso auf Jaeger wie Drexler beziehen konnte: vgl. R. Muth, Humanismus und Wissenschaft, Ewiger Humanismus 4 (Innsbruck 1946).

Beat Naf

145

Heroismus und Soldatentum doch eigentlich viel besser zeigen, als das die von Jaeger in ihrer Wichtigkeit hoch, ja für die “Paideia” höher geschätzten

späteren Zeiten zu tun vermöchten.*! Immerhin wusste sich jeder noch so nationalsozialistische Freund der Antike dadurch mit Jaeger verbunden, dass es um die Erhaltung oder Verbesserung von deren Stellung in der Gegenwart ging. Walter Eberhardt, Helmut Berve oder Hans Bogner hatten starke Vorbehalte gegenüber dem Dritten Humanismus, aber sie wussten Jaeger und seine Werke ebenso zu schützen.? Fritz Schachermeyr begrüsste die Neuorientierung durch Jaeger,

und die positiven Rezensionen der Paideia in Deutschland dominieren.*? Am

bekanntesten

wurde

freilich die Kritik Bruno

Snells, der den

“Paideia”-Begriff Jaegers als neuzeitliches Konzept erwies und gegen die politische Ausrichtung Stellung bezog. Weniger wirkungsreich wurde die Besprechung Rudolf Pfeiffers, die, was das allgemeine betrifft, zwar Jaegers grundsätzliche Absicht guthiess, den späteren Humanismus schon bei den Griechen zu erweisen, es jedoch ablehnte, dass Jaeger schon die frühere Zeit

im Lichte des 4. Jahrhunderts sah.* International wurde Jaegers Paideia im allgemeinen gut aufgenommen und warm begrüsst. Vereinzelt gab es Kritik am Versuch Jaegers, seine “Paideia” dem Dritten Reich sympathisch zu machen, mehrfach wurde das Buch als zu deutsch empfunden, und verschiedentlich findet sich der Vorwurf, Jaeger habe nicht erreicht, was er in seinem Programm

verspreche.*5

Auf ernsthafte, scharfe Ablehnung aus politischen oder

“1 E, Krieck, Volk im Werden 2 (1934) 296. 42 W.

Eberhardt, Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte 6 (1935) 21; zu Berve siehe oben,

Anm. 37 f.; H. Bogner, Deutsches Volkstum (Okt. 1931) 805 f., vgl. z B. die Jaegerverweise in Bogners Platon im Unterricht, Auf dem Wege zum nationalpolitischen Gymnasium 1 (Frankfurt a. M. 1937). Obwohl er das Buch positiv würdigte, brachte G. Nebel ähnliche Vorbehalte an. Jaeger gelinge es nicht, über den zweiten Humanismus hinaus zu gelangen: BDPh 9 (1935-1936) 92-97. 43 E, Schachermeyr, Klio 27 (1934) 179 f.; F. Bucherer, HG 45 (1934) 131-52; H. Eibl, PhJ 51 (1938) 250-53; E. Hoffmann, HZ 155 (1937) 116-18 (E. Hoffmann wurde 1931 in Heidelberg entlassen); R. Meister, PAW 55 (1935) 113-21; F. Milmer, Klio 29 (1936) 324-27; H. Oppermann, NJW 10 (1934) 368-70. 4 Zu B. Snell siehe oben, Anm. 18. Mit Snell argumentiert R. Herzog, ZKG 55 (1936) 370 f.: Die Wirkung des Buches sei zwiespältig. Seine Grundlagen würden aus dem Dritten Humanismus

kommen,

erschienen sei es aber im Dritten Reich, dessen Gegenwart

es im

Vorwort rechtfertige. Im übrigen zeige sich das jedoch mehr in “aufgesetzten Lichtem." Auf Snell verweist auch H. Rüdiger, Wesen und Wandlung des Humanismus, Europabibliothek (Hamburg 1937) 282 (kritisiert im übrigen die Akademisierung des Humanismus durch Jaeger, weil durch ihn die Philologie als Mittlerin zwischen "Paideia" und moderner Bildung, zwei als beengend empfundenen Konzepten, die entscheidende Stellung habe). Rudolf Pfeiffer, DLZ 56 (1935) 2126-34, 2169-78, 2213-19. 45 E.

Barker,

Gnomon

11

(1935)

337-39;

Ch.

Hauter,

RHPhR

(1934)

266-68;

T. B. L. Webster, CR 48 (1934) 176f.; F. Calogero, GCFI, serie 2, 15 (1934) 358-71 (= Scritti minori di filosofia [Napoli 1984] 522-46) (explizit gegen die implizite Verbindung von Drittem Humanismus und Drittem Reich, insgesamt aber positive Würdigung);

E.

Grassi,

Sophia

3

(1935)

346-60

(verweist

u.a.

auf die

in

Italien

146

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

wissenschaftlichen Griinden stiess es aber nicht.“ Der Hauptgrund dafiir war das prinzipielle Einverständnis mit der Absicht Jaegers, dem Altertum in der Gegenwart seinen Platz zu sichern. Gut aufgenommen wurde es insbesondere im faschistischen Italien, wo L. Emery bereits 1934 in La

Nuova Italia die Übersetzung des einleitenden Kapitels der Paideia erscheinen liess.

Mit diesen Hinweisen ist die Rezeption der Paideia nicht erschöpfend dargestellt. Sie bestätigt jedoch eine Feststellung, welche sich vor allem bei den Vergleichen von Jaegers Paideia-Buch und der damit verbundenen

Konzeption mit anderen Ansätzen aus der besprochenen Zeit aufdrängt, nämlich die Nähe zu bewegenden kulturpolitischen Gegenwartsfragen. Der Erfolg des Buches damals und seine Vergessenheit heute hängt damit zusammen. Daraus ableiten zu wollen, Jaeger hätte die Gegenwart ausser

acht lassen müssen, wäre m.E. nicht das Richtige.

Das Problem war

vielmehr, dass es Jaeger im Grunde genommen nur mit halbem Herzen interessierte, wer nun in Deutschland an der Macht war und wem Kultur und Bildung dienten. Entscheidend war ihm die Zuwendung zur Antike. Damit

dispensierte er sich letztlich von der Beurteilung der Vorgänge von 1933 und leistete indirekt einen zwar kleinen, aber doch einen Beitrag für das Aufkommen des Dritten Reiches. Historisches Seminar der Universität Zürich lebendiger

gebliebene

Antiketradition

programmatischen Ziele nicht erreicht).

und

ist der

Auffassung,

Jaeger

Vorbehalte auch bei G. A. Levi,

habe

seine

A & R, serie 3

(1935) 177-86. 46 Vgl. u. a. H. Cloos, LEC 3 (1934) 403; P. Collart, RPh 61(1935) 217 f.; A Tovar, Emerita 2 (1934) 369; R. G. A., JHS 55 (1935) 257-59.

47 La Nuova Italia (1934) 177-85.

Vorbehalte brachten wie erwähnt G. Calogero, E.

Grassi (Freiburg) und G. A. Levi an (siehe oben, Anm. 45). C. Cessi, Aevum 8 (1934) 199-201; A. Faggi, MC 5 (1935) 193-96; P. Treves, Athenaeum 23 (1935) 268 f. G. Pasquali äusserte sich nur kurz: Pan 2 (1934) 477. Überhaupt hatte er keine besondere Beziehung zu Jaeger.

Werner Jaeger:

The Oxford Classical Text of

Aristotelis Metaphysica (1957) ROBERT RENEHAN minorem hanc editionem paravi:

So wrote Jaeger on the first page of the

praefatio to his OCT text of Aristotle’s Metaphysica. That this edition is an “editio minor” is true in the narrow sense that the praefatio is comparatively brief and that, in general, in the apparatus criticus there are reported only the most important variants from the most important manuscripts and, where relevant, valuable information on the text which can be recovered from the Greek commentators and, occasionally, from the Latin and Arabic versions.! The relatively concise praefatio and apparatus criticus are, of course, in keeping with the standard format of the Oxford Classical Text series.? In this technical sense, then, Jaeger’s Metaphysics is a minor edition; in a larger sense, it has, at the same time, every right to be

pronounced a major edition. To demonstrate this assertion it will be necessary to survey, however cursorily, Jaeger’s contribution to Aristotelian studies in general. On the present occasion this seems to me particularly appropriate, for, while this great scholar’s research was by no means confined to Aristotle, he began his career with publications on Aristotle, specifically on the Metaphysics, continued throughout his career to work on Aristotle, published his edition of the Metaphysics near the end of his life, that is to say, after almost a half

century of returning again and again to the study of that work which has

been so influential in the history of western philosophy,’ and, finally, left as his last work

a posthumously

published paper on the text of the

Metaphysics. As we shall see, at the very end he was still rethinking some of the same difficult issues which he had first contemplated as a pupil. Jaeger’s first publication was his inaugural dissertation, Emendationum Aristotelearum Specimen, published in Berlin and dated July 5, 1911. In 1 For the Arabic versions see Jaeger, praefatio, xx and, especially, R. Walzer in HSCP

63 (1958) 217-31. 2In this regard it is instructive, especially where Aristotle is concerned, to compare the OCT edition of De Anima by Sir David Ross (1956) with this same scholar's much fuller Oxford edition, not in the OCT series, of 1961. 3 "inclutum Aristotelis opus, quod tot nationum philosophiae per saecula fundamentum fuit" is Jaeger's description of it in the praefatio, v.

148

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

1912 there appeared his Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik

des Aristoteles; the foreword to this book is dated December, 1911.4 The work was in fact a part of Jaeger’s Berlin dissertation; in the opening paragraph of his Emendationum Aristotelearum Specimen he states

explicitly that his dissertatio consisted of two parts, one the “Specimen” itself and the other a “pars amplior et gravior quae est de Metaphysicorum Aristotelis origine et forma.” He then gives the title of this second part, in German, not Latin—Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles. Next he expresses his intention to publish the two parts

separately and, before proceeding to the Specimen proper, he gives a table of contents, in Latin, of the Studien followed by a summary, extending over several pages, of the contents of that work. A comparison of the Latin table

of contents printed in the Specimen with the Inhaltsverzeichnis of the Studien proper reveals at once that they are identical. In an unfinished and posthumously published article Jaeger was still describing the Studien as

“my dissertation."5

My reason for giving this seemingly trivial information is the following. Jaeger's Specimen and his Studien embody the results of research which must have been, in all essentials, completed before July, 1911. In the Vorwort to the Studien (p. v) he writes, "Die folgenden Untersuchungen wollen die Erkenntnisse mehrjähriger Beschäftigung [emphasis mine] mit den aristotelischen Schriften durch klare Stellung der

Probleme für eine bestimmte Schrift—ich habe die Metaphysik gewählt— nutzbar machen." When exactly Jaeger first interested himself in Aristotelian studies I cannot say, but the years 1908 or 1909 are not likely to be too wide of the mark. The textual discussions and conjectures put forth in the Specimen, if not all correct—no scholar's ever are—are of very high quality indeed. To take one example, the emendation of σύνοδος to

σύνολος in Met. confusion

of

1033b17

uncial

lambda

involves nothing more and

delta.

The

fact

than the common that,

despite

the

paleographical easiness of the change, no one had made it shows that the

correction was by no means so obvious as it might appear after the fact. W. “There are Schadewaldt, (bibliography by Adele M. Bloch)

bibliographies of Jaeger's writings in HSCP 63 (1958) 1-14, in Wolfgang Gedenkrede auf Werner Jaeger 1888-1961 (Berlin 1963) 25-39 prepared by Marianne Ebert), and in Werner Jaeger, Five Essays, translated Fiske, R.S.C.J. (Montreal 1966) 143—71 (bibliography prepared by Herbert

These last two also give cross-references, where relevant, to the corresponding

pages of Jaeger's two volumes of Scripta Minora (Rome 1960). In general, the most recent bibliography, that in Five Essays, is the most complete, but the Schadewaldt Gedenkrede should still be consulted. For example, in Five Essays the Emendationum Aristotelearum Specimen is listed under the year 1911, in Jaeger's own Scripta Minora I, where it is reprinted, the date given is July 1911, whereas Ebert's list in Schadewaldt gives the day of the month. In view of these convenient and readily accessible bibliographies I have felt it permissible to confine myself, in general, to short titles when quoting Jaeger's writings. 5^We Say in the Phaedo" in the Harry Austryn Wolfson Jubilee Volumes (Jerusalem 1965), English Section, I, 407-21.

The reference is to p. 410.

Robert Renehan

149

D. Ross ad loc. writes “Jaeger is almost certainly right in reading obvoAog.” As for the Studien, it has long been acknowleged that this work is a brilliant analysis of the profound, and profoundly difficult, collection of

Aristotelian πραγματεῖαι which have survived in the manuscripts under the collective title of τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά (vel sim.). The most important point to note is that the Studien already prefigure some of the most important conclusions of what most would call Jaeger’s greatest book, the Aristoteles of 1923. Werner Jaeger was bom on July 30, 1888.

This means that when he

was hardly older, if at all, than twenty-one, he was already producing brilliantly original scholarship, some of it of permanent value, both in textual criticism and in the interpretation of ancient philosophy. Even before Jaeger came to Berlin as a pupil, I am told, his reputation as a Wunderkind had preceded him. Once there, he lived up to the advance notices. One famous, and not apocryphal, story relates how, while still a pupil, he went into Hermann Diels’ office one day and showed him some

conjectural emendations to the text of the greatest of the Greek commentators on Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias. Diels, who, having taken it over from Adolf Torstrik, was to see through to completion the great Berlin collection of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, happened to have on his desk an important manuscript of Alexander, one not seen by

Jaeger. He then and there compared Jaeger’s conjectures with the readings of the manuscript and found that in every instance the manuscript confirmed

his pupil’s conjectures.

Such precocity is rare. Poetry and painting, music

and mathematics, produce philology and philosophy.

young prodigies; it is another matter with

Already we can see that close combination of classical philology with the history of philosophy which was to remain characteristic of Jaeger’s approach to scholarship throughout his life.© In 1913 he produced an edition for B. G. Teubner (Leipzig) of Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium and De Incessu Animalium as well as the pseudo-Aristotelian De Spiritu? The De Motu Animalium in particular is a work of importance for Aristotle's thought out of all proportion to its small size, because of what it adds to ὁ This was a conscious choice on Jaeger's part, and one of his greatest strengths was the exceptional philological equipment which he was able to bring to bear on philosophical— and theological—texts. (He once remarked to me, in connection with his work on Gregory of Nyssa, that the "trouble is that the theologians do not know enough Greek and the philologists are not interested in theology.") Compare his own observations in the praefatio to his OCT Metaphysics, xix: “Ipsum recensendi criterium in sola codicum conspiratione numquam positum est nisi addito strenuo iudicio philosophico et philologico, quod non nisi longo usu et consuetudine nascitur. praeceptor meus in his rebus, Iohannes

Vahlen, insistere solebat in usu dicendi (Sprachgebrauch),

cui addendus

tamen est usus cogitandi (Denkgebrauch). 7 For the two genuine works he took

over the editing

whatever reasons, had not completed the job.

from

other

See his praefatio, iii.

scholars

who,

for

150

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

our knowledge of the philosopher's views, especially on κίνησις and on the practical syllogism. When one recalls how widespread was the belief, even in recent times, that it was not a genuine work of Aristotle’s, one must be very grateful to Martha Nussbaum for her important edition and commentary

on that work.’

It is clear that Jaeger did not devote years to the editing of

these small treatises, and his Teubner text of them is not to be ranked among his major scholarly productions; indeed, I doubt that few except

specialists in this particular area of Aristotelian studies even remember that he made such an edition. Jaeger himself once told me that he felt that he was too young when he agreed to prepare this edition; we must remember that this was the judgment of a scholar who had the highest standards, a

judgment pronounced near the end of a very distinguished life. Nussbaum, in her review of P. Louis’ 1973 edition of De Incessu Animalium and De Motu Animalium? wrote of Jaeger's edition “J.’s collations were inaccurate, incorporating most of Bekker's errors and adding others. (Of 16 incorrect readings and 23 significant omissions in J.'s MA apparatus, all but three derive from Bekker.) J.'s skill as a text critic occasionally permitted him, however, to 'emend' to the correct and actually attested reading. [Emphasis

mine.]" That is to say, here too Jaeger's natural gift for emendation revealed itself.!° In the spurious De Spiritu, where the transmitted text is often incoherent, Jaeger was able to contribute much by way of conjectural

emendation. Obviously related to his work in editing these treatises was the research which resulted in the publication, in this same year of 1913, of the

very important and still valuable paper, “Das Pneuma im Lykeion."!!

In 1917 and 1923, respectively, there appeared two long papers both entitled “Emendationen zur Aristotelischen Metaphysik"; the second paper was a continuation of the first.!2 The background to these papers, which is most relevant to our discussion of Jaeger's OCT edition of the Metaphysics, is the following. In 1916 B. G. Teubner (Leipzig) commissioned Jaeger to

prepare a new minor edition of the Metaphysics.!? It was in connection with this edition that he had carried out the scholarly investigations which 8 Aristotle's De Motu Animalium. Text with Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays by Martha Craven Nussbaum (Princeton 1978). For reviews see, e.g., Jonathan Barnes in CR n.s. 30 (1980) 222-26; Allan Gotthelf in Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980) 365-78; D. W. Hamlyn in Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1980) 246-47.

9 JHS 95 (1975) 207. There are in fact passages in the MA where Jaeger prints a text superior to that printed in Nussbaum's edition: in several places her text is even ungrammatical. I hope to discuss some of these passages on another occasion. On Nussbaum's criticisms of Jaeger's inaccuracies see W. M. Calder's paper (supra) note 6.

11 Hermes 48 (1913) 29-74 = Scripta Minora I, 57-102.

12 The first paper was published in Hermes 52 (1917) 481-519 = Scripta Minora I, 213 51, the second in the Sitz.-Ber.

Akad. Berl., Phil-Hist. Kl., 34 (1923) 263-79

= Scripta

Minora I, 257-80. 131 learned the specific year 1916 from Richard Walzer in Gnomon 31 (1959) 586-87 (from his review of Jaeger’s OCT Metaphysics).

Robert Renehan

151

resulted in these two papers, whose contents have been recognized by every connoisseur to be brilliant. The edition was not to be. In the first paragraph of the second of these papers (1923) Jaeger refers to the Zeitverhältnisse which prevented its appearance and offers the contributions contained in the paper as a sort of “substitute” for the edition. In fact Jaeger had almost completed his text when W. D. Ross’s great Oxford text and commentary of the Metaphysics appeared.!* This caused Jaeger to change his plans and contemplate an editio maior, which also came to naught, as he sadly notes in the praefatio (p. v) of his OCT text: “... quam quominus absolverem temporum iniquitas me postea impedivit.”!5

details because they make abundantly clear the briefly above, that Jaeger's OCT edition of the of almost five decades of research and reflection This edition stands on an entirely different plane

I provide these

important point, alluded to Metaphysics was the result on that most difficult work. from the little Teubner text

of the MA, 1A, and De Spiritu—and that edition itself, whatever its imperfections, was a production of which most scholars would be quite incapable.

The year 1923 was the annus mirabilis. Jaeger's most famous book, Aristoteles.

That was the year in which

Grundlegung einer Geschichte

seiner Entwicklung, was published. It is not part of my brief to discuss or describe that work in detail here, but a few comments may be in order, especially in view of the intimate connection between the conclusions contained therein and Jaeger's understanding of, and approach to, the text of the Metaphysics. To begin with, the Aristoteles has found many critics, both of its main theses and of many of the details contained therein, especially in regard to the lost literary works and to the relative datings of many of the extant works (or parts of works). It is my impression that Jaeger is out of favor with many, perhaps most, interpreters of ancient

philosophy in our time. Perhaps they are correct; certainly there are errors in this seminal work (how could there not be?), and Jaeger himself was the

last person to take offense at honest scholarly disagreement, as I know from 14 Aristotle's Metaphysics. (Oxford 1924). mea

A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary, 2 vols.

In the praefatio (v) of his 1956 OCT edition Jaeger wrote:

paene ad finem

perducta erat, cum

W.

D. Rossii opus

“et iam editio

illustre, commentarium

ad

Metaphysica dico, cui textus cum pleno apparatu critico additus erat, in lucem prodiit (1924).” I note that Jaeger recognized at once the quality of Ross's great commentary (1 consider it his greatest book) and was generous in his praise of it. See his reviews in Gnomon 1 (1925) 57-65 = Scripta Minora 1, 305-14 and in CR 39 (1925) 176-80. In my experience φθόνος was foreign to Jaeger’s nature. I5R. Walzer, who was in a position to know, gives further particulars: “A major critical edition, based on an examination

of all the available Greek

evidence and on a minute

comparison of the medieval Arabic and Latin translations ...it was to be part of a greater undertaking, a new critical text of the whole Corpus Aristotelicum, to replace I. Bekker’s comprehensive edition of 1831. ‘Temporum iniquitas’ made havoc of this ambitious plan, as of so many others.”

(Gnomon

31 [1959] 587; see above, note 13.)

152

Wemer Jaeger Reconsidered

my own conversations with him.!6

Certainly also some detractors have

gone too far, and Jaeger has some imposing defenders. Friedrich Solmsen’s “Fishes of Lesbos” paper seems to me important in this regard not only for

what it says but for what it suggests." W. K. C. Guthrie, who was second to few in judiciousness, began his last book, the sixth volume of his History of Greek Philosophy,!® a volume devoted to Aristotle, with seventeen pages which puts things into clear perspective, and I commend them to all interested in the question. He there movingly relates how in his schooldays, under the influence of works written from the viewpoint of the scholastic tradition, he looked upon Aristotle as the very type of a dogmatic authority and Aristotelianism as a closed system of ideas. “Two encounters" changed his mind. The first was a reading of Aristotle's own works, the second was a reading of Jaeger’s Aristotles. There are only two points which I should like to make here. The first is that Jaeger's Aristoteles, whether completely correct, half-correct, entirely

wrong, or any combination thereof, was exactly what Guthrie called it —an

“epoch-making book.”!9 Without it Aristotelian studies of the last sixtyodd years would not—nay, could not—have taken the directions which they

have.

Here Jaeger was, in the words of his Aristotle, τὸ πρῶτον κινοῦν.

Failure to grasp the importance of his seminal achievement is to be deficient

in a sense of historical consciousness.

Hermann Diels was absolutely

correct when he said to Jaeger of his Aristotle researches (as Jaeger himself told me): “Herr Kollege, das ist eine Revolution."?? The second point is a 16 To give one illustration of this general statement, he told me how pleased he was that every speaker at the Symposium Aristotelicum held at Oxford in 1957 had occasion to refer to his work. That many of the speakers disagreed with him bothered him not at all. 17 "The Fishes of Lesbos and Their Alleged Significance for the Development of Aristotle,” Hermes

106 (1978) 469-84.

See also the response

by H.

D. P. Lee, "The

Fishes of Lesbos Again," in Aristotle on Nature and Living Things: Philosophical and Historical Studies Presented to David M. Balme on his Seventieth Birthday. Edited by Allan Gottheif (Pittsburgh, PA, and Bristol, England, 1986) 3-8.

18 (Cambridge 1981).

19 Op. cit., 3. It is well-known that Thomas Case arrived at conclusions similar to Jaeger’s about Aristotle’s development in the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), where they were largely ignored. All credit is due to Case for his independent

achievement,

and it is unfortunate that he did not receive the recognition

which he deserved. (No one, to my knowledge, has ever suggested that Jaeger knew of Case’s work, much less borrowed from it.) It is very sad that Case found it necessary to remind the scholarly world of his own accomplishments (in an article in Mind 34 [1925]

80-86) in language which, while Mr. Case's distress is perfectly understandable, is, alas, all too often characterized by belligerence and a certain mean-spiritedness. All the more credit to him that he does not yield to the temptation to attack Jaeger himself. 20 Since writing this I see that Friedrich Solmsen, perhaps Jaeger's greatest pupil, in a posthumously published article recalls a similar remark made by Diels: “... there appeared in 1923 Jaeger's Aristoteles:

a book that Diels, who knew much of its content

but did not live to see it, had prophesied would 'revolutionierend wirken." Solmsen, “Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars," GRBS

The quotation given above occurs on p. 120.

See Friedrich

30 (1989)

117-40.

Robert Renehan

153

follow-up to earlier remarks made above. The original preface to the Aristoteles is dated Easter, 1923, which means that Jaeger was thirty-four when he signed it. However, he writes there, “Since 1916 I have repeatedly

given the results of these researches as lectures at the Universities of Kiel and Berlin; even the literary form, with the exception of the conclusion, was

established in essentials at that time.”?! In short, Jaeger’s Aristoteles was the work of a scholar still in his twenties. How to describe such a one?

“Wunderkind”? “Marvellous boy”? No; the word is “genius.” In the years after the original publication of the Aristoteles Jaeger published prolifically on a wide range of subjects; among much else there appeared the volumes of Paideia, the Demosthenes book of 1938, The

Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers of 1947, the Early Christianity and Greek Paidea of 1961, and, above all, the definitive edition of Gregory of Nyssa, which occupied much of his time in the last decades of his life and which remained unfinished at his death.2 (He had begun his editing of Gregory already in his twenties at the invitation of Wilamowitz.) But in the midst of all this activity, from time to time, something would appear to show that Jaeger’s active interest in Aristotle continued. For example, the subtitle of the book Diokles von Karystos (1938) is “Die griechische Medizin und die Schule des Aristoteles.” But we need not pursue such studies here; it is time to consider the OCT edition of the Metaphysics

itself. I stated above my judgment that this edition is, format notwithstanding, a major edition. to be so.

Let me set out now some of the reasons why I believe this

To begin with, an editor of a classical text should, at a minimum,

(1) possess a professional competence in textual criticism and (2) know his

author. That may seem a truism, but it is not always observed. Scholars who know nothing of the principles of textual criticism accept invitations to edit authors about whom they chance to have written, and textual critics 21] quote this from the English version of the work:

Aristotle:

Fundamentals of the

History of his Development?. By Wemer Jaeger. Translated by Richard Robinson (Oxford 1948). 22 Gregorii Nysseni Opera. Auxilio aliorum virorum doctorum edenda curavit Wernerus Jaeger (Leiden 1952—). As he did not live to see the edition completed—-it is still in progress—there is something particularly poignant about the noble words he set down in the Praefatio ad editionem universam (I, viii): "... nec tamen priusquam hanc metam exoptatam cursu contigerimus, satis nos sudavisse et alsisse dicere possumus, quamquam iam dimidium saeculi in hoc labore nobis consumptum est.” (This praefatio is dated Summer,

1959.)

23 ] have found surprisingly few reviews of the edition: P. Louis in RPA 32 (1958) 32930; É. des Places in AC 27 (1958) 170; J. A. Philip in Phoenix 12 (1958) 181-82; R. Weil in REG 72 (1959) 423-25; R. Walzer in Gnomon 31 (1959). 586-92. Of these all but Walzer's are brief notices; all are uniformly favorable.

Walzer's review is, as one would

expect, informed, competent, valuable. It was a particular pleasure to see that he has stressed many of the same points which I had independently decided to stress in this paper; I acknowledge, with gratitude, how much I have profited from reading his review.

154

Wenner Jaeger Reconsidered

undertake editions of authors with whom they are imperfectly acquainted. Obviously no one could accuse Jaeger of being deficient on either score, and

I raise this issue only to make the point that he came to the task of editing the Metaphysics not only fully equipped with everything that one expects

even of the best editors, but with something additional and exceptional. For it was Jaeger himself, more than anybody else, who taught us, especially in his Studien and his Aristoteles, to understand the very nature of the

Metaphysics. That it was not a single “book” at all; that it was never “published” in our sense in Aristotle’s lifetime; that, for the most part, the work consisted of lectures for his courses, of varying degrees of polish, and

sometimes containing authorial revisions—all this and much else Jaeger brilliantly demonstrated. Few editors, no matter how gifted, bring such original contributions with them when they set about editing their author. In the case of Aristotle it has a practical bearing on the presentation of the text.

Perhaps the most striking innovation in the layout of the edition is Jaeger’s introduction of double brackets to mark off clauses, sentences, paragraphs which, in his judgment, are later additions to the text made by

Aristotle himself.?5

As Jaeger wrote in an article of 1956, “We must

always bear in mind the fact that the Metaphysics is not a literary work edited by its author but a text that gradually changed under his hands as he

used it for his lectures (sxoAat) in the Peripatus.”26

As it is generally

recognized now that the bulk of Aristotle’s extant works consists of drafts of lectures—this certainly is true of the Metaphysics—and that Aristotle repeated the same “courses” more than once, the presence of revisions and additions in his lecture notes is inherently probable and supported by the evidence of the manuscripts and of Alexander. 7 Jaeger did it twice: when he edited Gregory of Nyssa's Contra Eunomium he was able to restore the original order of the books, which had become disarranged in the manuscript tradition. See his Gregorii Nysseni Opera Il: Contra Eunomium Libri. Pars Altera (Leiden 1960) vi-xiii.

25 These brackets have the form [ ] and are to be distinguished from angular brackets () and

square

brackets

([]), which

are used by Jaeger in the conventional

sense

to

indicate, respectively, conjectural additions and deletions to the text. Even so good a scholar as W.K.C. Guthrie has gone astray here. In his HGP II (Cambridge 1969) 19 n. 1 he criticizes Jaeger for his treatment of Met. 1070a25: “... Jaeger (Oxford Text 1957), alone of editors, brackets the relevant words as ‘postea addita ut videtur.'

He gives no

reason, but in case any reader shares the suspicion, he may be referred instead to De An. 413b25...." It is obvious from Guthrie’s language that he has interpreted Jaeger's comment ‘postea addita ut videtur’ as meaning added later by someone else. Jaeger did not mean this at all, as his use of double brackets shows clearly. Jaeger is quite explicit about this in his praefatio, xviii: “Aristotelis additamenta, cum satis certa res videbatur, signo [ ] indicavi, ne uncinis [ ] usus talia ut spuria reicere viderer." 26 “Contemporary Evidence on the Text of the First Chapters of Aristotle's Metaphysics,” SIFC 27-28 (1956) 152 = Scripta Minora II, 485. See also the praefatio to the OCT, x-xi.

Robert Renehan

155

The text of the Metaphysics is essentially based on three manuscripts, J and E, which together constitute the TI family, and Ab, which represents a different tradition. Both families go back to antiquity, as has been shown beyond doubt. In some cases where Jaeger double-brackets words as a later

addition of Aristotle’s, the words are found only in A5; in other cases they occur only in Il; in some instances they are in all the manuscripts. Sometimes

the words

are missing

in Alexander’s

commentary.

At

1045b17-23 TI has the comment ταῦτα ἐν πολλοῖς οὐ φέρεται, and Alexander remarks that 1012b22-31 was missing in some manuscripts. I agree with Walzer’s assessment of Jaeger’s thesis: “It is a very attractive guess to derive the two families—through intermediaries which most likely we shall never know—from different phases in Aristotle’s lecturing activity.”2” Such a revision of lectures is not a merely hypothetical situation; it has happened elsewhere in antiquity. To see but one example, consider the remarks of E. R. Dodds: "Ancient lecturers revised their courses when they repeated them, as a scholar should... We have two quite different versions of Olympiodorus’ lectures on the Alc. i, with a note

by the original editor, ἐν διττῷ tijv αὐτὴν ἔγραψα πρᾶξιν, ἄλλως ἐχουσῶν τῶν ἐπιστάσεων (192.10 Cr.).”28 In support of his opening statement Dodds cited (in the section omitted above)—Jaeger, Praefatio in

Aristotelis Metaphysica, xvi.? These Aristotelis considerable interest

additamenta which Jaeger posits are often of from both a philological and, especially, a

philosophical viewpoint.?0 Most of these instances are indicated for the first 27 Op. cit. (above, note 23) 588. Note also Walzer’s pertinent observations on p. 589: “Some of the sections which are supposed to have been added to an earlier draft by Aristotle himself are still missing in one branch of our MS tradition. It may be assumed that there would be more evidence of this kind if the MSS were not constantly mutually contaminated." 28 Plato Gorgias. A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary by E. R. Dodds

(Oxford 1959) 62 n. 1. ? There are signs that the use of double brackets in texts of Aristotle is going to become a standard convention. Rudolf Kassel in his magisterial edition of the Rhetoric (Berlin and New York 1976) makes abundant and fruitful use of them for the same purpose as Jaeger and, presumably, following his lead. In his list of sigla (p. xix) Kassel includes the double bracket—it is identical in shape with Jaeger’s—and explains it with the words "additamenta quae ipsius Aristotelis sunt vel esse possunt." Compare Jaeger's language in his praefatio, xviii (above, note 25 ad fin.). For some examples of Kassel's employment of the double bracket see his edition of the Rhet. at 1364a37—b2; 1367b26~68a10;

1368a16-17; 1370a18-27; 1371b26-28; 1372b1-2; 1377b29-31; 1380a30-31; 1380b8-10; 1383b5—6; 1383b32; 1384b3; 1388a7; 1388b1-2; 1391b8-20; 1397b711; 1398b16-19; 1409a27-28; 1413a30-34; 1415320; 1415b20-21; 1417b15. In most of these passages Kassel, like Jaeger, has instructive comments in the apparatus criticus. 30 The following is, I believe, a complete list of them: 981211—-12 (om. AP), 981b2-5 (om. A^: add. in marg. man. alt.); 981b25-29; 1003b22-1004a2; 1004a10-16; 1005a8-

11; 1005b2-5; 1006a26-27 (om. II); 1012b22-31 (cf. Jaeger ad loc.); 1018a38-b8; 1021228; 1029b3-12; 1034b3-4; 1034b7-19; 1035223; 1036a9-12; 1036b32-1037a5;

156

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

time in the OCT text itself, and we can still trace Jaeger’s views developing and changing over the years. Thus, for example, in his Specimen of 1911

Jaeger deleted as a gloss the words ἂν μὴ ἢ τοῦ συνειλημμένου at 1035223: "fateamur

necesse

esse verba ἐὰν... συνειλημμένου

philosopho profecta esse."?!

non ab ipso

He was less sure when he came to his edition;

the app. crit. ad. loc. has “ἂν... συνειλημμένου nota ab Ar. (?) postea addita vid., seclusi (Em. Ar. Spec. 30)." In the text the words appear between double brackets. In the Studien of 1912, in a discussion of chapters 10 and 11 of Book Zeta, he writes: “Sie enthalten glossematische Zusätze von Lesern, und ein Einschub, der den Zusammenhang

in grober Weise

unterbricht, hat sich offenbar vom Rande in den Text geschlichen.”?? The “interpolation” is 1036b32-1037a5, which is printed between double brackets in the edition of 1957. So far as I can see, this is the only one of the "double bracket" passages (listed above in n. 30) which Jaeger discusses in the Studien. In the second of his "Emendationen" papers (1923) he refers

again to 1035223 and describes it as a “Randerklärung.” Here, however, he adds “Es ist durchweg schwer zu sagen, ob solche Zusätze nachträgliche Randnotizen des Aristoteles selbst sind, was bei der Natur dieser Schriften nicht ausgeschlossen und in vielen Fállen noch nachweisbar ist, oder bloss

erklärende Bemerkungen von Lesern.”?? In the Aristoteles Jaeger identifies 1029b3-12 as a later addition of Aristotle's, and so does it appear in the

OCT

text;

but

he also pronounces

the preceding

sentence

(after

transposition) 1029a33-34 an addition,™ and that is retracted in his edition.

The same is true of 1037b10—16 and 1026a23-32; both are claimed as additions of Aristotle himself in the Aristotles?5 but do not appear as such in the edition. Minor changes of this sort well illustrate how Jaeger would

re-think again and again the problems which Aristotle’s language and thought presented. That the detection of such additions is a matter of some importance can

be easily demonstrated.

Consider for example 981a30—-981b6, a long

sentence which contains such an accumulation of anacoluthic clauses as to

raise the spectre of corruption. Jaeger double-bracketed 981b2—5 (from τοὺς δ᾽ to δι᾽ ἔθος) as a later addition. This presents several advantages. The anacoluthon is no longer a difficulty, as Aristotle would not necessarily accommodate perfectly to its surroundings a later note added as a reminder to

himself. Moreover, the thought of the bracketed words, which compare and contrast manual workmen and inanimate things, and introduce the notion of habit (ἔθος) versus nature (φύσις), is a self-contained unit of just the sort to 1045b17-23; 1086527.

1048b18-35

(om.II,

Al);

31 p. 30 = Scripta Minora I, 19.

32p. 54. 33 Scripta Minora I, 270.

34 Aristotle (English version) 199 with n. 1.

35 pp. 199 n. 2 and 217-18, respectively.

1069b26-28;

1070a24-26;

1070b7-8;

Robert Renehan

constitute a refinement on the original context.

157

Similarly, to give one more

example, Jaeger double-brackets 1003b22-1004a2, where he remarks "verba

et δὴ... 1004a2 τῶν

ἐναντίων

nexum

sententiarum

interrumpunt,

quod primus intellexit Al.; alterius recensionis esse putant Schwegler, Christ.” See further his remarks at 1004a9 (in reference to 1004a10-16) and 1005b2-5. Some of the double-bracketed passages are highly suggestive for those interested in Aristotle’s philosophical development. Thus Jaeger

places between double brackets 1036a9-12 and 1036b32-103724—5, both from Book Zeta.

These two passages are two of the three passages in the

corpus where the very difficult phrase ὕλη vont, “intelligible matter," occurs (1036a9-10, 103724-5). The third passage is in Book Eta, where the

phrase occurs twice (1045a34, 36). Ross in his commentary at 1036a9-10 discusses the meaning(s) of the phrase at some length, stating in part

“,..Prima

facie it has different meanings

in the two books...

It

would seem, then, that either the wider conception was already in his mind

when he wrote Z ... or (which seems more probable) he generalized the

notion when he came to write H....”3©

The possibility that the phrase

did not occur at all in the original draft of Book Zeta, but was added later, introduces a new dimension to the problem of its meaning(s). Again, Jaeger places between double brackets 1070224-26, from the famous Book

Lambda: "But we must examine whether any form also survives afterwards. For in some cases this may be so; e.g. the soul may be of this sort—not all

soul but the reason; for doubtless it is impossible that all soul should survive" (tr. W. D. Ross). The passage is obviously parenthetical, not to say interruptive, in its present context. The mention of some element of soul, namely nous, which may be imperishable, immediately brings to mind the famous fifth chapter of the third book of the De Anima, a chapter which has probably caused more ink to be consumed than any passage in the Aristotelian corpus. (See also De An. 413b24—29.) It is tantalizing to find

this same notion almost casually inserted as an obiter dictum in a draft of Book Lambda. At most of the places where Jaeger identifies what he believes to be later additions made by Aristotle himself he has concise and incisive comments in his apparatus criticus. It is highly instructive—and no

derogation of the dean of British Aristotelian scholars in this century—to read Ross's commentary at these places and then Jaeger's brief remarks,

which are often illuminating and mark an advance in our ability to comprehend this extremely difficult text. It is so not merely in regard to the assumed additions. Throughout the Metaphysics Jaeger intersperses penetrating observations both on Aristotle's style and on his thought. (To go no further, see the comments

at 980b23,

982b10,

998b1, 998b21, 1001b15, 1002b17, 1007b17, 1008b15.) 36 See also Guthrie, HGP VI, 231-32, especially 231 n. 2.

987b23,

991230,

The apparatus

158

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

criticus to Jaeger’s OCT edition, with its remarkable brevity, strikingly illustrates the principle—ovb πολλὰ ἀλλὰ πολύ. Jaeger’s gift for divinatio, conjectural emendation, has not, I think, received sufficient recognition. The reason for this is that he displayed his considerable powers of emendation chiefly, although by no means exclusively, on the Metaphysics of Aristotle and on the works of Gregory of

Nyssa,

that is to say, on works

philologists.

not commonly

read by classical

One looks in vain in an apparatus criticus to the Metaphysics

for the familiar names of the great emendators which appear so often at the bottom of the page in the texts of Greek drama and oratory, of history and the Platonic corpus: Bentley and Porson, Cobet and Madvig, Reiske and Hermann—all these, to go no further, are missing.

What one finds rather is

a relatively small number of names occurring again and again; the nineteenth century is represented especially by the great Aristotelian scholar Hermann Bonitz, who died in the year of Jaeger’s birth, and, to a lesser

extent, by Wilhelm Christ, the twentieth by W. D. Ross and, above all, by Jaeger. One need only scan the apparatus criticus to see the number and variety of his conjectures, which I would characterize as often brilliant and correct—and never wild. As for Gregory of Nyssa, that he is a closed book to most classicists hardly needs formal demonstration.? However, when Wilamowitz first set in motion the project of editing Gregory of Nyssa, he

assigned the Contra Eunomium to Jaeger and the Epistulae to the great Italian scholar Giorgio Pasquali, who is best known for his important book Storia della Tradizione e Critica del Testo.?® In the Prolegomena to his

edition of Gregory's Epistulae Pasquali pays a better tribute than I can to Jaeger the emendator: "Restat iucundum officium ut gratias agam ... Wernero Jaeger, nunc professori Berolinensi, sodali coniunctissimo, quo quindecim iam annos familiarissime utor, qui mihi, qua est ingenii

quasi divinitate, coniecturas suppeditavit palmares . . .”39 From the above it will be apparent that I believe that Jaeger brought to his OCT edition substantial original contributions of various kinds. In the last analysis, however, the chief task of an editor is to get as close as 37 [t may be of interest to some to relate here an anecdote which illustrates Jaeger's attitude toward Gregory of Nyssa. One day as he and I were walking along Massachusetts Avenue outside of Harvard Yard, he told me that he had recently met Étienne Gilson, the

great historian of medieval philosophy, in a European library. Gilson asked him what research he was engaged upon. "The same thing, Gregory of Nyssa." Jaeger then asked Gilson what people thought when they learned that he was spending his time on Gregory. The reply was, as Jaeger gave it in English with an assumed French accent: "Zey say you are crazee." Then Jaeger smiled, pointed with his finger, and said, "Long after they have stopped reading his books, they will be reading my Gregory." I add only that Jaeger admired Gilson's writings.

38 Florence 1934; ed. 2:

1952).

39 Gregorii Nysseni Opera VIII, Pars II (Leiden 1959) Ixxxix-xc.

(This is of course the

second edition; the first edition, to which I do not have access, was published in Berlin in

1925.

The Prolegomena are dated by Pasquali February 7, 1925.)

Robert Renehan

possible to the ipsissima verba of his author. enough; sober judgment is essential.

159

Originality alone is not

The editor must make hundreds of

decisions—decisions as to which variant to choose, decisions as to the soundness or corruption of the text in numerous passages, decisions as to punctuation.” Jaeger was an editor of a natural judiciousness; he possessed in a high degree what he called “the gift of probability.” (He may have taken this expression over from Wilamowitz who, in Meine Erinnerungen: 1848-1914 (Leipzig 1928) records a remark of Otto Jahn’s about Hermann

Usener: “die Götter haben seiner Gelehrsamkeit leider die Gabe der Probabilität versagt.”) Because of the peculiar combination of gifts which he brought to the task of editing the Metaphysics, a work as lubricious as it is profound, he was able to produce a text which is extremely reliable. This

is not to say, of course, that every choice he made was correct; no editor’s ever is. There are passages where Bonitz, say, or Ross seems to me to have

made the correct to discuss them, them in detail. Jaeger’s edition represents

choice and Jaeger the wrong one. But this is not the place especially as I hope on another occasion to treat some of When all is said and done, I think it fair to assert that compares very favorably with any other and that it

a major

advance

in the

constitution

of the text

of the

Metaphysics. It is appropriate to conclude

this paper with a few comments

on

Jaeger's last, posthumously published, paper, “We Say in the Phaedo."^! The title refers to Met. 991b3: ἐν δὲ τῷ Φαίδωνι οὕτω λέγεται, for so the passage is printed in every edition, including Jaeger’s.

Alexander of

Aphrodisias, however, preserves a variant reading to λέγεται, namely λέγομεν. In this final, unfinished article Jaeger reconsiders the variant and clearly is more inclined to accept it: “Modern editors duly record this variant in the apparatus criticus but are silent with regard to its value; in other words, with the exception of my own recent edition, they reject it. In my

edition, too, the variant λέγομεν is relegated to the apparatus, but not without hesitation, for I there say ‘Aéyouev Alexander Asclepius, an recte?’ It is the purpose of this article to be a little more articulate about this matter

and to show what is behind this laconic remark."^? The correct reading is Not without importance. This passage comes from chapter nine of Book Alpha, where Aristotle criticizes Plato’s theory of ideas.

It is well known

that in this chapter Aristotle uses a number of first-person plural forms

when speaking of the ideas (δείκνυμεν, οἰόμεθα, φαμεν, βουλόμεθα, 40 Punctuation is particularly important in editing Aristotle.

His lecture style abounds

in natural anacolutha which can seem to be corrupt until they are punctuated properly. (Bonitz made significant contributions in this regard.) Aristotle is one author for whom the frequent use of the dash is justified and, indeed, necessary.

41 See above, note 5.

42 p. 409.

160

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

τίθεμεν, εἰάκαμεν, Aéyouev)* and that, as Ross puts it, “A considerable part of this chapter, 990b2-991b9, is almost verbally identical with M. 1078b34—1079b3, 1079b612-1080a8.”* A fundamental difference between the two books is that in Mu the first-person forms are replaced by third-

person forms (δείκνυται, οἴονται, φασιν, βούλονται).

Jaeger used the

presence of the first-person forms in Alpha as a proof that there was a period when Aristotle was a Platonist. This whole question is of course central to

Jaeger’s theory of Aristotle’s development. Why Jaeger hesitated to print λέγομεν at 991b3 I know, because he told me the reason. It was one thing for Aristotle, as

a member of a Platonic circle to write, say, καθ᾽

oüg

τρόπους δείκνυμεν ὅτι ἔστι τὰ εἴδη (990b8-9), but to write “we say in the Phaedo,” where the reference is to a specific work of Plato himself, seemed to Jaeger a more difficult expression. He never worked

mechanically. For example, at 990b17-19 he printed ὅλως te ἀναιροῦσιν

oi περὶ τῶν εἰδῶν λόγοι ἃ μᾶλλον εἶναι βουλόμεθα [ot λέγοντες εἴδη] τοῦ τὰς ἰδέας εἶναι. Here he accepted Blass’s deletion of the words οἱ λέγοντες εἴδη as an intrusion from the corresponding passage in Book Mu,^5

although

the temptation

to print the more

explicit expression

βουλόμεθα οἱ λέγοντες εἴδη in Book Alpha must have been strong for one with his views on Aristotle's development. At 991b3 what caused him to prefer the variant λέγομεν was a reconsideration of the very strong authority

of Alexander who is often of more value than the MSS; he discusses this in detail in this paper.“ Thus we see Jaeger at the very end of his life still with an open mind, ever willing to reconsider and learn. That is perhaps not surprising, as it is but what one would expect of any serious scholar. But that he should have been writing then on this particular issue is of some

human interest:

He once told me that it was in fact these self-same first-

person plural forms that originally made him, as a young man, suspect that Aristotle must once have believed in the theory of ideas. In his end was his beginning. University of California at Santa Barbara 43 See 990b9, 11, 16, 18, 23; 991b7; 992a11, 25 (bis), 27, 28, 31. “4 Metaphysics I, 190. 55Sc. 1079214-15 ... ἃ μᾶλλον βούλονται εἶναι οἱ λέγοντες εἴδη. 46 See also Philip Merlan, “Nochmals: War Aristoteles je Anhänger der Ideenlehre? Jaegers letztes Wort," Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 52 (1970) 35-39.

Werner Jaeger and Rudolf Borchardt: Correspondence 1929-1933: ERNST A. SCHMIDT

To the memory of Ernst Zinn (26.1.1910-24.2.1990)

I. Introduction

When Werner Jaeger and Rudolf Borchardt met for the first time in Berlin in February 1929, there evidently was a long and intense conversation of mutual understanding and stimulation (see E 2: “[...] strengthening and clarifying”; E 4: [...] encouraging and spurring”). Among their themes were Friedrich Solmsen’s dissertation (48; cf. E 3) and Borchardt’s lecture in Bremen (15.1.1929) on “Die Schlacht von Aktium” (9), in which Jaeger expressed his interest for possible publication in Die Antike (cf. E 6). It is evident that they liked each other: Borchardt had a deep human sympathy and personal understanding of Jaeger, and seldom would a friend have been as attentive and caring as Borchardt (cf. E 15, E 19, E 21). His portrait of Jaeger in T 8 is unusually penetrating and at the same time sympathetic. Indeed, all the prerequisites for a great friendship existed: both

were Protestant Prussians, both were classical scholars, and more than that, both were conservative and radical critics of the modern situation. They had known of each other before, and felt mutual admiration. Borchardt’s friend and idol Hofmannsthal had met Jaeger in Berlin one year earlier, and his “Vermächtnis der Antike” (32) had been reprinted in Die Antike of 1928.2 Jaeger’s pupil Richard Harder and Borchardt had begun a correspondence some time previously. Jaeger and Borchardt must have known of their

respective reservations and feuds with Wilamowitz. Thus, in the beginning of this friendship an observer might have formed great expectations, not least because the protagonists themselves appear to have expected a great deal. 1 Numbers in parentheses refer to the Bibliography. Numbers preceded by E or T refer to the letters edited in this chapter. ? Cf. (49).

162

Wemner Jaeger Reconsidered

In the context of this conference and this volume it is not appropriate for me to give a curriculum vitae and characterization of Jaeger. A sketch of

Borchardt, however, may be welcome, at least to the American classicist. That Americans may not know the writer is no wonder. It is the logical corollary of Borchardt’s extreme programme of being German: “Ich schreibe als ein Deutscher, nur als ein Deutscher, und in Allem als ein Deutscher”

(1943).3 Nevertheless, this commitment neither excluded Anglomania (both in juvenile imitations and in grandiose translations of Swinburne^) nor a

deep and lasting Italophilia. Borchardt, born in Königsberg in 1877, lived in Italy from the beginning of this century until a few months before his death in Trins (Tyrol) in 1945. In an endeavor that lasted for nearly two decades, he translated Dante’s Divina Comedia into an artificial German of his creation (as he imagined it ought to have been at Dante’s time, if Germany had then reached the same cultural level as fourteenth-century Florence [8]).

Rudolf Borchardt is one of the most fascinating figures in the modern history of German literature and culture; he is provoking and overwhelming, intense, passionate and violent, even daemonic

(2).

His novella “Der

unwürdige Liebhaber” (7) may frighten the reader with its authentic knowledge, as if based on experience, of human abysses. indissoluble

intertwining

of genius,

fragmentation, is a tragic personality.

virtuosity,

Borchardt, in the

assurance,

failure, and

He holds place after Stefan George

(born 1868), Hofmannsthal (born 1874), and Rilke (born 1875) as the greatest lyric poet of his generation (the judgement of, inter alios, Theodor

Adorno [1]); his voice is unmistakable both in the pathos and the parlando of his poems. He is a great critic and essayist. In his articles, speeches, and essays he may well pass as the greatest writer of non-fictional prose in this

century, writing with effortless security and mastery, audacity and assurance (the judgement of, inter alios, Richard Alewyn [2]). His most famous essay, “Villa” (4), was praised by Hofmannsthal. In the fields of the humanities and culture, of criticism and analysis of the modern situation, Borchardt was the greatest orator of his time, in ex tempore speech casting a spell over his audience, sometimes for several hours. Thomas Mann, among others, bore witness to this rhetorical genius. Borchardt is a great translator:

Homeric

hymns

(“Altionische Götterlieder”), “Pindarische

Gedichte,” Plato’s Lysis, poems by Catullus and Horace, Tacitus’ Germania ("Tacitus, Deutschland"), “Die großen Trobadors," Dante's Vita Nova and The Divine Comedy ("Dante Deutsch"), Swinburne, Walter Savage Landor's

Imagindre Unterhaltungen, single poems from diverse languages and times, from Sappho through Carducci to Edna St. Vincent Millay (8, 10, 22, 28,

29). ? Cf. (16), p. 503. * First published in 1919; now in (28), pp. 244-88, 363-66; cf. 438-49. with Swinburne's original texts:

(29).

Together

Ernst A. Schmidt

163

Who is Rudolf Borchardt? One of his own self-characterizations which

give an idea of the titanic nature of this mind is E 21: My editions, interpretations, translations, and revivals are fragments of an account of my own position in the universal history of culture as it mounts toward the consummate German, or if you wish to deemphasize this biographically national aspect, fragments of a world history of Causae Victae, opposed to the generally accepted valuations coming from the headquarters of victory bulletins, which make any methodically justified approach impossible and have even marred history for the deepest minds such as Goethe.

Can we understand this man’s interest in Wemer Jaeger? How was it that he had such admiration for the academic, such satisfaction in winning his scholarly approval? In the complex of motivations (autobiographical, spiritual, politico-

cultural) one may discern and isolate these factors: 1) Rudolf Borchardt had studied Altertumswissenschaft; first, summer semester 1895 and winter semester 1895-96 in Berlin: “klassische und orientalische Philologie, Archäologie und Theologie” (Hermann Diels, Johannes Vahlen, Adolf Kirchhoff; Ernst Curtius, Otto Hirschfeld; Botho

Graef, Kekulé von Stradonitz, Franz Winter; Albrecht Friedrich Weber; Friedrich Heinrich Dieterici; Adolf von Harnack, Adolf Schlatter); then,

summer semester 1896 to summer semester 1898: five semesters “klassische Philologie und Archäologie,” and also “Germanistik und Ägyptologie,” in Bonn (Franz Bücheler [5], Hermann Usener, Georg Loeschcke, Alfred Körte, Heinrich Nissen, Alfred Wiedemann, Berthold Litzmann, Carl Justi); finally, from winter semester 1898-99 to winter semester 1899-90 three semesters in Göttingen with Friedrich Leo (15),

Georg Kaibel, Robert Vischer, Carl Dilthey.5

2) Borchardt was the last great German homme de lettres to be moulded

by the “deutsche Universitätscultur.” Uttered by Hofmannsthal, who had almost attained habilitation, about Borchardt, who had fled Göttingen university in deep and final discord with Friedrich Leo and without examinations and degrees, this judgement sounds paradoxical. Hofmannsthal himself finds it “deeply symbolical” that “Borchardt has not even the Ph. D.”

That appears to mean that, in Hofmannsthal’s eyes, the

German university was, as a lingering idea, still able to mould susceptible minds but, in its overall reality, no longer capable of integrating the most spirited and superior ones among them. 5 This section is based on (26), pp. 27-51. 6 Hugo von Hofmannsthal in a letter to Rudolf Pannwitz (15.11.1919).

In (3), pp.18-

23. Cf. Borchardt himself, (26), p. 28: “Ich bin, nicht nur als wissenschaftlicher Arbeiter, sondem auch als Dichter der dankbare Sohn der aus dem Geiste der Romantik wieder-

geborenen deutschen Universitat.”

164

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered 3) Borchardt regarded himself as poet and scholar. After he had read

Pindar in Greek with Hofmannsthal in spring 1902 and had explained the

poetry—he writes a letter of deep satisfaction about that to a friend—he gave Hofmannsthal his Greek Pindar edition as a present with a Latin dedication, in which he calls himself “grammaticus poeta.” 4) Borchardt may be understood (this is a very risky contention and should only be taken as a shorthand or an apergu) as the union in one person

of the antipodes Stefan George and Wilamowitz, a combination now productive, now disharmonious. He admired both, he acknowledged their Stature objectively, he quarreled with both, he hated both, and both attacked him. The fact that Jaeger was the successor of Wilamowitz, an important scholar of evidently different method and style in the most famous chair of Classics in the world, will have made its appeal on Borchardt. 5) Jaeger and Berlin (and Harder and Kiel) seemed to offer new resonance. Borchardt may have hoped to influence university and

scholarship and to counteract the influence of George on the humanities as

“Vater einer neuen Wissenschaftslehre."?

It is astonishing that Borchardt did not (at least not visibly and not in the beginning) flinch at the programmatical and pedagogical character of Jaeger’s activity; with George that aspect had provoked him to tirades of

hate and contempt. Even now, after I have read and read again the whole of the Jaeger-Borchardt correspondence, I wince, hearing with Borchardt’s ears

when Jaeger uses expressions such as the “von humanistischem Glauben beseelte Kiinstler” or “Kiinder der Antike” (E 10), when he thanks Borchardt “daß Sie unsere Sache mit allen Kräften zu fördern bereit sind” (E 13). I still can hardly believe that phrases and thoughts such as these did not make

Borchardt rush to his desk and write a terrible letter of separation. If I try to understand this enigmatic patience and generosity on Borchardt’s side, I hit upon these possible and partial reasons: the charm of Jaeger’s personality, Borchardt’s admiration for the great scholar (his work on Aristotle), and his own isolation and longing for contacts.

II. Edition The correspondence consisted of 29 items, of which 5 are only inferred: these cither have not been preserved or in any case their survival and present whereabouts have not been known to the editor. Of the 24 items preserved 13 are by Borchardt (including drafts of letters), 11 by Jaeger. The

Houghton Library owns 7 Borchardt letters to Jaeger; all the other pieces of 7 Cf. (26), p. 167: “Borchardıs Bemühungen, sich in den 20er Jahren Gehör an den deutschen Universitäten zu verschaffen, sich mit Gelehrten wie Wemer Jaeger, Hans Heinrich Schaeder, Josef Nadler zu verbünden, sind in ihrer Tendenz offensichtlich auch

gegen George als ‘Vater einer neuen Wissenschaftslchre’ und seinen Einfluß im deutschen

Universitätsleben gerichtet.”

Ernst A. Schmidt

165

the correspondence, with the exception of E 8, are kept in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach am Neckar. The following letters (and postcards, etc.) exchanged between Borchardt

and Jaeger are published by generous permission both of Mrs. Ruth Jaeger, the scholar’s widow, and Borchardt’s heirs, represented by Mr. Cornelius Borchardt, and, for the rights of libraries and archives, by kind permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar. The publishing house of Borchardt’s oeuvre, Ernst Klett Verlag, Stuttgart, and the main editor, Dr.

Ulrich Ott, also gave their assent to this publication. Between Mr. Cornelius Borchardt, Dr. Ernst Osterkamp, president of the Rudolf Borchardt-Gesellschaft, Dr. Ott, and myself it was agreed that this first (and

not complete) edition of the correspondence with its focus on Wissenschaftsgeschichte and a sketch on Borchardt (written in English and addressed to classicists or historians without extensive reading of the author) was to be

followed by a complete edition, including fuller notes and an essay on the relation between Borchardt and Jaeger, intended mainly for readers of Borchardt. That edition therefore will serve as an aide to understanding Borchardt in his capacity of classical scholar, translator of ancient texts, etc. The completer edition (stipulated as described on the occasion of the permission to produce the present edition) will appear in 1992 in the series "Schriften der Rudolf Borchardt-Gesellschaft” and may be ordered also by non-members from Mr. Cornelius Borchardt, Rinding Nr. 2, D-8017

E

. Next to the holders of the rights my thanks go first of all to Professor

William M. Calder III, who directed my attention to Borchardt’s letters in Cambridge MA and suggested that I publish them, inviting me to participate in this conference and this volume. I am very grateful to Mr. Rodney Dennis, Curator of Manuscripts; Mrs. Elizabeth A. Falsey, Manuscript Department; Mrs. Susan Halpert, Reference Librarian; and all those who helped me in the Houghton Library; to Dr. Ulrich Ott, editor of Borchardt and Director of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv; and to Dr. Gerhard Schuster for invaluable information and advice. The edition is based on autopsy of the originals in the Houghton Library and in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv with the exceptions of T 4 and T 8 (typewritten transcriptions), (E) 22 (wet copy), and T 10 (typewritten transcription), where the autographs are at present not traceable. The list of

items of the correspondence which will be given below is complete (according to the present—July 1991—-state of search and study).

166

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered Phases and themes of the correspondence

The correspondence divides naturally into three phases, A-C, marked off by longer pauses, and an epilogue, D.

A. Early spring to June 1929: -E 6 Repercussions of their first meeting; Borchardt’s lecture on “Aktium” and Die Antike (9, 35), Solmsen (48), Binswanger, Jaeger’s “Solon”

(36). a-b.

Interval between E 6 (25.6.1929:

WJ to RB) and

(Sept.? 1930: WJ to RB). 15.7.1929:

Hofmannsthal dies

B. September 1930 to January 1932: -E 19 “Pindar” lecture in Berlin (10); “Dante Deutsch” (8); Rudolf Alexander Schröder; “Vergil” lecture in Kiel for Die Antike (12); Wilamowitz (dies 25.9.1931).

b-c.

Interval between E 19 (20.1.1932: (12.9.1932: WJ to RB)

RB to WJ) and E 20

29.12.1931: Jaeger marries Ruth Heinitz (his second wife)

26.1.1932:

Borchardt is found guilty in an action for

defamation in Munich; he cancels his lectures on Goethe in

Germany (centenary of death) C. September 1932 to February 1933: E 20-{E) 27 Jaeger’s “Tyrtaios” (37); his “Wilamowitz”-Rede (38). The deplorable

sequence of E 25-27, about an unclear affair in connection with Borchardt’s Berlin lecture of December 1930 and his friend Hugo Schaefer (“Stenographenaffäre”), seems to close the correspondence. There is, however, another opening of communication, yet it was not

to be viable. D.

December 1933: ...T 10-T 11 Jaeger sends Paideia I (39) to Borchardt; Borchardt's reactions remain

drafts. In the USA Jaeger copies Borchardt’s letters and collects them in an envelope for eventual publication.

In 1941 (72), Borchardt in a Latin

letter, broken off and never dispatched, addresses Jaeger calling for help...

Emst A. Schmidt

167

Books, articles, translations, lectures, etc.

exchanged, discussed, etc. (a) Jaeger

“Aristoteles” 1923 (34): cf. E 3. Die Antike 1925 sqq. (35). “Solons Eunomie” 1926 (36):

cf. E 2, E 4, E 20.

“Tyrtaios” 1932 (37): cf. E 20, E 22, E 24. “Wilamowitz” 1932 (38): cf. E 20, E 22. Paideia I 1934 (39):

cf. E 18, E 20, E 21, T 10, (E) 28.

(b) Borchardt “Eranos-Brief” 1924 (6): cf. E 2. *Die Schlacht von Aktium" 1929 (9): cf. E 4, E 6, E 10, E 19, E 20, E 21, E 23, E 2A, E 26. *Dante Deutsch" 1930 (8): cf. E 8, E 10. “Pindar” / “Pindarische Restauration" (“Pindar-Nachwort”) 1930-1931 (10): cf. E 10, T 5, E 13, T6, E 14, E 15, E 18,E 19, E 24. “Pindarische Gedichte" 1931 (10): cf. E 14, E 18, E 19, E20, E 21, E 23. * Vergil" 1930-1931 (12): cf. E 10, T 5, E 14, E 19. “Hofmannsthals Lehrjahre" 1930-1931 (11): cf. T 4. “Fragment von Aeschylus’ Persern" 1931 (13): cf. E 19. “Pisa” (1932-) 1938 (14): cf. E 21, (E) 28.

SIGLA E followed by number (E) followed by number T followed by number

(Epistula):

item of the correspondence

between Jaeger and Borchardt (letter, postcard, telegram, dedication) draft of letter (Testimonium): document illustrating that correspondence

RB

Rudolf Borchardt

Wi HL

Werner Jaeger The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar no place no date No signature

DLA n.p. n.d. n.s.

s

signature, signed

P.

page(s)

ms. typed O Ph

manuscript, handwritten typewritten, typescript original, autograph photostat (xerox or wet copy) conjectured or inferred date, place, or item of correspondence

[]

here omitted

In dates, the number of the day precedes the number of the month. *

k

*

«ἘΠῚ

Postcard RB to WJ, before 3.3.1929»

E2

Postcard WJ to RB, n.p., n.d. (postmark:

Berlin SW,

3.3.29), ms. O DLA Herrn Rudolf Borchardt, Konstanz, Postfach 83 (Konstanz, Postfach 83 crossed out and in another hand:) p. adr. DT Voigt Bremen Hochverehrter Herr Borchardt! Für Ihre ermutigenden GrüBe und die der Herren Binswanger und Schróder, welche ich von mir ehrerbietigst wiederzugriiBen bitte, warmsten Dank! Die Erinnerung an das Zusammensein mit Ihnen wirkt weiter in mir nach,

stärkend und klärend. Mit hoher Freude las ich gestern Abend wieder im Eranos über Ihre Bonner Zeit (6). Ich schicke demnächst einige kleineren Arbeiten als Zeichen des Dankes und zu freundlicher Nichtbeachtung (?, 36). Meine Verehrung Ihrer Frau Gemahlin, die mir so gütig begegnete. Wemer Jaeger

E3

Letter RB to WJ, n.p. , n.d. «April 1929», s., ms., 2 p.

O HL

[. ..] Ich bin erst kürzlich nach Italien, und erst neulich auf unsere Villa zurückgekehrt, sodass ich meine Arbeiten erst jetzt voll wieder aufnehme, und den Ihnen davon zugesagten Teil sobald die Correkturenhaufen die mich hier erwartet haben, abgethan sind. In Kreuzlingen bei dem vortrefflichen

Ernst A. Schmidt

169

Binswanger, wo sich zufällig auch der jüngere Croeller befand, wurde lebhaft Ihrer gedacht.

Ihre ganze Literatur, der Aristoteles (34) sorgfaltig durch-

notiert, stand in der Handbibliothek des Hausherrn, der über seine psychologischen Arbeiten hinaus philosophisch thätig und interessiert ist, die ganze durch Sie hervorgerufene Krise des deutschen Aristoteles- und PlatonProzesses mit glühender Teilnahme verfolgt. Ich habe ihm immer wieder von Ihnen erzählen müssen und es könnte ihm kein wärmerer Wunsch erfüllt

werden, als eine gelegentliche Annahme seiner Gastfreundschaft in den bekanntlich grossen und breiten Kreuzlinger Verhältnissen. Sollten nicht die Bodenseewälder mit ihrer Berg- und Wassernähe Ihnen zuträglicher sein als die holländischen Dünste, unter deren Nachwirkungen Sie noch litten? Solmsens Buch (48) habe ich mit dem grössten Interesse gelesen. Es ist eine

sehr glückliche und hoffnungsvolle stellenweise eine ausgezeichnete Arbeit. Die Zurückführung der mathematischen Kategorien auf die ethischen, ein zunächst erschreckendes Wagnis, hat mir meine ganze Vorstellung der antiken Kultur um einen Zug bereichert, den ich in ihr nicht mehr vermissen

kann. Ein Blatt mit Notizen, das sich mir unter der Lektüre gefüllt hat und das ich im Augenblicke nicht finde, sende ich Ihnen gelegentlich für den Verfasser.

[...] E4

Letter WJ to RB, ms., 4 p.

O DLA Steglitz, d.1.5.29. Kaiser Wilhelmstr. 11

Lieber Herr Borchardt!

Verzeihen Sie, wenn ich erst heute auf Ihren Brief antworte, aber die vergangene Woche brachte mit der Jahrhundertfeier des Archäologischen Instituts des Deutschen

Reiches

und der

1. öffentlichen Tagung

der

Gesellschaft für antike Kultur, bei der ich den Festvortrag zu halten hatte, allerlei Abhaltung.

[...] Ich freue mich sehr, daß ich diese Gelegenheit gefunden habe, um Ihnen nochmals zu versichern, wie ermutigend und anspornend mir die Begegnung mit Ihnen war und ist. Eine Sendung von zwei Aufsätzen an die auf Ihrer Postkarte angegebene Adresse in Konstanz kam zu mir leider zurück, Sie waren schon abgereist, dagegen wird eine Karte von mir eben dorthin wohl in Ihre Hände gelangt sein. Ich werde mir erlauben, die zwei Schriftchen an

170

Werner Jaeger Reconsidered

Ihre jetzige Adresse zu senden. Auf den “Solon” (36) lege ich einigen Wert,

er enthält den Knotenpunkt für eine Reihe wichtiger Fäden, Datierung der Odyssee,

Ansatz

für die Vorgeschichte

des Problems

der Tragödie,

Entwicklung von Hesiod bis Solon, Datierung des Ergaprooimion u. a. m. Bitte machen Sie sich aber nicht die Mühe zu antworten, sonst scheue ich mich,

Ihnen

wieder

einmal

etwas

zu schicken.

Ihre Anregung,

nach

Kreuzlingen zu Herrn D' Binswanger zu gehen, werde ich gern einmal befolgen. Er hat mich sehr für sich eingenommen, als ich ihn bei Frau Kröller kennen lernte, und ich würde mich herzlich freuen, ihm wieder zu begegnen. In Erwartung Ihrer Arbeit für die “Antike”, auf die ich sehr gespannt bin, grüße ich Sie herzlich

und bitte Sie, mich

auch

Ihrer

hochverehrten Frau Gemahlin dankbar zu empfehlen. Ihr Werner Jaeger ΤΙ

Letter RB to Ludwig Binswanger; Bigiano, June 1929

O Universitätsarchiv Tübingen

[...] «ES

Letter or postcard RB to WJ, before 25.6.1929>

E6

Letter WJ to RB, ms., 3 p.

O DLA Steglitz, d.25.6.29. Kaiser Wilhelmstr. 11

Sehr verehrter Herr Borchardt,

fiir Ihren liebenswiirdig vermittelnden Brief, dem ich nun meine Ferienerholung verdanken soll, danke ich Ihnen so verspätet, weil ich mich inzwischen mit D' Binswanger verständigt habe. So kann ich Ihnen berichten, daß ich Ende August zu Binswanger nach Kreuzlingen gehen werde. Ich freue mich sehr, dort einen so philosophisch und literarisch gebildeten Mann zu finden, der mir nicht einmal mehr ein Fremder ist. Ich werde dann in Kreuzlingen wohnen, Binswanger hält das auch für das Beste, da ich nicht so lange bleiben will, wie er es sich gedacht zu haben scheint. Die Herrschaften von Nagelshausen hoffe ich aber einmal kennen zu lernen, ich fühle mich ganz außerstande, für die große Gute zu danken, mit der Sie bereit waren mich bei sich aufzunehmen. Das beschämt mich außerordentlich.

Ernst A. Schmidt

171

Heute möchte ich nun vor allem meine Freude über die Fertigstellung Ihres Beitrages für die “Antike” ausdrücken, denn um einen solchen handelt

es sich doch hoffentlich bei Ihrer “Sendung”, die Sie mir in nahe Aussicht stellen.

Ich bin schon sehr gespannt, ob es die Rede über Actium ist, von

der Sie mir hier sprachen und die mich äußerst interessieren würde, oder was es sein mag. Bitte senden Sie Ihr Manuskript ruhig ein, auch wenn noch Einzelheiten, selbst ganze Sätze oder Abschnitte, zu ändern sind. Es steht Ihnen vollkommen frei, in der Fahnenkorrektur das alles noch nachzuholen.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen auch, wenn ich bitten darf, an Ihre hochverehrte Frau Gemahlin, bin ich Ihr aufrichtig ergebener Werner Jaeger

T2

Letter-card WJ to Hugo Schaefer, n.p., 22.10.29., s., ms., 2 p. O DLA

[-..]