Jacques Hardré’s paper, “Camus’ Thoughts on Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism,” is more or less a summary of some of the principal themes of Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism.Hardré argues that this book, which had been largely ignored by commentators, helps to correct the popular opinion that Camus was uninterested in and unsympathetic to Christianity. Christian Metaphysics “shows very definitely the interest that the young Camus had in the development of early Christian thought and in the influence on this development of late Greek philosophy.”41 It is also a sound piece of scholarship. The text offers “clear proof that when Camus was later to write his commentaries on Christianity and on the Hellenistic spirit, he was doing so armed with knowledge acquired by careful and thorough research.”42This does not mean that Camus’ scholarship was original or groundbreaking, however. Hardré says that what Christian Metaphysics amounts to is not “a piece of original research but rather . . . a well-documented presentation of some aspects of a problem which has attracted many philosophers and theologians.”43 The real insight that the book affords us concerns what Camus thought about Christianity and Hellenism and the complex relationship between them.
I think Hardré’s most important contribution to Camus scholarship is a political one. Against the current climate of opinion, he sought to make it clear to contemporary readers that Camus was not an illiterate modern whose rejection of Christianity was as ill-informed as it was unshakable. If Camus finally refused to accept the Christian faith, he did so only after giving it a patient and sympathetic hearing. Hardré also wanted to shore up the idea of Camus’ Greek culture. It is true that commentators frequently speak of Camus’ Hellenism and his affinity with classical Greece, but such remarks are often little more than lip service paid to popular opinion. Hardré wants to show that Camus’ Hellenism was based on real research and not hastily gathered from an impressionistic reading in the tradition.
- Hardré, “Camus’ Thoughts,” 97.
- Ibid., 98.
- Ibid.
I am sympathetic to Hardré’s reading of Christian Metaphysics. The attribution to Camus either of a cliché or unreflective Hellenism or a thoughtless modernism has been equally obfuscating regarding his real achievement. Hardré’s essay goes some way to overcoming both misconceptions, but there is still work to be done to complete the project. What is necessary is a thorough analysis aimed at explaining the manner in which these ideas, first developed in a coherent way in Christian Metaphysics, were worked out in Camus’ later books. This is a task of which Hardré is aware but to which he only gestures in his article.
In Camus’ Hellenic Sources, Paul Archambault undertakes to complete the task suggested by Hardré’s study. He confirms Hardré’s claim that little serious research has been devoted either to exploring Camus’ Hellenism or to assessing his interpretation of Christianity, and he shares Hardré’s opinion that the former has rarely been seriously questioned by scholars.44 But that is where their agreement ends. Archambault’s conclusions regarding Christian Metaphysicsare the opposite of Hardré’s, and he argues that the character of Camus’ account of these subjects did not improve substantially in subsequent books.45 Archambault argues that Camus’ acquaintance with the texts and traditions of classical antiquity was neither extensive nor deep. He tries to demonstrate, popular opinion notwithstanding, that Camus’ concerns were far more modern and Christian than Greek.46
Before discussing the main features of Archambault’s critique, a word about the structure of his book is in order. His analysis is much more
- Archambault, Camus’ Hellenic Sources, 12.
- Ibid., 13. Archambault claims that his analysis reveals that there is no significantdevelopment in Camus’ thinking about the Greeks and Christians over the course of his entire career. “Taken on the whole . . . Hellenism and Christianity (as well as other related terms) meant much the same to [Camus] in 1960 as in 1936.” Though the absence of change in Camus’ account would be no objection in itself, Archambault’s highly critical assessment of early books like Christian Metaphysics renders the claim anything but flattering. Be that as it may, the claim is rather odd because at the end of his study Archambault seems to make the opposite argument: “There is a marked progression from the uncritical, somewhat sophomoric repetition of Nietzsche’s ideas on Greek tragedy in the Essay on Music (1932), and the mature lecture on The Future of Tragedy (1995), which, however derivative, shows signs of reflection and a fresh study of the primary sources” (ibid., 171).
- “If it be a Christian disease to feel dispossessed and cast adrift in a hostile universe,it is fair to say that, although Camus fought that disease tooth and nail, he never entirely convalesced” (ibid., 104). And: “Camus, in short, cannot be considered as a Greek, but as a modern with a Greek heart who has been compelled to face the historical paradox of Christianity” (ibid., 173).
extensive and its consequences more far-reaching than those of Walker or Hardré, so a more detailed discussion is necessary to clarify his argument. Archambault orders the chapters of his book according to the broad historical periods apparent in Camus’ sources. His aim is to determine the nature and quality of Camus’ acquaintance with each one. In each chapter, that analysis has three stages or parts, which follow one another more or less sequentially. The first stage involves a comparative study of sample passages from Camus’ books and secondary sources devoted to the same ancient texts. The aim here is to point out the manner in which Camus used and abused those sources. Archambault does this, not maliciously, but with a serious purpose. He argues that in order to measure the character of Camus’ love for the Greeks, we need to know the degree of his acquaintance with their highest literary and philosophical achievements. “If it is true, as Aristotle and Aquinas have said, that no love is possible without prior knowledge, it seems reasonable to assume that Camus’ knowledge of Greek culture is a fair stick wherewith to measure the quality of his love, inasmuch as love can be measured.”47 The second stage is a straightforward interpretation of the essays, novels, and plays in which Camus’ analysis draws on ancient texts and themes, whether Greek, Christian, or Gnostic. The third stage is Archambault’s own critical assessment of the quality of those various analyses. Here he ceases to play the role of detective and tries instead to meet Camus on his own ground, as a thinker or philosopher.
I have found much of Archambault’s comparative work helpful in tracking down Camus’ references and clarifying the sources of passages that he misidentifies. His study also includes a good discussion of some of the writers who might have helped shape Camus’ understanding of the ancient world. Archambault’s type of research is extremely useful in determining the scholarly nature and value of a book. It can also deepen our understanding of a text by providing us with important insight into its historical and philosophical context. This type of insight will often shed light on the kinds of problems and influences with which an author is grappling in his effort to formulate his own account. Archambault’s study does all of these things in relation to Camus’ books generally and Christian Metaphysics particularly, and the results of his efforts are of much use, as far as they go.
- Ibid., 12.
The main difficulty with this aspect of Archambault’s analysis is that the standards he sets for the appropriate use of sources are so stringent that I doubt any writer, primary or secondary, could meet them and still claim to be thinking for himself. Even in cases where Camus is clearly relying on the work of others and also attempting to surpass their analyses, Archambault characterizes Camus’ use of sources as so naïve and uncritical that he is often unaware that they lead him to contradictory conclusions.48 Archambault argues that this is particularly true of Christian Metaphysics, which was written by a young Camus who perhaps did not have the intellectual background and resources to unt angle the many competing and even contradictory accounts of his sources.49 But he also argues that the same can be said of many of Camus’ later, more mature works.50 Thus does Camus’ Hellenism become derivative, sophomoric, and untenable, and his critique of Christianity uncharitable and uninformed. This is Archambault’s most damning claim, the one to which his study as a whole points: Camus’ acquaintance with Greek philosophy and literature was too scant, too superficial, and too misrepresentative to allow us to speak about Greek culture or Hellenism in his case in any meaningful sense at all.51
There are good reasons to have reservations about Archambault’s argument, the first of which is the most obvious: all writers use and are influenced by the work of other writers, and there are instances in which that influence is so deep and long-standing that it is a difficult business to determine where the influence ends and a writer’s own insight begins. This is not an apology for intellectual dishonesty or for shoddy scholarship, but a fact that we likely ought to recognize with gratitude.
- See Archambault’s discussion of Camus’ use of Nietzsche and Berdiaev in The Rebel, ibid., 90–95.
- Ibid., 75. “In a sense, Camus was the victim of his uncritical attitude towards hissources: his general vision of the Greek universe had been bequeathed to him by an ardent German Hellenist who loathed philologists, as well as by serene French philologists who looked askance at intuitive scholarship. It would have taken a most ingenious conductor to induce such a motley
