The Aeneid, Teleological Meta-Narratives, and the Hope of Israel

I’ve been reading The Aeneid by Virgil recently. My main reason in doing so is because of my reading of N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God. In the latter work, Wright argues that The Aeneid was the first work in world literature (outside of the books of the Bible) to present a teleological meta-narrative. The running theme of The Aeneid is that history was building itself towards the establishment of Rome, specifically the Augustine reign. Elsewhere, such a view of history was not to be found … that is, outside of the Biblical worldview of God’s redeeming work in history through Israel leading up to the coming of Christ. Wright uses The Aeneid to compare and contrast it with Paul’s understanding of Israel’s teleological meta-narrative.

Much of philosophical modernity from the 19^th and early twentieth centuries focused on teleology. Hegelian philosophy argued an evolutionary, dialectical, mediatory approach to history in which the contradictions in society are resolved through their synthesis. This leads to inevitable progress.

Liberal theologians of the 19^th century (particularly the German history of religions school) applied this philosophical idea to Christianity to argue that the Kingdom of God was advancing through society as a gradual process of improvement and continued revelation to the point in which the world would eventually arrive at a perfect state. In most cases, the state was considered the mechanism by which God worked out his will to advance what became a more secularized Kingdom. Much of this thinking by liberal Christians favored post-Millennialism. World War I put an end to much of the post-Millennial, happy advancement movement, as well as the emergence of the neo-orthodox movement by Christian liberals (Bart, Brunner, Niebuhr) who embraced Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel and the state and who began to take seriously the problem of evil. Now the teleological thrust of history and its meta-narrative was no longer an inevitable, and gradual development of the Kingdom but a progress of fits and starts, advances and retreats that wrestled with the evil of the world and human nature, particularly as it worked itself out in the individual’s relationship with God. The Kingdom of God was inevitable not by evolutionary progress of state control over society and the individual but by God eventually breaking into history.

On the purely secular and materialistic level, Marx embraced Hegelian dialectics as a political-economic struggle of history in which the state was an expression of cold immutable forces and a tool of the progression of society from a capitalistic system to a communistic system that eliminated all societal contradictions. In Marx’s teleological thinking, the meta-narrative of history is the inevitable collapse of capitalism based upon its internal contradictions. However, contra Marx, capitalism continued to thrive unabated leading to self-evident societal progress while socialism continued to destroy and disrupt advancement in the societies in which it was applied. Indeed, in the places where Marxist philosophies were most strictly followed … well, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, post-Revolutionary Mexico, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, etc. speak for themselves. Furthermore, the philosophical developments of the 20^th century, particularly in the 1960s, led to a rejection of the Marxist teleological view of history as an economic meta-narrative. We now entered post-modernity.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of post-modernity is the abandonment of the meta-narrative as philosophical discipline, particularly as a cultural-societal phenomenon that might be considered hegemonic to other cultural narratives. It is interesting and ironic that the current U.S. President – our most post-modern to date – frequently asserts a teleological meta-narrative as rhetoric. “The arc of history bends towards justice.” “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Whether it is his naiveté of Hegelian-influenced Marxism or the influence of post-Millennial classical Christian liberalism, our current commander ‘n’ chief seems to hold to a teleological meta-narrative worldview. Though I’m not sure it is the right one.

As I’ve written and stated elsewhere, a meta-narrative is essential to Christianity. God’s redemption of creation through Man, Israel, and Christ is central to the Faith. All the teachings of the Bible, the moral codes, life lessons, and church functions are pointless unless there is an over-arching narrative purpose towards which such things are directed and in which contextualized. Indeed, both 1^st century Palestinian Judaism as advocated by the Pharisees and Jesus and the post-Resurrection morality teachings of Paul were teleological in purpose and understood with Israel’s meta-narrative. Both drew from Israel’s Scriptures and similar strains of interpretation of Yahweh’s blessing to Abraham:

“I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore … In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 22:17-18; cf. 12:12).

This is the core of the Jewish teleological meta-narrative. It is expanded upon in Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Deutero-Isaiah, and Daniel. The idea understood in Jesus’ time is that Yahweh would return to his people, defeat Israel’s enemies, and establish and eternal kingdom that renewed creation.  This was the great hope of Israel. In all this, the teleological meta-narrative was that history was building towards something. It was the special proclamation of John the Baptist and Jesus that the history of Israel was about to reach its climax: Yahweh was returning to Zion, Israel’s enemy was about to be defeated, the Kingdom of God was about to be inaugurated. It was/is the Christian contention that the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus brought about this historical climax, though in a completely unsuspecting way. Jesus is seen as the first fruits of the resurrection (1Cor 15:20, 23), fulfilling the God’s promise to Abraham (Rom 4:13; Acts 7:17; Gal 3:29) and inaugurating New Creation (Gal 6:15).

This is why Christianity cannot abandon a teleological meta-narrative as a worldview. Israel’s history was building towards the climax of Jesus and his resurrection, while the results of that resurrection builds the rest of history towards its consummation and the resurrection of all believers in new creation. Indeed, a Paul himself wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14; cf. v.17).

So it’s been interesting to read how Virgil in his The Aeneid writes the history of Troy, Carthage, and Italy to legitimize the Roman Empire and Augustus as its ruler. The difference from the Biblical narrative of course is that Virgil lived at the end point and was writing “prophecies” into this one work, while the Biblical writers had numerous prophecies that they were waiting centuries to see fulfilled. Still, Paul and the other early Christian writers, living 50-60 years after Virgil, are pointing towards Israel’s Scriptures and common Jewish strands of interpretation to make their teleological point. That The Aeneid was well known in the first century Greco-Roman world in which Paul was writing is what makes this interesting.