Gratitude: An Intellectual History

by Peter J. Leithart

Gratitude is often understood as etiquette rather than ethics, an emotion rather than politics. It was not always so. From Seneca to Shakespeare, gratitude was a public virtue. The circle of benefaction and return of service worked to make society strong. But at the beginning of the modern era, European thinkers began to imagine a political economy freed from the burdens of gratitude. Though this rethinking was part of a larger process of secularization, it was also a distorted byproduct of an impulse ultimately rooted in the teachings of Jesus and the apostle Paul. Christians believed that God stood at the center of the circle of gratitude. God was the object of thanksgiving and God gave graciously. Thus, Christians taught that grace cancelled the oppressive debts of a purely political gratitude. An Intellectual History examines changing conceptions of gratitude from Homer to the present. In so doing, Peter J. Leithart highlights the profound cultural impact of early Christian "ingratitude," the release of humankind from the bonds of social and political reciprocity by a benevolent God who gave―and who continues to give―graciously.

Genres: Theology, History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Politics, Cultural

350 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Peter Leithart received an A.B. in English and History from Hillsdale College in 1981, and a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1986 and 1987. In 1998 he received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England. He has served in two pastorates: He was pastor of Reformed Heritage Presbyterian Church (now Trinity Presbyterian Church), Birmingham, Alabama from 1989 to 1995, and was founding pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, Moscow, Idaho, and served on the pastoral staff at Trinity from 2003-2013. From 1998 to 2013 he taught theology and literature at New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho, where he continues to teach as an adjunct Senior Fellow. He now serves as President of Trinity House in Alabama, where is also resident Church Teacher at the local CREC church. He and his wife, Noel, have ten children and five grandchildren.

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started reading on Thanksgiving 2014.

Timothy George interviews Leithart about the book here. Paul J. Griffiths reviews it here. Christianity Today reviews it here. Ref21 has a review here.

John Mark Reynolds live reads/blogs about it here, here, here, and here.

Published by Baylor University Press. I bought a copy on the day that he spoke at Baylor (Feb. 27, 2014), the same day I had lunch with him and others from the Baylor Society for Early Christianity.

Notes:
Introduction (Of Circles, Lines, and Soup Tureens):
3: heuristic value to beginning a story before you know the end
3: people (not ideas) have consequences
8-9: RCC Mass; Reformers (too linear)
9: Lear as a tragedy of ingratitude
10: Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke
10: Locke and resistance to tyranny
11: Locke and Smith (politics and economics); gratitude as private and sentimental
11: Enlightenment: Descartes, Kant
12: Rousseau; Kant (duty); 19c linearity
13: Kierkegaard; Nietzsche; Heidegger; Derrida
12: Mauss [see Cummings's The Literary Culture of the Reformation, p. 321]
13: Marion

Part I (Circles)
Ch. 1 (Circles of Honor):
19: Odysseus/Athena
20-21: Iliad
21: clasping knees
25: shift in reciprocity
235n49: Odyssey stuff
26-30: Iliad and failed reciprocity
31-33: how Athenian democracy changed things
33: bribery and traitor-ing were "invented" after democracy
33: Thucydides as proto-Hobbesian (fear and self-preservation)
238n91: Aeschylus stuff
35: Philodemus—anger as the opposite of gratitude
35/38: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: independence/autonomous hero; gratitude not a virtue
38: two paths to virtue
39: Rome was different

Ch. 2 (Benefits and Good Offices):
44-47: Cicero's De officiis
46: imitating nature (also p. 53)
47: justice
48: Seneca's De beneficiis
49: inclusio
51: sources of ingratitude
51-52: memory and gratitude (cf. Republic 486d)
54: emperor is outside the system; problems with Roman gratitude

Ch. 3 (Ingrates and the Infinite Circle):
58: Sebastian martyred (3c)
58 (and 244n12): Romans 13
60: memory (see pp. 51-52)
61: God is involved (also p. 63-64)
68: Jesus (p. 77: ingrate; cf. Christ as a thief)
71-72: thanksgiving as liturgy
76: turning the world upside down; church and politics

Ch. 4 (Patron Saints and the Poor):
79: Lactantius and justice; Cicero; Lactantius not a quietist
82: Ambrose's version of De officiis
82: bishops
83: Augustine
84: monks (professional poor)
86: Beowulf and other literature
88-89: Cicero on justice
89: Dante/Sayers on fraud/forgetting (pp. 113, 220; Dante on p. 144 too)
88-90: gratitude and kindness/kin
91: scholasticism
92-94: Aquinas

Part II (Disruptions)
Ch. 5 (Monster Ingratitude):
99-100: transformation of the Mass
101-05: Luther and Calvin; Puritans
105-06: Rabelais
107-12: Machiavelli
113: issue of justice; forgetfulness
114: treachery as a political expression of ingratitude
114-20: Shakespeare
114: King Lear
115: Rome unable to be ideal (see 266n83)
115-20: Coriolanus
116: monster stuff
267n97: state of nature; political animal (see p. 121)
268n102: no man is an island

Ch. 6 (The Circle and the Line):
122-28: Hobbes/Leviathan (also 175-76)
129-34: Locke
129: Restoration backlash/revisions
132: Filmer; 1st/2nd treatises
133-34: gratitude as private, not public
133: justice and charity
139-40: justice is essential
141: Locke and tyranny

Ch. 7 (Methodological Ingratitude):
144: Voltaire; Darwin
145-48: Descartes
145: gratitude as a passion, not part of justice
146: anger opposed to gratitude
148: Descartes vs. Augustine
148-54: Rousseau
150: ring of invisibility; social deception; Rousseau's "conversion"; state of nature; Rousseau vs. Hobbes and Locke
151: Robinson Crusoe
153: Rousseau vs. Hobbes; chains
154: civil religion
154-60: Kant
156: categorical imperative; autonomy; duty

Part III (Reciprocity Rediscovered, Reciprocity Suspected))
Ch. 8 (Primitive Circles):
167: Durkheim
168: magister/minister
282n26: uninvited guests (Eris)

Ch. 9 (Denken ist Danken):
182-83: Kierkegaard
183-85: Nietzsche
185-92: Heidegger
185-86: Dasein
184: raffinement/ressentiment
187: etymology (also pp. 190, 288n30, and 288-89n37)
189: Gadamer and language/freedom
190: Pascal; memory, thinking, thanking
191-92: techne, poiesis
193: fascism (Nazism on p. 192)

Ch. 10 (Gifts Without Gratitude):
196-204: Derrida
199: time; Dionysian
205-14: Jean-Luc Marion
290-91: Milbank, Hart, Boersma, Smith, Levinas
200: exitus/reditus; Levinas
203: Kierkegaard (Abraham/Isaac)
207: folds/unfolding
209: receiving obligation and autocracy
209: abandoned gifts are still gifts
211: God and Being; idols and icons
212: prodigal son
295-96n79: linguistic history of "gift"
214-16: Milbank
215: nonidentical mimesis (also pp. 216 and 296n84)

A Theistic Modernity:
217-18: summary
219: Wendell Berry
220: Solzhenitsyn; Freud; Bloom; Ricoeur
222-23: atheism and gratitude
223-24: theology and gratitude
224: Hans Urs von Balthasar
226: Karamazov; benefits of modernity
229: church's role; example of the Christian church in China

[Jlnpeacock Peacock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was incredible in helping to understand Ancient Greek and Roman history. The book is filled with so many wonderful explanations and facts. There are sections, however, where I simply didn't have enough of a background in the history and the philosophy to be able to understand all the information presented. For that reason, I found a desire to study those particular periods so that I could later read this book with more appreciation. This is a book that stretches one to think more deeply about many aspects.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this was an outstanding book though it went out with a whimper. Leithart guides you on a tour of public gratitude through the ages, which was really profitable. The concluding section is the main weak point.

A rudimentary outline:
1. INTRODUCTION
1A. Brief historical survey
1B. Important questions considered in this book: (1) "Is it possible to retain the gains of modern freedom while restoring the goods of personal ties of gratitude?" (2) "Does the freedom of the market necessarily corrode social bonds?" (3) "Is the modern effort to dissolve bonds of gratitude inevitably nihilistic?" (4) "Can we preserve the advances of science while trying to restore a sense of grateful wonder at the natural world?"(5) "Can gratitude function as a political virtue without justifying corruption and cronyism?"
1C. Conclusion: "I argue that only the infinite Christian circle is capable of preserving the political, scientific, economic, and social advances of modernity, while restoring a personal and human world."

2. THE GREEKS
2A. Greek gratia (Xenophon, Plato, Socrates, Epictetus, Plutarch, Aristotle)
2B. Heroic reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Homer)
2C. Democratic reciprocity in political Greece (Aristotle)

3. THE ROMANS
3A. Roman patronage
3B. Cicero and Seneca

4. CHRISTIANITY
4A. Jesus and Paul
4B. Early and Medieval Church (Lactantius, Augustine, Thomas, mystics)

5. REFORMATION
5A. Luther
5B. Calvin

6. LATE MIDDLE AGES, DECLINE
6A. Machiavelli
6B. English Renaissance (Shakespeare)

7. EARLY MODERN POLITICAL THEORISTS
7A. Hobbes
7B. Locke
7C. Adam Smith

8. ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHERS
8A. Descartes
8B. Rousseau
8C. Kant

9. MODERN TAKES
9A. Boas, Thurnwald, Malinowski, and Marcel Mauss' "The Gift"
9B. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Hiedegger
9C. Derrida, Marion (and John Milbank)

10. RECAP AND APPRAISAL
10A. Recap and summary.
10B. Where are We Now? (1) Some see the problem of modernity as "liberalism gone to seed." (e.g., Jose Ortega y Gasset); (2) Others see it as “capitalism gone to seed” (e.g., Wilhelm Ropke, E.F. Schumacher); (3) Others see it as an “idolization of the new and denigration of the old”; (4) Other see it as a “dominant ethos of youth culture”; (5) Religious critics see it as a lack of thankfulness to God. (e.g., Solzhenitsyn)
10C. Recent studies in gratitude (psychology of gratitude, Mark Mitchell’s The Politics of Gratitude, David Schindler’s Ordering Love: Liberal Society and the Memory of God)
10D. Conclusion: "Theistic modernity" is the only viable option--viewing gratitude as an infinite circle in which we are obligated to give thanks to God for all gifts and we are not indebted to anyone horizontally on account of gifts except to love everyone.

Leithart is strong in the development and his criticisms, but weaker in his proposal and in connecting his criticisms to his positive framework. His ultimate recommendation is to replace atheistic modernity with a "theistic modernity," but we have only hints and guesses as to what that replacement means for the social and political order. It would have made the book much stronger if he had devoted more space here.

[Timothy Crouch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vintage Leithart: a polymathic, panoramic romp through a fascinating and neglected track of intellectual history, concluding with a stirring call for a Christian post-liberal politics based on gratitude. For all the ground the book covers — Aristotle, the Stoics, early Christianity, patristic and medieval theology, the Reformation, liberal modernity, and post-modernity, interacting with all the heavy hitters along the way — it is a surprisingly breezy read. (Many of the densest bits of analysis and insight are buried in the copious endnotes, which make up 40% of the book.) Leithart's thesis is that in the realm of gratitude, as in so many other arenas, “modernity is the product of fragments and shards of Christian tradition.” Enjoyable and useful to read alongside John Barclay's Paul and the Gift.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Weaving through ancient and modern conceptions of gift giving and gratitude, Leithart makes the case that Christianity, in contrast to the circle of reciprocity solicited by ancient and even modern concepts of gift giving, teaches that gratitude must be offered primarily to God creating not a vicious circle, as it were, but an "infinite" one. This is a fascinating intellectual history of gift and gratitude which gives much food for thought regarding the relationship of the church to the world.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, I put a facebook picture up, so I need to explain what I think of this book. I helped Dr. Leithart with the bibliography and I am grateful (ah, the irony) for getting the chance to work with it.

So, the good. Let me summarize the book: the ancient pagans built society on reciprocity. If the king gives to his subjects, they have the obligation to return to him. Into this world came Jesus and Paul who were both more profoundly grateful and ingrateful. God gives us a gift and we give gifts to one another. God's infinite gift to us is discharged by giving to others. This tore apart pagan society. The middle ages focused excessively on giving back to God in order to receive gifts from him and modernity focuses on the disinterested part of giving.

Really good story and his chapter on Jesus and Paul is excellent. He also made me want to read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and maybe Heidegger. His conclusion is very interesting and full of possibilities that I should probably return to.

David Henry will be pleased that Leithart emphasizes how Jesus and Paul did in fact introduce an indvidiaulism to modern culture and Carson Spratt should be satisfied with how he describes the saved giving back necessarily as a result of salvation.

Okay, now the not so good. Leithart's prose has never been his strong suit. He is very clear and the mechanics are fine, but he doesn't have voice; I find that sad. Here, the ideas are pretty complex and perhaps this is another Deep Comedy book to which I will one day return and find treasures beyond my wildest dreams. However, it didn't feel like there was an organizing principle to what he was saying.

He said controversial things (I think) about the Reformation sowing the seeds of disinterested altruism, but he was not clear about that. His discussion of Homer didn't explain how it was different from modern commerce. His discussions of modernity were very wordy and unclear. (Why in the world does he spend time on Derrida and Marion?) He gives applications at the end, but they don't seem to flow out of what came before and thus lose their force (Leithart did a better job with Defending Constantine.) I feel this is because the writing lacks focus.

This might just be a problem of expectations; this is definitely a book for the scholar, not the lay man. Maybe Leithart should write another book explaining this one.

I hate to leave it there. Thank you God for Dr. Leithart's enjoyable, if sometimes unclear, book.

[jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leithart's book is not a devotional or self-help book, but an expedition starting in ancient Greece and Rome foraging, collecting, examining, and processing the artifacts and economy of reciprocity. I was drawn to this book for several reasons. First, because of the importance to me of grace (favor) and gratitude (response to grace). Second, because of my regard for the scholarship and competence of Leithart--he's an exceptional thinker and writer. Third, because of the teaching of Jesus and the Apostle Paul on grace and gratitude and its impact on the world that was and the world that would follow, with respect to the intellectual history of gratitude. In other words, how did the views of Christianity interrupt or alter established sociopolitical notions of gift and obligation. This book did not disappoint.

[JonM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense read, but excellent book, considering how narrow of a subject it is. Leithart is an excellent communicator. He made this subject appear more interesting than I ever thought it could. I wouldn't say this is my favorite book by him, but considering the genre, I'm sure I'll be referencing it time and time again in the future because of its unique collection of historical insights.

[Jake McAtee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magisterial. Of course it's a 5 star.

[Marcas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leithart's 'Intellectual History...' is a really good, clever critique of modern and postmodern worldviews; from philosophy to economy, to psychology and even your relationship with your grandma.
Peter delves deep into the history of 'gratitude' and the 'gift' or 'gifts', which together help link societies-in ways which we too often take for granted-and which at the same time tear societies apart.

This work, like the social criticism of Berdyaev and Chris Lasch, is interrogatingly profound, challenges our complacency and raises as many questions as it answers. This all serves Leithart's purposes exactly, and deserves credit rather than scorn for that.

Thus, whilst in this tome he does not offer a systematic programme for properly reordering gratitude and the gift, by means of 'the Infinite Christian circle', he does open up the space for Theology to do so(including his own work) and hints in subtle, intelligible ways just how such an endeavour might be undertaken.

Parts of the book are a slog, in spite of Leithart's own prose- with the authors he is citing, worthy of shouldering the blame as far as im concerned- and whilst I found the section on the middle ages could have been better written, (including both western and eastern Christendom) generally, the wide canvas of history which he has covered, has been drawn on brilliantly.