P7: Greek and Roman canonical texts in the time of (German) Neo-Humanism, university reforms and educational reforms until 1850

The Greek and Latin classics had already developed such great authority in antiquity that they could compared with the canonical texts of religions. Christianity changed little about this. The influence of the ancient scriptures fluctuated; sometimes they were integrated into Christian educational models, and sometimes they were considered with suspicion, but they always remained present. Beyond a religious context, the Latin classics were indispensable for the active learning of the Latin language.A fundamental change took place between about 1750 and 1850 when, for the first time, ancient cultures largely lost direct social influence. Ancient texts were no longer authorities for philosophy and the natural sciences; the active use of the Latin language and the emphasis on antiquity-based rhetoric in education were abolished. Nevertheless, enthusiasm for antiquity reached a new peak. Greek and Latin studies formed the center of the newly built and consistently secularly organized grammar schools (Gymnasium), classical philology became the foundation of a new epoch in the humanities at universities. Here, a fundamental reevaluation of the ancient texts took place, which, in the terms of this research proposal, can be interpreted as re-sacralization. At the same time, however, university philology increased in use as a historical-critical science which pushed back the texts from timeless ideality to their own historical context, thus making them one subject among others, which de facto initiated the process of desacralization. The disciplinary connection of philology to the professional classical philologists also created a culture of experts which opposed the idea of a general antiquity-based education. The parallels in the development of the understanding of religion and the Bible in theology can be seen; and while the relationship between historical-critical textual exegesis and religion has been discussed in detail, the relationship between philology and general human education in antiquity has been, up to now, only marginally considered. This project attempts to analyze this relationship more closely by asking what the contents and goals of philological activity were in the time of neo-humanism within a general framework. The history of philology up to now has been one-sided in that it focuses only on achievements which have been proven to be influential based on a modern historical perspective. Only a more complete picture allows us to understand the process of the resacralization of antiquity during the century of neo-humanism in the context of the hermeneutics of ancient texts more closely and to methodically relate it to other processes of sacralization and desacralization in a meaningful way.