A paradoxical situation has developed in studying the history of the ideas of the ancient world: contrary to the universally known fact that Herodotus and Thucydides were founders of the science of history some researchers of ancient culture are adherents of the concept that «non-historicism» is typical of ancient Greeks΄ way of thinking. The reference to Greeks rationalism and to Greek philosophers΄ search for the universal and self-identical primal element (arche) in the world, i. e., the single and invariable essence of all things, is the main argument in favour of this concept. On the basis of the comparison of Greek philosophy, especially Eleatic metaphysics (ontology), with Judaic-Christian theology, the conclusion is drawn that only single, nonrecurrent and unique events, namely, the creation of the world by God and Christ΄s appearance to the people, i. e., «God΄s humanization» and his redemptive sacrifice, can be regarded as the content of historical knowledge, as the idea of history in the true sense of the world. Some scholars also assert that unlike a biblical man΄s world outlook a Greek΄s thinking is geared not towards history (time, dynamics), but towards the cosmos (space, statics) which is considered as an infinite rotation of material elements and the aimless repetition of the same processes -in other words, it is assumed that nothing new appears in the world. The author attempts to show that the concept of Greek΄s «non-historicism» does not hold water because it wrongly equalizes different forms of social consciousness (philosophy and theology), imposing alien schemes of thought on Greek thinkers and on Greeks΄ historical consciousness, to say nothing of the arbitrary identification of history with time and of nature with space. The reference to the myth about «the eternal return» as a proof of Greeks΄ «non-historicism» cannot be accepted either. The myth is mentioned in works by some Greek philosophers, but this does not change the fact that it remains within the realm of religious-mythological concepts. In conclusion the author shows that the concept of Greeks΄ «non- historicism» stems from the biased interpretation of certain ideas of Greek philosophers and historians and also from some of Greeks΄ religious-mythological concepts from the standpoint of modem Christian theology and its existentialist variety. Modernizing Greek΄s ideas, the proponents of this concept tacitly assume that problems which interested Greeks are similar to modern religious theological problems, i. e., think that there is no new thing under the sun. In the author΄s opinion this viewpoint is untenable.
Academy of Athens
