In the Athenian period, it was impossible that the cosmopolitan class of the
metics, which enjoyed supremacy in industry - except in that of the mines - as
well as in trade, « imported goods, and with them ideas, from all over the
world, which was able to display the effort of its intelligence in every
direction and to guide its instinct for success on every course, should never
know any other means of action than money… » (134) The liberal and intellectual
professions also attracted the metics. « Most of the philosophers who taught in
Athens before Socrates and after Plato came from abroad. They exercised a
powerful influence on the moral and social evolution of the Athenian people.
They brought with them all the ideas which were being worked out in the Hellenic
world, but especially those which best suited men who were emancipated from
local prejudices and eager for practical novelties. As professors, lecturers,
living by their profession and anxious to live very comfortably by it, they
frankly presented themselves as importers of intellectual commodities and
dealers therein. So the Metics, as they invaded the economic domain in Athens,
at the same time caused their ideas to penetrate into public and private life.
They systematically occupied all the avenues of thought which radiated from the
centre of sophistry. Their fruitful initiative created the great systems of the
IVth century. The Academy was an exception ; it was for the old true-blue
Athenians that Plato laid down the principles of aristocratic idealism imbued
with religion. » (135). Then, they set their heart on the remaining fields which
they had not cornered yet : « In art, science, and literature, » G. Glotz, the
mouth open, the tongue hanging, the tail wagging, says, « the Metics showed the
same qualities of practical intelligence as in manufacture, trade, and banking.
They founded the principal schools of rhetoric, they created philosophical
systems with realist tendencies, they were the best advocates, they brought
modern music into fashion, and they attained great popularity as writers of
comedy. They invaded, transformed, and appropriated every sphere in which, while
making money and a name for themselves, they could express their feelings and
spread their ideas. » (136)
The Academy did not remain long an exception. Beginning with Carneades, born in
Cyrene, a Greek city in North Africa, the Academy « would be led by
non-Athenians scholarchs… The other schools were completely nonlocal in their
leadership : no Athenian would ever lead the Peripatos. » (137)
Athens, Smyrna and Ephesus were the main Sophistic centres, but the overwhelming
majority of those who are traditionally included among early Sophists came to
Athens from Asia Minor : Byblos, Gadara, Tyre, Emesa, Tarsus, Tyana, Side,
Perge, Aphrodisias, Thyatira, Cnidos, Nicomedia, Amastris, Perynthus, Aenos,
Laryssa. Protagoras was born in Abdera, where he « consorted with the Persian
Magi… » (Philostratus, Life of the Sophists 1.10). Protagoras was a native of
Abdera, a colony founded by Ionians in Thrace ; Gorgias, of Sicily. Anaxagoras,
of Asia Minor. Members of the Second Sophistic were Syrians ; later, Lucian of
Samosata thought of himself as a Syrian. The Sophists often emphasised their
rootlessness. Aristippus boasted about it : « I am a stranger everywhere ». Some
of the major Sophists visited Athens as ambassadors ; others were exiles. Once
they had settled there, they travelled from one city to the next, teaching
rhetorical techniques for cash – it was not customary for teachers to charge
payment for their services in those days - to the children of wealthy families.
They never formed a school in the institutional sense.
While the briefest reference is made to the Asian origin of most Sophists in
most scholarly works on the subject, the greatest care is taken not to consider
their `nomos'/'physis' antithesis in morals and politics, their thirst for
equality in freedom, their ethical relativism, their systematic scepticism,
based on their sensualistic subjectivism, their rationalist theories of
religion, their whole rhetoric and philosophy, in the light of their Oriental
background. It goes without saying, in the scholarly `Western tradition', that
the Sophistic movement is one of the sources of the `Western tradition', and
that it can only be studied in the context of the Hellenic culture. However, if
we look to the bottom of the matter, things look rather different : « The
Sophists and Hellenistic religion clearly belong to two different worlds,
separated by a wide gulf of far-reaching changes that took place in the course
of the fourth century BC. To the casual observer, it would seem inconceivable
that the two could have anything in common, especially if the point of
comparison has to do with religion and the gods. Any Western religion,
Hellenistic or otherwise, implies by definition a conviction that gods exist,
and a firm belief in them. By contrast, the sophists are notorious for their
agnosticism or explicit atheism, Protagoras and Prodicus in particular. » (138)
There are similarities between the Sophistic outlook and that of contemporary
non-Greek systems of philosophy ; striking are those which exist between the
former and the Carvaka school in India. « There is reason to believe that the
Carvakas shared certain qualities of mind with the early Greek philosophers.
They were both critical of official theology, disposed to treat dogma lightly,
presenting uncommonly open minds to speculation concerning epistemology,
metaphysics, and ethics. Both were remarkably free from the trammels of the past
; both felt it to be a right of the philosopher to look at the universe as a
matter of private interest… » (139) Carvaka's epistemological outlook was
empirical, its metaphysics materialistic, and its ethics hedonistic, and, as
such, « Carvaka is seen to fit unqualifiedly in the highest level of naturalism.
» (140) Naturalistic elements can be found in the highest degree in Hindu
schools of philosophy which, like Jainism and Samkhya, predate the development
of `Greek philosophy' ; thus, it is clearly not the case that naturalism is « as
contrary to the ways of Eastern thought as it is frequent, under more or less
explicit forms, in Western conceptions. » (141)
Greeks received this thought through various channels, through various mediums.
Apuleius repeats a tradition that Pythagoras travelled into India, where he was
instructed by the Brahmans. Diogene Laertius says of Democritus : « Some say
that he associated with the Gymnosophists of India. » (D. L. 9, 35) ; Aelian
says : « Democritus went to the Chaldaeans in Babylon and to the Magi and to the
sophists of the Indians » (Var. Hist. 4, 20) ; Hyppolitus : « Democritus…
discussing with the gymnosophists among the Indians, and with priests in Egypt,
and with astrologers and magi in Babylon propounded his system. » (Refutationes
1.13) Pyrrho, the founder of the sceptical school of philosophy, is said to have
travelled in India with Alexander's army and to have obtained from Indians the
ideas of scepticism, suspension of judgment and indifference (D. L. 9, 61-68)
Onesicritus, a Greek historical writer who accompanied Alexander on his
campaigns in Asia and wrote a biography of him, is said to have been « sent to
converse with these Indian Sophists » (Strabo 15, 1, 63), whose disregard for
customs, shamelessness, freedom of speech, conception of life according to
nature and of apathy as a state of indifference to passions to be attained
through training and hardship, are reflected outrageously in Cynicism. The
Cynics were associated with the Gymnosophists (`the naked teachers') by
Plutarch, who suggested that Alexander had heard of the later before his
expedition to India.
The Cynics did not form a school in the institutional sense anymore than the
Sophists ever did, and, unlike these, they did not take money for teaching. « …
the Cynic teacher… in symbolic garb of cloak, wallet and staff, talked on street
corners and in open squares to the plain man of the streets… These Cynic sermons
were informal talks which used the Socratic method of interrogation and dialogue
; only, as the preacher answered his own questions, setting up a fictitious
interlocutor whom he could oppose and convince, the form of such colloquy came
to be called a diatribe. It was a kind of monologue-dialogue that was very
effective for informal presentation of ethical teaching. » (142) Now, it has
been established that the methods of argumentation in the diatribes constructed
by the Cynics, more precisely by Bion of Borysthenes, which were directed to the
crowd, resemble « the methods of argumentation in the dialogical form of some
exegetical midrashim. » (143) Later, the Stoics, too, used the diatribe most
successfully.
The Cynics, as we might also expect, were for most of them non-Athenians, and
many of them were probably not Greek by birth. Menippus, a former slave, was
born in Gadara in Coele-Syria, just as, two centuries later, the poet Meleager,
who, in a true Cynic spirit, remarked in an epigram : « If I am Syrian, what
wonder ? Stranger, we dwell in one wonder, the world : one Chaos gave birth to
all mortals…» (144). Antisthenes, thought to be the founder of the Cynic
movement, shares a questionable ancestry with many Cynics as well, for he « was
no Athenian citizen, but the son of a citizen and a Thracian woman ; thus he is
depicted as having held his `lectures' in the gymnasium reserved for `nothoi,'
or illegitimates, known as the Cynosarges, or `agile dog.' This last name is
certainly at least partly responsible for Antisthenes' synthesis into the Cynic
group. His birth, which deprived him of Athenian citizen rights, also endows him
with the potential for Cynic cosmopolitanism, and a predilection for overlooking
matters of rank and status. » (145) Indeed. `Freedom and Slavery' is one of the
works that are attributed to him. Most of his followers seem to have experienced
essentially the latter.
Diogenes of Sinope – the son of a dishonest banker who had been banished from
his native place after counterfeiting charges were brought against him - had not
set a foot in Greece, where they had been both exiled, than the Oracle at
Delphi, where he had travelled, urged him to « deface the currency ». (146) He
is said to have been captured by pirates and sold into slavery in Crete later on
in his life. His pupil, Monimus of Syracuse, is said to have been a slave, that
of – it's a small world - a banker ; Byon of Borysthenes was the son of a freed
merchant of salting equipment and a courtesan. « Such experiences might lead
those Cynics to look past circumstances and external appearances. » Indeed.
The fact is that « The Cynics did not grasp the Indian philosophies in their
entirety. If there were resemblances there were also differences. The Indian
philosophers spent their time in instruction, discussions, meditation and
self-improvement ; they had no time for earning a livelihood and their requests
for food were understood and complied with. They accepted nothing but food and
rejected money. The Cynics generally demanded money and this demand was
irrational. Indian philosophers were kindly and helpful ; the Cynics were
abusive and unsociable. The Cynics were orators and the Indians were not. The
Indian philosophers did not seek happiness or the enjoyment of life ; they
sought self-improvement, spiritual advancement and increased usefulness to
others. » (147)
Still in terms of practice, the connection is even more pronounced between the
Cynics and the members of the Shaivite sect known as Pasupatha, - the earliest
one to worship Shiva, so that, even though the first reference to this cult is
found in the late portions of the Mahabharata (150 B.C. – 150 A.D.), one would
think that it had more ancient origins ; in any case, its practices are lost in
the night of pre-Aryan India. « The Pasupatas, like the cynics, exposed
themselves regularly to scorn and actively sought dishonor even at the cost of
blows. Their methods of exciting censure were various : the wearing of filthy
garments, the use of violent and indecent language, the imitation of animals,
the performance in public of acts that were ridiculous or which gave the
impression of madness or which were interpreted by the society as obscene… The
Cynics, by undergoing the hardship of dishonor, hoped to equate themselves with
the object of their worship, the hero Hercules, who was believed to hold a club,
likewise the founder of the Pasupata cult was called Lakulisa, the "Lord of the
Club." Pseudo-Diogenes urges one to be strong, through poverty and dishonour.
What he meant by dishonor (adoxia) is precisely what the Pasupatas mean by
avamana. And elsewhere we find the Cynics urging their followers to unsocial
actions in order to gain strength, just as the Pasupatas sought to gain increase
(vrddhi) from similar acts. » (148). What is also most interesting is that the
pasupatas, like the Cynics, « were in the habit of imitating dogs both in sound
and in deed. » (149)
Now, in terms of doctrines, there is a blatant lack of transcendence, of an
equivalent to `moksa', the ultimate goal of the Pasupatas, in Cynic asceticism.
If, in the case of Sophism and Cynicism, the similarities to Indian
philosophical schools are too numerous and too striking for one to entertain the
assumption that the same ideas arose in Greece and in India independently, we
can agree with R. Guénon that the `Greeks' did not always expound Indian thought
exactly as they had received it, let alone that any concept cannot fail to
undergo some distortion when moving from one culture to another. In any case,
Cynic practice can be seen as a radicalisation of a type of asceticism that was
foreign to Aryan traditions. (150)
The early Stoics appear to have advocated shameless (`adoxia') as doctrinally as
the Cynics did : « temples, gymnasia, and courthouses need not be built ;
coinage is unnecessary ; only the virtuous are citizens, friends, relatives, and
free—everyone else is at war with each other, an enemy, alienated, and a slave ;
Zeno holds the doctrine of the so-called community of women; men and women are
to wear the same dress ; no part of the body is to be fully covered ; nothing is
shameful about incest and other conventionally abhorred sexual actions ; if an
amputated limb is useful for food, we should eat it ; the traditional
educational curriculum is useless ; no special effort is to be made for one's
parents' (or any other) funeral, » etc. (151) According to Diogene Laertius,
Zeno read through Xenophon's `Memorabilia' in a bookstore in Athens, asked the
bookseller where he could find a man such as Socrates, and was directed to a
pupil of Diogene of Sinope, Crates, who happened at that instant to be passing
by. He eventually made himself independent and set up his own business under the
`stoa poikile'.
The Academy, as mentioned above, beginning with Carneades, would be led by
non-Athenians scholarchs, the other schools were completely nonlocal in their
leadership, « and the Stoa, beginning with Zeno of Citium, would be under the
control of non-Athenian philosophers for the first two hundred years of its
existence. Nor were the students at the schools any less heterogeneous in
origin… We learn that Zeno's first followers in the Stoa came from all over the
Mediterranean : Persaeus, son of Demetrios, came to Athens from Zeno's own
Citium ; Ariston, the son of Miltiades came from Chios ; Herillus from Carthage
; Dionysius from Heraclea ; Sphaerus from Bosphorus ; Cleanthes, who would take
over the school at Zeno's death, from Assos ; Philonides from Thebes ; Callipus
from Corinth, Posidonius from Alexandria, Athenodorus from Soli, and Zeno from
Sidon. » (152)
Zeno himself came from Citium, the prime Phoenician colony in the isle of
Cyprus, whose population was largely Phoenician in blood. Believe it or not,
some have been « led to suspect that the ideas behind the cosmopolitanism of the
Stoa were themselves of eastern origin » and « have long posited a link between
the cosmopolitan makeup of the philosophical schools of Athens in the late
classical and early Hellenistic periods and the schools' political and ethical
teachings. » « Unsurprisingly, serious scholarship has never attempted to
describe Zeno's `Semiticness' in any detail, aside from a previous generation's
vague references to `Adamic' theories about the unity of mankind. » Hopefully,
serious scholarship is not short of a sense of humour : « Zeno's ideas about the
nature of belonging in the polis… were, in many ways, those of an outsider. This
is not to suggest that Zeno's foreigness determined his thought ; it is only to
point out that `eastern outsidernesss' seems to have been linked with Stoic
ideas in the minds of Zeno's contemporaries, » and « Given the state of
evidence, it is of course impossible to discover what if any `Semitic' (whatever
that might mean in this context) influences there may have been in Zeno's
thought. » (153) Leaving aside that his father's name, Mneseas (an Hellenised
form Menahem) (154) was « often used by Phoenicians », (155) that he « was often
referred to by his contemporaries as `the Phoenician' » (156), that he was even
mocked by his opponents on that account, and that Polemo, the head of the
Platonic Academy from 314-269 BC, weary of his self-conceit, is said to have
addressed him thus : « You slip in, Zeno, by the garden door--I'm quite aware of
it--you filch my doctrines and give them a Phoenician make-up. » (D.L. VII, 25),
« there seems to be no grounds for » (157) assuming that he was of Phoenician
descent.
« It remains… something of a strange coincidence that the founder of Stoicism
should have come of a race whose language was almost identical with Hebrew, and
from a Greek-Oriental city so near to Tarsus. The connexion of Stoicism with
that region was always a close one. Chrysippus, the `second Founder' of
Stoicism, as he has been called, came from Cilicia, and his successor, another
Zeno, from Tarsus itself. When Paul lived in Tarsus, as a young man, it was
still one of the chief seats of the Stoic philosophy. » (158) It was also
something of a coincidence, which will remain strange and purely accidental for
those who do not grasp the hermetic link between the spreading of commerce and
the spreading of ideas, that Tarsus was also the `home port' of the Cilician
pirates, who, according to Plutarch's account, practiced Mithraicism and
introduced it into Italy. (Vita Pompei, XXIV, 234-236) .
Even a tenth rate philosophical hack such as B. Russell hints at a work which «
suspects » alien influences in Stoicism, a scholarly work which actually goes
further than suspecting alien influences in Stoicism. They can be found in its
ethics, and in its physics and cosmology. (159)
The study of ethics was raised to a new plane of importance by the early Stoics
as a result of their focus on the pre-Aristotelian individualism of the Cynics
and also of the character of the times, as shaped, at least partly, by the
conceptions of previous influential philosophical schools. The scope « for
public life and action was gone, and thus individuality supplanted the idea of
citizenship. To find out the way of happiness for the individual soul, became
now, not one problem among many, but the one great problem for philosophy, to
which all others were to be secondary and subordinate. » In addition to a «
monkish exclusiveness of attention to the subjective and practical well-being of
the individual soul » there was another special cause which contributed greatly
to give its peculiar character to the Stoical school, and which is the source of
much of the interest that attaches to the history of that school. (160)
« Its essence consists in the introduction of the Semitic temperament and a
Semitic spirit into Greek philosophy.
« The meeting of Eastern and Western ideas had been prepared by the conquests of
Alexander, and the production of Stoicism was one of its first fruits. We
moderns have all been imbued with the Semitic spirit in its highest
manifestations by the pages of Holy Writ. Other manifestations of that spirit,
as for instance the Mahomedan religion, exhibit it as an intense, but narrow,
earnestness, averse on the whole to science and art, but tending to enthusiasm
and even fanaticism for abstract ideas of religion or morality. The Semitic
spirit found a new and favourable field for its development in Athens at the
close of the fourth century B.C. If philosophy in general was then tending from
other causes to the exaltation of Ethics over Metaphysics, this tendency just
suited the Semitic moral earnestness. Ethics were taken up by the Phoenician
Zeno, and came out from his hands with a new aspect. A phase of thought now
appears for the first time on Hellenic soil, in which the moral consciousness of
the individual the moral ego is made the centre and starting-point. Such a point
of view, with various concomitant ideas, such as duty and responsibility, and
self-examination, and the sense of shortcoming, and moral self-cultivation, is
familiar to us in the Psalms of David and afterwards in the writings of St.
Paul, but it was not to be found in the conversations of Socrates, nor in the
dialogues of Plato, nor in the Ethics of Aristotle. It was alien indeed from the
childlike and unconscious spirit of the Hellenic mind, with its tendency to
objective thought and the enjoyment of nature. » The following statement should
be pondered over : « Our own views in modern times have been so much tinged with
Hebraism, that the highest degree of moral consciousness seems only natural to
us, and thus Stoicism, which introduced this state of feeling to the ancient
Hellenic world, may be said to have formed a transition step between Greek
philosophy and the modern ethical point of view. So it is that in many modern
books of morals, and even in many practical sermons, we come upon much that has
a close affinity with the modes of thinking of the ancient Stoics, while with
the modes of thinking of Plato and Aristotle such productions have rarely any
affinity at all. » (161)
Against this background, it is clear that the Stoic `apatheia', as « an
`unplugging' from the domain of social mores », may legitimately be associated
with the detachment maintained by the Jews of the Diaspora toward the societies
in which they live (162) As has been already pointed out, the points of contact
between Stoicism and the `Doctrine of Awakening' in terms of askesis are not as
firm as J. Evola assumes them to be. Even if both the Stoic `apatheia' (`without
pathe' : without emotions, without passions) and the Buddhist `(citta) viveka'
mean generically detachment of the mind from passions ; even if 'pathe'
(`passions') was regarded by some Stoics as well as by Cicero, who proposed to
translate `pathe' as `diseases' instead of as `emotions', as `disturbances'
instead of as `suffering', according to the etymology of `pathe' (from the verb
`paschein' (aor. `pathein' : to suffer or endure'), the Stoic understanding of
`pathos' remains far more akin to the popular sense of `dukkha' (`suffering')
than to its deeper, technical sense of `restlessness', `agitation', and
`commotion'. To the Stoics, the `wise man' is the one who is able to distinguish
between what is under his control and what is not under his control ; to some,
`pathe' are to be avoided ; to others, they should be eliminated, whereas the
`Doctrine of Awakening' insists that nothing can even be said to be `ours' and
adopts a realistic approach to the issue by teaching that `asava' (`mania'), not
being avoidable or destructible, can only be overcome. « The Stoics said the
goal of human beings is to live consistently with or according to nature. They
also said that the goal can be described by other expressions all of which are,
perhaps, equally valid : in particular, `life according to reason', `life
according to virtue', and `happiness' or `the attainment of happiness'. All
these expressions have the same denotation, and cumulatively they may give the
impression that the central principles of Stoic ethics are a series of vicious
circles : one should live according to nature because this accords with reason ;
one should live rationally because this accords with nature, etc. » (163) Even
though the author of these lines applies to prove in the rest of his study that
the impression is wrong, credit must be given to him for not attempting to
provide the reader with, so to speak, a turnkey scholarly solution to the
vicious circle of Stoicism and, through the very words he uses to characterise
the issue, for enabling us to go to the bottom of it without transition :
detachment from the substratum of existence, from all attachment
(`upadhi-viveka') is completely lacking from Stoic ethics, which is only
concerned with life, and, within life, with the moral conduct of man, with the
ordering of one's own life according to the so-called `law of nature', to
`reason', a `reason' common to all, which in turn is supposed to be the
manifestation of a `universal reason' called `logos'.
The samsaric nature of Stoic teachings is even reflected in the metaphor Zeno
uses to describe happiness as a result of living in accordance with `virtue' and
in agreement with `nature' : a « good flow of life ».
Semitic influences are also striking in Stoic physics and cosmology. They are
essentially of Chaldean origin. (164)
« Everywhere it [Stoicism] devoted itself to the task of justifying popular
worships, sacred narratives, and ritual observances. In Greece, it was able
without much difficulty to come to terms with cults more formalistic than
doctrinal, more civic than moral, in which no authority demanded assent to
definite dogmas. A system of accommodating allegories could readily put on gods
or myths a physical, ethical, or psychological interpretation, which reconciled
them with the cosmology or ethics of the Porch. In the East, where more
theological religions always implied a more definite conception of the world,
the task appeared much less easy. Yet certain profound affinities reconciled
stoicism with Chaldean doctrines. Whether these did or did not contribute to the
development of the ideas of Zeno, they offer a singular analogy to his
pantheism, which represented ethereal Fire as the primordial principle and
regarded the stars as the purest manifestation of its power. Stoicism conceived
the world as a great organism, the `sympathetic' forces of which acted and
re-acted necessarily upon one another, and was bound in consequence to attribute
a predominating influence to the celestial bodies, the greatest and the most
powerful of all in nature, and its… Destiny, connected with the infinite
succession of causes, readily agreed also with the determinism of the Chaldeans,
founded, as it was, upon the regularity of the sidereal movements. Thus it was
that this philosophy made remarkable conquests not only in Syria but as far as
Mesopotamia. » (165) This interactive movement of ideas was « definitively to
introduce astrology together with star-worship into the philosophy of the Stoa »
(166) through the views of Zeno. « For us the person who almost alone represents
this fusion of East and West is Posidonius of Apamea [in Syria]… but the
preparations for this fusion were undoubtedly made by his predecessors. It is
remarkable that the great astronomer, Hipparchus [of Nicaea, in Bythinia], whose
scientific theories… are directly influenced by Chaldean learning, was also a
convinced supporter of one of the leading doctrines of stellar religion… » (167)
The scientific findings of Chaldean astrology « won such prestige for their
beliefs that they spread from the Far East to the Far West, and even now their
sway has not been wholly overthrown. In mysterious ways they penetrated as far
as India, China, and Indo-China, where divination by means of the stars is still
practised at the present day, and reached perhaps even the primitive centres of
American civilisation. In the opposite direction they spread to Syria, to Egypt,
and over the whole Roman world, where their influence was to prevail up to the
fall of paganism and lasted through the Middle Ages up to the dawn of modern
times. » (168) « We shall be struck with the power of this sidereal theology,
founded on ancient beliefs of Chaldean astrologers, transformed in the
Hellenistic age under the two fold influence of astronomic discoveries and Stoic
thought, and promoted, after becoming a pantheistic Sun-worship, to rank of
official religion of the Roman Empire. » (169)
In this respect too, « it may be said that Stoicism was a Semitic philosophy. »
(170)
« In the first century bce and first century ce, many prominent astrologers
(e.g., Manilius, Chaeremon) were also Stoics, and a number of influential Stoics
(esp. Posidonius) defended astrological divination on philosophical grounds.
Inasmuch as this philosophical stamp of approval seems to have facilitated the
positive reception of astrology among Roman elites, it also became a locus for
polemics against the Stoics themselves. » (171) There was a Greek reaction, and,
later, an even stronger Roman reaction against these alien influences, which
were perceived as such : « In Hellenistic historiography, knowledge about the
stars—both `scientific' and divinatory—exemplified the `alien wisdom' that the
Greeks borrowed from ancient `barbarian' nations. After the initial
appropriation and subsequent criminalization of astral divination under Augustus
(63 bce-14 ce), its traditional association with non-Greek nations started to
take on more negative connotations. When early imperial Roman and Romanized
authors begin trying to extricate the `scientific' study of the stars from
astral divination (esp. horoscopic astrology), it is often with appeal to the
suspiciously foreign origins of the latter, which becomes increasingly
assimilated to the category of `magic' (e.g., Pliny, Nat. hist. 30.1V ). » (172)
From 33 BCE to 93 CE, astrologers were regularly banned from Rome or executed,
because of proven or suspected fraud and manipulation, both personal and
political. Astrology « —as a politically destabilizing force and as a powerful
tool for (mis)leading the masses—is » a concept « to which Josephus appeals in
his Jewish War, when he recounts the fascination with celestial portents and the
misinterpretations thereof, that contribute to the outbreak of the Jewish revolt
against Rome (War 6.288V ). » (173) « What proves significant is the fact that
early Jewish attitudes towards astronomy/astrology were not wholly negative. On
the contrary, some of Josephus' predecessors seem to have embraced the view of
astronomy/astrology as an emblem of extreme antiquity and as an integral part of
humankind's scientific progress—such that Abraham's Chaldean origins and
astronomical/astrological associations could serve the positive purpose of
asserting the place of the Jewish people in world history. » (174) On that
basis, the equation established by Pliny, sensitive as he was to the Jewish
problem, between the threat of magic and the threat of foreign invasion and
cultural contamination takes on its full meaning ; for similar reasons, Pliny
and Celsius recognised an eastern cult such as Christianity as a threat to
public order, and could most probably see that Cynicism and Stoicism were not so
much rivals as they were objective allies, since « The latter counted their
adherents by the hundreds where the preaching philosopher might pick up an
occasional adherent. The importance of the philosophers for the spread of
non-Roman beliefs lies chiefly in the fact that they reached all classes of
society, and, different as they seem from the cult-associations of the various
foreign deities, they really represented the same emotional need as the latter.
» (175) Astrology, however, was never formally outlawed in Rome, where it had
the full support of the mob, which was increasingly made up of Near- and
Middle-Easterners, and where most emperors, who were no longer of Roman stock
for most of them, employed astrologers (note that in Italy they were not called
`magi' but `mathematicii') at their courts.
More generally, philosophy in the Greco-Roman world tended to play a subversive
role in all areas as soon as its tenor became individualistic, causing an actual
shift from objective investigation to the subjective ground of practical, and
especially political, concerns, and, as has been seen, its tenor became
increasingly individualistic, ethical and political as the number of
philosophers of Asian or North African stock grew. Already « The presocratics
were in general politically active and influential, combining ethereal and
abstruse contemplation of the cosmos with aggressive political engagement »
(176) so much so that, in the latter fifth and early fourth centuries, they came
under fire from dissatisfied citizens. « First, the scientific studies of the
cosmologists deal with phenomena that are remote and propose theories that are
not testable. Second, these studies are irrelevant to the needs of society and
unhelpful for the education of the individual. Third techniques of debate and
argument can be used indifferently to support true and false positions and hence
are potentially harmful. Fourth, the theories of the philosophers are impious
and subversive of traditional values. » (177) With full awareness of the danger,
an Athenian, Sophocles of Sunium, introduced a law « forbidding the
establishment of a philosophical school without the express permission of the
Athenian assembly and `boule' ; failure to gain that prior permission was to be
punishable by death. » (178) Unfortunately for Athens, the law was soon declared
unlawful because it was held to have been a violation of the right of free
religious association (you read it right : « a violation of the right of free
religious association. »), (179) and Athens was again in the Greco-Roman world
the only safe `home port' of the philosophers and of the rhetoricians, the only
place where `free thinkers' flowing in from all over the Near-East and North
Africa as exiles or ambassadors, could settle and practice without fear of being
banished, despite Plato and Aristotle's opposition to their teachings, and
despite the fact that a certain number of Athenian citizens felt that philosophy
was unpatriotic and, therefore, dangerous. Whether or not Cato the Elder, who
was not the only one to perceive the influence of eastern Mediterranean
religions as potentially subversive, saw the cause and effect relationship
between the a- and even `anti-politeia' of `philo-sophia' and the foreign origin
of most philosophers, the fact is that he clearly saw the danger posed by
philosophers and had Carneades and his crew, who had been sent from Athens to
Rome as ambassadors, sent back again to Greece, and had them subsequently
banished from Rome, where philosophy was held up in ridicule in comedies of the
period, until Rome conquered Greece, many young Romans had the opportunity to
become acquainted with `Greek' philosophy, and men such as Cato were no longer
there to deal with it. (180)
Taking note of the fact that Thales is said, included by Herodotus, to have been
of Phoenician ancestry and to have fled from Phoenicia to Miletos, W. K. C.
Guthrie writes that « it would be interesting to find a trace of Semitic blood
at the very beginning of Greek philosophy. » The controversy about the origin of
Greek philosophy is not new, since Diogenes Laertius relates disapprovingly that
« philosophy had its rise among the barbarians. »
In any case, « les chiens ne font pas des chats. »
(134) Glotz, G., Ancient Greece at Work : An Economic History of Greece from the
Homeric, Hildesheim : Georg Olms Verlag, 1987, p. 187.
(135) Ibid., pp. 187-88.
(136) Ibid. p. 190.
(137) Richter, D., S., op. cit., p. 57.
(138) Henrichs, A., in `Harvard Studies in Classical Philology', vol. 88, 1984,
p. 140
(http://www.spiritual-minds.com/religion/Gnosticts/The%20Sophists%20and%20Hellen\
istic%20Religion,%20Prodicus%20as%20the%20Spiritual%20Father%20of%20the%20ISIS%2\
0Aretalogies.pdf). John S. Nelson (What Should Political Theory be Now ? Albany,
N.Y. : State University of New York, 1983, p. 219) speaks of the « Sophistic
counter-tradition », without fully realising how appropriate the term is ; it is
no exaggeration to say (Perkinson, H. J., How Things Got Better : Speech,
Writing, Printing, and Cultural Change, Westport, CT : Bergin & Garvey, 1995, p.
47), despite the anachronistic use of the expression « Western civilization »,
that « The intellectual and moral arguments of Plato and Aristotle against the
Sophists (and the destruction of the written works of the Sophists by the
disciples of Plato and Aristotle) branded the Sophists as enemies of the Western
civilization. »
(139) Ibid., p. 56. It is noteworthy that Carvakas appear to have been Brahmans,
albeit apostate.
(140) Ibid., p. 77.
(141) Guénon, R., Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, Hillsdale :
Sophia Perennis, translated by M. Pallis, 2d revised edition, 2001, p. 134.
(142) Haight, E. H., Essays on Ancient Fiction, New York : Longmans, Green and
Co, 1936, p. 87.
(143) « A borrowing and transformation of diatribe occurred, so that "Jewish
traditions and midrashic methods of interpretation were acquainted with
Hellenistic rhetorical and literary methods." » Gadenz, P. T., Called from the
Jews and from the Gentiles : Pauline Ecclesiology in Romans 9-11, Tuebingen :
Mohr Siebeck, 2009, p. 36.
(144) In Navia, L. E., Classical Cynicism : A Critical Study, Westport, CT :
Greenwood Press, 1996, p. 67.
(145) Fairey, E., Slavery in the Classical Utopia : A Comparative Study,
ProQuest, 2006, p. 59
(http://www.emilyfairey.info/drupal/sites/default/files/SlaveryintheClassicalUto\
pia.pdf).
(146) Foucault, on the basis of the similarity between the Greek words for money
(`noumisma') and law (`nomos'), interpreted this oracle as a command to break
the rules ; more generally, he saw « the Cynics' extreme, indeed scandalous,
pursuit of the true life as an inversion of, a kind of carnivalesque grimace
directed toward, the Platonic tradition. » Bernauer, J., Rasmussen, D., The
Final Foucault, MIT Press, 1988, p. 110.
(147) Sayre, F., op. cit. p. 46.
(148) Nakamura, H., A Comparative History Of Ideas, Dehli : Motilal Banarsidass
Publishing, 1992, p. 182.
(149) Navia, L. E., op. cit., p. 20.
(150) See Shea, L., op. cit.
(151) Vogt, K. M., Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City : Political Philosophy in
the Early Stoa, New York : Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 24.
(152) Richter, D. S., pp. 57-58.
(153) Ibid., pp. 57-59.
(154) See Baslez, M. F., Recherches sur les conditions de pénétration et de
diffusion des religions orientales à Délos (IIe-Ier s. avant notre ère), École
Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles, 1977, p. 364 ; Clermont-Ganneau, C.,
Leroux, E., Recueil d'archéologie orientale, vol. 1, Paris, 1888, p. 187.
(155) Wallace, R., The Three Worlds of Paul of Tarsus, London : Routledge, 1998,
p. 57
(156) Richter, D. S., op. cit. p. 58.
(157) Ibid., p. 57.
(158) Bevan, E., Stoics And Sceptics, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1913, p. 14.
(159) They were felt first in the area of language. « Greek… was now being
written by many persons of non-Hellenic or at least mixed descent. Again the
vocabulary of educated men had become enormously more technical. Someone has
said that Plato had been able to construct a system without using more than one
technical word. If we turn to… the Stoics, we find that a whole vocabulary of
technical terms must be learnt by heart before their writings become
intelligible. It is true, no doubt, that in some ways an increase in technical
terms marks an advance in thought… but the habit among these writers goes far
beyond what is necessary. Simple verbs are abandoned for compounds without any
gain in expressiveness ; abstract terms are found everywhere, and so on. » Bury,
J. B., The Hellenistic Age ; Aspects of Hellenistic civilization treated by J.
B. Bury [and others], Cambridge : University Press, 1923, pp. 34-35.
If we turn now to the Sophists, it is also worth mentioning in this respect that
« questions of language, philology, and grammar of absorbing interest to them
[the Sophists] had already been introduced by such great Indians as Yaska and
Panini. These two scholars had finished their important studies on language
before such considerations had arisen in Greece. » Riepe, D. M. Naturalistic
Tradition in Indian Thought, Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass Publishing, 1996, p.
55.
(160) Grant, A., Sir, The Ethics of Aristotle, vol. 1, London : Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1885, p. 308.
(161) Ibid., pp. 309-310.
(162) See Zizek, S., The Puppet and the Dwarf : The Perverse Core of
Christianity, Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2003. Chap. 2 ; see also Charrier, J.
P., La construction des arrière-mondes : La Philosophie Captive 1, Editions
L'Harmattan, 2011, chap. 4. On a related matter, it has been observed that the
portrayal of Babylonian rabbis is parallel in several respects to the Sophists
and rhetors who derived primarily from the eastern half of the Roman empire in
the second and third centuries CE. Among Sophists known from the second century,
there are Asiarchs and high priests
(http://www.wosco.org/books/Philosophy/Greek_Sophists_in_the_Roman_Empire.pdf).
(163) Long, A. A., Stoic Studies, Berkeley : University of California Press,
2001, p. 134.
(164) This is put forward in the `Astronomicon', a didactic poem on astrology
composed by Marcus Manilius, a North African Stoic philosopher and astrologer of
the first century A.D, and, in particular, in its preface, a short history of
the origins of astrology, whose tone is distinctly evolutionary. « His account
combines four (typically distinct) themes from earlier treatments of the origins
of human civilization : (1) the revelation of arts by divine culture-heroes, (2)
the role of Nature in facilitating human progress, (3) the development of
sciences by barbarian nations of extreme antiquity, and (4) the slow process by
which animalistic humanity forged themselves into civilized beings by
discovering knowledge under the pressure of Necessity (1.42). » (p. 31) The
institutionalisation of monarchy and priesthood is claimed to have occurred
"beneath the eastern sky, whose lands are severed by the Euphrates or flooded by
the Nile, where the stars return to view and soar above the cities of dusky
nations. » (1, 40-67), and is closely related to the development of systematic
astrology.
(165) Cumont, F., Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, New York :
London : G. P. Putnam's sons, 1912, pp. 68-69.
(166) Ibid., p. 82.
(167) Ibid., p. 70. Regarding Posedonius, he was « a stoic disseminator of the
Chaldean theology at or near its peak of popularity by most civilized races. He
had an enormous reputation and following during the first half of the first
century a.d. Although most of his writings have been lost, it is reasonably
clear that he melded the Semitic tradition with Greek thought and was an
intellectual mediator between East and West who greatly influenced the thinking
of the aristocracy. He eloquently combined mysticism and learned knowledge of
the day with what modern historians call the exact sciences in a system that
included an enthusiastic adoration of the powers of nature and the God who
permeates the universal organism. Cicero attended his lectures. He inspired much
literature from his followers, including the famous Astronomies of Manilius. His
ideas are reflected in the works of Seneca. This permeation of stellar concepts
into intellectual circles ultimately became widespread among all classes at the
same time that the seeds of Christianity were being planted. » Willner, J.,
Westin, L., The Perfect Horoscope, New York : Paraview Press, 2001, pp. 33-34.
(168) Ibid., p. 73-74.
(169) Ibid., p. 99.
(170) Ibid. The « key operational term `Semitic' » is considered « nebulous » by
most modern students of Stoicism. Oddly, the term « Greek » is not. Besides,
they « possess little information pertaining to the cultural views of the
non-Hellenic peoples of the Near East during this period. » Obviously, they are
not able to infer the race of the spirit of these people from their culture,
their beliefs, their art, their economy, etc. As to the « antecedents » that can
be readily found for precisely those views that some scholars have mistakenly
and invidiously labelled `Semitic' » (Bryant, J. M., Moral Codes and Social
Structure in Ancient Greece, Suny Press, 1996), what if they are essentially
Semitic themselves ? What is truly pathetic is that such people cannot even
write the word `Semitic' without putting it in quotation marks.
A `circulus in probando' is also used here : « But I think that the Oriental
element introduced into Greek philosophy by the early Stoics has been
exaggerated by some recent writers. There is hardly an element in early Stoic
doctrine which cannot be traced back to an earlier Greek origin. The most we can
say is that their contacts with the Eastern, especially the Semitic world may
have made the Stoics inclined to emphasize, as they certainly did emphasize and
develop some doctrines which were probably of Chaldaean-Semitic origin but which
had appeared in Greek philosophy as early as Plato… » Armstrong, A. H., An
Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, p. 119.
(171) http://www.annettereed.com/reed_abraham.pdf, p. 33.
(172) Ibid., p. 4.
(173) Ibid., p. 34.
(174) Ibid., p. 9.
(175) Radin, M, The Jews among the Greeks and Romans, Philadelphia : Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1915, p. 241.
(176) http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/84456/1/ezl_1.pdf, p. 9.
(177) Gagarin, M., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, New York
: Oxford University Press, 2010 vol. 1, p. 22.
(178) O'Sullivan, L., The Law of Sophocles and the Beginnings of Permanent
Philosophical Schools in Athens, `Rheinisches Museum für Philologie', 145, 2002,
p. 251. At the same time, the Jewish propaganda in Attica was rife : often the
heathen gods were conceived by Jewish writers « to be not absolute nullities,
but demons really existing and evil— a belief which the early Christian church
firmly held and preached. » « Even books intended primarily for Jewish
circulation contain polemics against polytheism and attacks upon heathen custom,
which the avowed purpose of the book would not justify. » (Radin, M, op. cit.,
p. 159) Despite the widespread existence of this Jewish anti-Greek propaganda,
there does not appear to have been attempts at checking it.
(179) von Wilamovitz-Moellendorff, U., Antigonos von Karastos, Philologische
Untersuchungen 4, Berlin, 1881, p. 271. In our countries, the right of free
religious association willingly granted by the occupying power is precisely one
of the most effective legalistic screens behind which the leaders of the
extra-European mob that this power has been importing hide their subversive
political agenda.
(180) Fabre d'Olivet is correct in stating that Cato, « hearing Carneades speak
against justice, denying the existence of virtues… and questioning the
fundamental verities of religion, held in contempt a science which could bring
forth such arguments. He urged the return of the Greek philosophy, so that the
Roman youth might not be imbued with its errors ; but the evil was done. The
destructive germs that Carneades had left, fermented secretly in the heart of
the State, developed under the first favourable conditions, increased and
produced at last that formidable colossus, which, after taking possession of the
public mind, having obscured the most enlightened ideas of good and evil,
annihilated religion, and delivered the Republic to disorder, civil wars and
destruction ; and raising itself again with the Roman Empire, withering the
principles of the life it had received, necessitated the institution of a new
cult and thus was exposed to the incursion of foreign errors and the arms of the
barbarians. This colossus, victim of its own fury, after having torn and
devoured itself was buried beneath the shams that it had heaped up… » As much as
his diagnosis of the ills from which the Graeco-Roman world suffered is
accurate, the cure he thinks he has found in Zeno, « raised up » by « Providence
» to oppose the ravages of Pyrrhonism, then in Descartes and in Bacon, is worse
than the disease. (The Golden Verses of Pyhagoras, New York and London : G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1917, p. 203-204).