triviality is the absence of deeper meaning on an everyday
level. Tragedy is meaninglessness elevated by drama to the
level of an ultimate end, a paganized eschatory one might
perhaps say.
Small wonder then that the Greeks, in search of their
ultimate realit¡ tended to turn away from histor¡ in
favour of the unchangeable. \X/e must explain that as an
entirely natural resignation. The person who does not find
in history anything profoundly human, na! more than
thac profoundly reLigiou.s, profoundly saLuatory and full of
meaning . takes his refuge precisely in the static, in the
absolute zerq as the highest point. One is then happy not
to have been reduced to a directly negaüve value. Tragedy
is precisely that definitely negative value. The dissolution
of all personal consciousness - thanla to the ingenious
trick of the Idea (which, in Platonic spirirualism, rende¡s
exactly the same service, in this respect, as the Buddhist
Nirvana) . sâves man from his consciousness of himself;
that is, the constiousness of a desperate condition. Such
is the inevitable price paid for self-sufficienc¡ for selfredemption.
Seen from this view-point the difference berween the
Greek's attitude towards history and the Hebrew's attirude
becomes easy to understand. To the Greeþ history is an
evil from which he should be saved. To the Hebrew it is
the very locus ,of his salvation.
By the way, how could one ever expect an idea of finaliæ
of the concrete Hebraic type in the realms of G¡eek
philosophy? Philosophers never had anything corresponding,
even remotel¡ to the graphicalness of biblical revelation.
Nothing but Christianity ever reached that full measure
of true meaning, a meaning giving back to man his true
totality. In fact, what was Christianity's unique conceprion
of the 'civitas Dei'? Simply a purposeful march along the
road of history all the way up to the kingdom of God.
Vith that coriceprion, the Christian Gospel makes poasible
a spiritualiry that is identical with totality in human life.
And outside that there is no cultural heritage woith men-
rt?
a