It is widely accepted that the two most foundational influences of western civilisation are Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman traditions. However, few scholars go the extra mile in deriving actual teleological significance from these foundations, with the most remarkable exception being the Hungarian philosopher, Béla Hamvas. As a much prosecuted mystic and student of Theology and Philosophy, Hamvas faced significant neglect throughout his adult life, exercising the notion of secessio mons sacer from the various oppressive regimes of the short 20th century. This however, did not prevent post-socialist thinkers from recognising the uncanny significance of Hamvas, hailing him in the few golden years between the end of socialism and the infection of capitalism as one of the most important traditionalist thinkers in history. As one of his posthumous students put it:
In 1955 in Hungary there lived only one single person who could have not only conversed but actually exchanged views with Heraclitus, Buddha, Lao Tse, and Shakespeare, and that in each one’s mother tongue. If these four prophets of the human spirit had gotten off the plane in Tiszapalkonya, and if they had addressed the first laborer they came across, and if this had happened to be Béla Hamvas himself, after talking for three nights straight – during the day Hamvas had to carry mortar, but perhaps his guests would have given him a hand – well then, what might they have thought: if in this country the unskilled laborers are like this man, what then might the scholars be like? But had they looked around the country, they would have understood everything.
Géza Szőcs
Indeed, Hamvas was one of the greatest thinkers in the history of mankind, a grand master, whose writings – I am honoured to say – initiated me into adulthood, and hold much significance in determining my view of the world. I am a firm believer that his work must be introduced to foreign audiences, and it seems only apparent that he must be acknowledged as the towering intellect he was.
But why is his work to be considered relevant from a transnational perspective? Whatever I write here will inevitably end up as a mere watered-down reduction of Hamvas’ deep and elaborate philosophy, but given that it is my life’s mission to follow in his footsteps and live up to his memory, I have no choice but to try my best.
Hamvas claims that Judeo-Christian tradition was based on dogma, orthodoxy, Pharisee-morality, and faith derived from practice – simply put, G-d being in the centre. As Diderot famously gave the advice: Do not seek to believe just out of the blue. Go to church, say your prayers when you can, think about G-d, and read the lives of saints. Belief will come naturally. Hamvas follows up elaborating on how Greco-Roman tradition instead relies on mysticism, deviancy, and faith derived from personal fate – simply put, the individual being in the centre. one can see the pattern leading to hypocrisy being inherent to Judeo-Christian tradition, and corruption being inherent to Greco-Roman tradition, of course to varying degrees in both cases. This duality manifested in Rome coopting Christianity, and thereby uniting the two traditions, however, this proved to be only a cosmetic touch, and the two traditions went on parallel to one another, determining the history of Europe. It is also elaborated on that transnationally speaking, there were region- and continent-wide trends in the spirit of each epoch after the fall of Rome, directly corresponding with one of the two above-mentioned traditions.
Rome fell, and with it fell corruption and Greco-Roman tradition for a long period. This does not mean per se that there was no corruption in the Middle Ages, but it manifested more along the lines of hypocrisy. The term zeitgeist comes to mind. None of these periods are clear-cut, or exclusive, but they do encompass rather neatly the cyclicality of European history, regardless of the nation state being the fundamental unit of analysis in regards to temporal affairs and chronology. Rome lived on in Byzantium and in the Corpus Iuris Civilis, upon which we base our legal system we inherited. However, the zeitgeist shifted from mysticism to dogma, and orthodoxy. The Middle Ages were thereby followed by the Renaissance, where humanism arose, G-d was no longer in the centre and hypocrisy was replaced once more with corruption. Conversely, the following Baroque, Neo-Classicism, and Romanticism eras made this switch thrice more, with the latter finally “killing G-d”, and styles and intellectual movements defining whole ages were shattered into multiple paths of thought, and eventually even those gave way to the oversaturated neoliberal technocratic nightmare we inhabit today.
What is important to take away from the above-detailed theory might very well be the most important source of legitimacy for transnational history. If one can identify the underlying relation to G-d throughout the different periods and epochs of history as a transnational, or better put nationless notion, then the romantic idea of a nation-state as such ceases to serve as a unit of analysis altogether. These very ideas came to be only after the fall of said duality. There was no French, Italian, or Hungarian nation prior to modernity. In historical terms, it is the idea of the nation-state that needs justification, not the writing of history in transnational terms. The terminology might be brand new. But people only started writing national histories around 200 years ago. It is national history that is the radical idea, and according to Hamvas, studying the history of mankind with the transcending of borders is an important return to the old way. The good way. The traditional way. “Follow not the ancients. But follow what the ancients followed.” The discipline might be new. But the underlying sentiment is age-old.