The development of the Christian doctrine of freedom in the gospels is
essentially the work of Paul. It will be seen that Paul's epistles and some of
the Synoptic gospels are informed by beliefs connected with the crystallisation
of the subjectivist and antitraditional concept of `eleutheria' in the
aforementioned ancient `Greek' sects and schools of philosophy critical of the
ethos of civic society. (94)
While disregarding the possibility of a direct intellectual filiation between
Paul and Sophism, some of his commentators cannot help being puzzled by the
wealth of rhetorical sophistication he displays in his very critique of the
sophistic Corinthian movement in 1 Corinthians 1.4-9, some of them going so far
as to acknowledge that « In tabulating his credentials and achievements, Paul
initially must have sounded like any sophist who proves his life is a witness, »
(95) especially when he urges the Corinthians to « imitate » him and « boast »
in him, precisely as the Sophists did their leaders. However that may be,
whether Paul reversed the pattern of sophistic boasting (3:18-23) or simply
applied it with full knowledge, as an `initiate' ; whether or not he was thus
familiar with the elements of Sophistic logic and, if so, whether or not he was
fully aware of his indebtedness to Sophism, the fact remains that he was at one
with the antitradional use of the antithesis between `nomos' and `physis' that
was once popularised by some Sophists. Indeed, Paul made use of the former as
antithetical to the latter to draw a contrast between the human, particular law
and the `law of nature' - which is used in Romans and Galatians as a synonym for
`inward law'. Besides, Paul replaced `nomos' with suneidesis (a so-called «
universal aspect of human consciousness ») and `physis' with `pistis'. « Nomos »
is regarded, with « sin's dominion » and "death, » as an obstacle to freedom,
which can only be brought by faith in Jesus. As a result, the disdain and
disregard for commonly held values and virtues that was professed in (popular)
Cynicism was promoted (Gal 4.8-10, Col. 2.8-10), only more aggressively. «
Paul's `pagan' Galatian converts were encouraged to abandon all their more
obvious social markers - festivals, dietary and other purity rules, all codes
regulating social rank, race and gender, rules that structured civic life. These
were to be seen not as enabling, but enslaving ; renounce them for Christ , and
you would enjoy a real freedom. » (96) Because of this and other aspects of his
teaching, « It is hard to imagine how Paul could have been seen as anything
other than a renegade Cynic Jew. Cynics were the only other people around who
reached these very negative conclusions, acted on them themselves, and urged
others to emulate them. » (97) Besides, « As a Hellenistic Pharisee (Phil 3.5)
Paul would almost certainly have been aware of Stoicism and its discussion of
`the law' (as were the author of 4 Maccabees, and Josephus, and Philo ; and if
Luke is right in placing Paul's origin in Tarsus, that had a strong Stoic
tradition). Paul would then have been aware of Cynicism as the original nurse
and continuing sparring-partner of Stoicism. » (98) The theme of renunciation of
material possessions, the first step toward Cynic `freedom', that was taken by
Crates when, after having donated all of his property to his home city, he cried
out in the midst of the `ekklesia' : « Crates, son of Crates, sets Crates free,
» will not fall on deaf ears in the early Christian communities : « The
wandering Cynic philosophers will find counterparts among the earliest Christian
wandering charismatics. They, too, will renounce home, families and possessions…
The words of Epictectus… are illustrative : "I lie on the bare earth ; I have no
wife, no children, no little mansion - only earth and heaven and one large cloak
Yet what do I lack? Am I not free from cares, without fear? Am I not free?"
(Dissertationes III 22.46-8). »
« An analogous radical ethos is to be found in the Gospels. According to Mark
(10:1 7ff) radical discipleship calls for renunciation of possessions and
according to Matthew (6:25) `In the last resort, what is required is inner
freedom from possessions, and freedom towards providence'. » (99)
Traditionally, `Euletharia' was the privilege of free men, of citizens, citizens
of a particular ethnically and geographically-bound `polis', who, as such, were
full-fledged participants in its political life, and who, however, were free
only under the law (`nomos)'. None of the numerous occurrences of `eleutheria'
in Paul's epistles bear the remotest relation with its original political
meaning. `Eleutheria' is not conceived of as freedom for something', as a
starting point reserved for a minority on the basis of their birth, but as
`freedom from things', as a point of arrival - for all. (100) « For the Stoics,
cosmopolitanism involved the affirmation of moral obligations toward humans
anywhere in the world because they all share in a common faith, regardless of
their different political, religious, and other particular affiliations. The
Stoic cosmopolitans held the view that all humans live together "as it were in
one state." (101) They conceived of this community in moral terms. They used
world citizenship as a metaphor for common membership in a single moral
community. » In the Christian discourse, `common faith" replaces Stoic `common
rationality'.
The criterion of `politeia' (citizenship') was altered accordingly. The
criterion of participation in the `ekklesia' - the main assembly of Athenian
democracy - applied by Paul is `pistis' (`faith') in connection with `pneuma'
(`spirit'). (102) « Whereas Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle
conceptualised freedom as freedom to perform one's public duties, a freedom
which could be exercised only in a polis, now freedom acquired a personalised
and autonomous meaning. Freedom is no longer dependant upon the existence of a
specific political organisation, rather it is potentially available to all ; an
inner state which can be experienced irrespective of social and political
orders. » (103) For Aristotle, « eleutheria is, politically, the very end of a
city, ethically, the end of an individual, » (104) it being understood that the
latter's end cannot be achieved independently of the former's. These
complementary aims are stoically uncoupled in Paul's epistles. The new doctrine
of `freedom' is defined by moral choice, whereby « whatever one's social class,
an individual who was properly aligned internally could attain a freedom of
choice, but one construed ethically as well as ontologically. » (105) Both in
Paul and in Stoicism, as well as in the whole philosophical current from which
Stoicism stemmed, freedom is translated from the political to the moral, from
the objective to the subjective, from the common to the personal. As the whole
political discourse « withdrew in the ethical, the city became internalized, »
freedom was then « found in the provinces of morality and of the afterworld. »
(106) The « Inner freedom » of the Stoics was no longer « attainable only by the
wise, » the « kingdom of God » was now within each and everyone's reach and,
actually, claimed to be within each individual, all the more so as the
apocalyptic and imminent « kingdom of God » was slow in materialising. Whatever
term is applied to qualify the view of citizenship upheld by Paul, it belongs to
the lexical field of abstraction. B. Blumenfeld chooses to call it « mystical ».
Why not ? (107)
It is argued by those who caution against drawing too close an analogy between
Paul's understanding of freedom and the concept of freedom in `Greek'
philosophical schools that their resemblances would be superficial, on the
ground that « While for Paul freedom was based in the grace of God and
charismatic in nature, it was grounded in philosophy and the result of education
for the Stoics. While Paul defined it as being "in Christ," the Stoics insisted
that it was synonymous with educated moral autonomy. While Paul spoke of freedom
from sin, the Stoics advocated freedom from fate… At the very heart of the
matter, Paul and Stoicism are in disagreement. Both speak of surrender and
obedience, but to the one it is to Christ while to the other it is to the inner
law of one's being. The one is theo- and Christo-centric ; the other is
anthropocentric. » (108) ; « The Stoic is free because he is master of himself
through rational thought ; for Paul man's will is corrupt and in himself he is
totally incapable of freedom. The Stoic finds certainty of existence by
self-restriction, and this is freedom ; for Paul responsibility to self drives
man to despair and he can achieve freedom only as he is freed from himself. The
Stoic can separate himself from time and deny the future, thus achieving freedom
by abstraction ; for Paul temporality is inherent in man's nature, so that, even
though conditioned by his past, he continually has to make new decisions for the
future, and he cannot do so, since he is his past and can have freedom only as a
gift of grace, » etc. (109) What is actually superficial is instead this kind of
distinctions, which, no matter how pertinent some of them may be from a
philosophical or theological perspective, are essentially hair-splitting from a
deeper perspective, from which what distinguishes and even separates the Stoic
concept of freedom from Paul's discourse on freedom appears infinitely less
important than what binds them together, their many dissimilarities infinitely
less central than their similarities. Their similarity in nature is often
inadvertently hinted at through arguments about their contrasts, as in the
following statement : « The Stoics… held that freedom is achieved through the
individual's own efforts to live according to nature and virtue, while for Paul
freedom comes to the individual only though God's help, manifested in Christ. »
(110) `Individual' is the key word, the lowest common denominator of freedom in
Paul and of freedom in Stoic philosophy.
The increasing interest in the individual, influenced by the democratic
developments in Athens, or rather, as has been previously stressed, by the
developments of the democratic ideal, (111) hypnotised some into a belief in
human equality and led as a result to the blurring of social, political, and
economic status in the name of moral concern. Masters were admonished to
remember that « the man whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is
smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives
and dies. » (Epistulae, 47:30) To Paul, following in the footsteps of the Stoics
and of Philo (112), it goes without saying that moral comes first over slavery
according to the law, let alone « spiritual slavery » ; slavery of the soul is
more damaging than the slavery of the body. Like Seneca and other Stoics he is
interested in the quality of master/slave relationships. « A vision of the unity
of mankind plays a supporting role in his argument, as it does in Seneca's. »
(113) It is argued that « The comparison breaks down when one looks more closely
at the aims and preoccupations of the two men. Seneca addresses only masters. He
holds out to them, as an incentive for gentle treatment of their slaves (who as
rational beings are their kinsmen), the prospect of present benefits - ranging
from dedicated and sacrificial service from their slaves to release from the
fear of assassination at their hands. Paul, addressing both slaves and masters
indiscriminately, equals in the sight of God, talks of rewards and hints at
punishments in the next world. His message for slaves is that in serving their
masters well they are serving Christ. The instructions to slaves and masters are
to be seen as part of a call to all men, whatever their social, legal or ethnic
condition. » (114) The comparison breaks down only to be made effective again
and even reinforced by a common belief in the equality of all men, a persistent,
recurrent, sneaking, nagging, belief, which, beyond doctrinal and tactical
differences, is the unmistakable hallmark of one and the same current of thought
in the samsaric sense, whether it is externalised in philosophical or religious
forms. In fact, the epistles go further than the late Stoa on the issue of the
relationship between masters and slaves, or, actually, slaves and masters : not
only, unlike Stoics, Paul addresses slaves, appeal to them directly, something
which was most unusual in ancient moral instruction, but, as has been noted, the
apostle addresses the inferiors, the slaves first in this pair of relationship.
Besides, « If society thought of slaves as property, Paul addressed them as
people. If the law required obedience, Paul makes the life of slavery into an
act of devotion, where service to Christ is the highest good. »
« Likewise, Paul encourages masters to work out their relationship with their
slaves in ways that tangibly demonstrate their equality in Christ. They are to
apply the Golden Rule to their treatment of slaves : "Masters, treat your slaves
justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven" (Col.
4:1). Since the Lord is the master of all masters and slaves, of both masters
and slaves, slave-holders should remain aware "whatever good we do, we will
receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves free" (Eph. 6.8). »
(115) One has either to have no idea of the nature of slavery in Paul's day, so
widely accepted an institution that it did not occur anyone to attack it, at
least head-on, or, most probably in this case, to treat it as immaterial, to
state that « The social attitudes he betrays in addressing slaves and their
masters are conventional and conservative. The first and crucial instruction as
set out in 1 Corinthians is that slaves should stay precisely where they are
without resentment, in the knowledge that it makes no difference to Christ
whether one is a slave or a free man. » Indeed, no sooner has Paul instructed
slaves to be content to remain in whatever position they were in when they
became Christians (1 Corinthians 7.20) than he encouraged them to do the
contrary : « Wast thou called, being a bondman ? care not for it ; but if thou
mayest be made free, use it rather. » (1 Corinthians 7.21). (116)
There is something deeply, cunningly subversive about the treatment of the
relationship between slaves and masters in the epistles. When Paul « emphasizes
that singleness of heart is expected of the slave, but masters are to show
justice and also equality (isotes) toward slaves… This means more than simply
"justly" and "fairly." It is a recognition that subtly subverts the social
stratification itself (3:22-4:1) by utilizing the language of "fellowship" and
"friendship" (koinonia) — terms reminiscent of Philippians — to describe a
relationship that was anything but koinonia in the ancient world.. Paul
relativizes the entire social system by placing it within the critical framework
of the "good news" from God. » (117)
This implies that « Paul… brings the principle of transcendence to bear on the
social arrangements and attitudes themselves. Submission is conditioned by the
measure of what is "fitting in the Lord" (3: 18)... Moreover, slaves are to
serve as those "fearing the Lord" (3:22) and as though they are "serving the
Lord rather than humans" (3:23), because they are, in fact, "serving the Lord
Christ" (3.24). » (118)
This also implies that « any form of stratification will be in tension with the
community ideal of "neither slave nor free, neither Jew nor Greek" (3:11) and
"neither male nor female" (Gal. 3:28). » (119) The fact that the relationship of
slave and master is defined as a relationship which takes place under God, who
is master of both the slave and the master, and before whom both the slave and
the master are thus fundamentally equal, cannot but have deep social
implications in the long run. 1 Tim. 6:1-2 shows clearly that the slaves who
were told by Paul that they were equal to their masters before God took his
message most literally. More generally, there is no indication that the gospels
were understood only symbolically by a large part of the mass of « worthless and
contemptible people, idiots, slaves, poor women, and children », which, as
implicitly acknowledged in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, made up the target audience of
the first evangelists (for that matter, Paul's audience, too, of which we are
told that it was far more literate, far more familiar with the Jewish
scriptures, than the earlier Christian communities, may just as well be regarded
by the standards of Celsius as having been made up of « worthless and
contemptible people, idiots, slaves… »).
There is no intrinsic contradiction between 1 Tim. 6:1-2 or even Gal. 3:11 and
various other passages of the epistles in which slaves are commanded, or rather
advised, to obey their `masters'. The latter are addressed to the small world of
the nascent and heterogeneous Christian community, the former to a much desired
Christian world, in which tension is ideally resolved and « there is neither
slave nor free ».
Paul's imagery and discourse on the relationship between masters and slaves are
consistent with Jesus'. « Jesus, in spite of the (underdeveloped (sic)) message
of liberation found in Luke's Gospel, never acted to abolish slavery. But
neither did he legitimate it. In spite of violent slave uprisings, like the one
led by Spartacus (c. 70 BCE) resulting in the eventual crucifixion of 6600 of
his followers along the Appian Way, no one in the first century wrote
abolitionist tracts or even questioned the legitimacy of slavery. The fact that
slavery is a constant motif in Jesus' preaching (Matt. 13:24–30 ; 18:23–35 ;
22:1–14 ; 24:45–51 ; 25:14–30 ; Mark 12:1–12 ; Luke 14:15–24 ; 15:11–32 ;
20:9–19) is itself unique. Placed within the context of the Gospels' overall
message, in which the Messiah is depicted as both slave (doulos) and Lord
(kyrios), and in which this lordship is attained by becoming a slave (Phil.
2:5–11), a subversive view of slavery begins to coalesce.
« When Jesus employs slavery as a metaphor for understanding our relationship to
God, he is giving primacy to one relationship above all others : God makes an
absolute and exclusive demand upon the life of each believer. As Jesus has
taught : "no slave can serve two masters" (Luke, 16:13). Rather than
legitimating the practice of slavery, the analogous use of slavery for
understanding our relationship to God—when properly understood (sic) —radically
transforms all other relationships. » (120) Likewise, Paul does not explicitly
condemn slavery or call for the abolition of slavery, yet his use of slavery as
a metaphor for humankind's relationship to God builds upon Jesus' own in order
to eliminate difference between slave and free.
Pauline usage of metaphorical slave language, the apostle self-identification to
« a slave of Christ » and, in general, Pauline « theology of slavery » can be
best understood when viewed against the Old Testament background. « Slavery was
an accepted, structural element in the society of ancient Israel, but Slavery
was the fate of others, not of Jews. Jews could be subjected only to temporary
slavery, unless they chose to stay with their masters (Exodus 11:1-7 ; Deut.
I5:11-18). Accordingly, slavery (of Jews) to men was defined as bad slavery.
The alternative to slavery to men was slavery to God, which can be labelled as
good slavery. Moses, Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs were slaves of God.
So for that matter were the whole chosen people of God. They had been freed from
slavery in Egypt to be the slaves of their God (e.g. Lev. 15:41 and 55), and
were firmly instructed not to become slaves of men. » (121) Israel was
identified as God's slaves. It has been rightly noted that « slavery to God
became an intricate part of Jewish self-understanding... an emblem that helped
to show a perception of a distinctive relation with God. » (122) and helped them
to identify themselves in relation to the rest of the world.
This shade of meaning of the title « slave » would have gone unnoticed by the
Gentiles which made up most of Paul's audience and readership, that would have
understood Paul's use of the word in the same way as they perceived themselves
as actual slaves and, in any case, would unlikely have been as able as modern
scholars to discriminate between cases where `doulos' was employed in its Greek
senses and cases where it carried meanings foreign to the Greek. In general,
however, the lexical form of the New Testament is Greek, and its substance is
Jewish. (123) The view, shared both by some anti-Semitic milieux and by certain
scholars, that Christianity is essentially a universalisation of the depths of
Judaism is given further credibility by Paul's ambiguous and ambitious use of
the term' Christos', which can be translated both as `Christ' or `Messiah' and
can recall the Old Testament use of `the Servant', and by the continuity of
thought which a close reading of the original Greek betrays between the Epistle
to the Ephesians and the Old Testament : « In a very true sense St Paul does not
regard the Christian Society, the Church, as a new Society : it is rather the
direct, and true, and legitimate continuation and development of the old Divine
Society, the covenant people of Israel. » (124) Generally speaking, it has been
showed conclusively that Semitic sources played a constitutive role in the
composition of more than one Gospel, (125) something which, in the light of the
presence of specific Stoic (or Cynic) elements, whether linked to the concept of
freedom or not, in Mark, Matthew and Luke, would not have surprised the
Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Aristobolus, who perceived « the correspondence
in point of view between the Stoic philosophers and the Jewish scriptures to be
the result— not of the Jewish thinkers having read and been influenced by the
Stoics, but of the Stoics having read and been persuaded by Moses ! He declares,
"It seems to me that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato with great care follow
[Moses] in all respects. They copy him when they say they hear the voice of God,
when they contemplate the arrangement of the universe, so carefully made and so
unceasingly held together by God." » (126)
Paul's deductions regarding freedom can be fully understood only in a wider
context than that of Jewish history and beliefs. The notion that Jehovah had
become a special protector of Israel and the Hebrews as a whole had turned into
God's slaves reflected royal court language in which subjects of the king were
often called slaves, not only in ancient Israel, but throughout the ancient Near
East. Most of Israel's patriarchs, kings, and prophets are spoken of as servants
or slaves of Jehovah, while the officials of Oriental kings already called
themselves their servants or slaves. (127) There is also some evidence that the
absolute monarchs of Persia would regard their subjects as slaves. (128) Three
points should be noted in this respect : first, Semitic and Oriental peoples «
did not regard this notion of slavery as repulsive, but as a common way of
identifying with the god(s) they worshipped. » (129) Interestingly enough, the
words for `slave', `servant', and `worshipper' derive from the same root in
Semitic languages. Secondly, at least in ancient Mesopotamia, « … apart from the
special attention given to awelum in the Code of Hammurabi — usually translated
"seignior" — there seems to be no special designation for a `free' man. There is
no notion of a person `free' in a political sense. (130) Third, Patterson finds
the idea expressed in prehistoric Mesopotamia and even Africa that all who serve
the ruler are « slaves of the king, » and tries to justify it by arguing that «
Since only the king-god was free, the only freedom worth having was that which
came vicariously in enslavement to him. » In fact, « a king's subjects took an
oath by the gods to guard and protect him, so that their servitude to him was
ultimately a servitude to the gods, » yet, at least in the Near East, kings were
slaves too - of the gods. (131)
To conclude with this overview on the genesis and development of the concept of
`freedom' in the ancient Greco-Roman world as a preliminary to the study of the
influence of the Christian concept of freedom on the early Germanic
`Genossenschaft', suffice it to say that the full conceptualisation of freedom
occurred, first as a political and social category, under the influence of non
aristocratic elements (« Neither in Greece nor in Rome was the concept of
freedom invented and made politically useful by the elite. In Rome, on the
contrary, its political dynamism and attractiveness as a catchword in social
conflict was apparently generated by the non-elite citizen's need of protection
against the elite, who, despite all their power and social superiority, depended
on the citizens for the defense of the community. In Greece, the protection of
the external independence of the polis became an issue only when in some of the
leading communities equal political participation had already become a crucial
concern for broad non-elite classes »), (132) only to be used and understood
later in a non political and even a-political sense ; then as an individual
attribute, still, and even more conspicuously, under the influence of alien
conceptions, which will be duly highlighted in the second part of this survey.
These developments were accompanied and shaped by increased abstraction, in
relation to the increasing weight of a « human type, who in order to uphold
values that he cannot realize and that thus appear to him increasingly abstract
and utopian, eventually feels dissatisfied and frustrated before any existing
positive order and any form of authority. » (133)
It is most noteworthy that the word appeared first as an adjective (free), then
as a nominal (the free) and only much later as an abstract noun (freedom)
(1) Raaflaub, K. A., The discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, Chicago : The
University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 30.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid., p. 31.
(4) Ibid., p. 35.
(5) Ibid. A comprehensive comparative study of these two terms in Homeric
literature suggests that « autonomia stresses self-determination, and eleutheria
the absence of foreign rule ; eleutheria is passive, autonomia active ;
eleutheria is a double negative concept (`not unfree'), autonomia a positive one
; eleutheria implies `freedom from something,' autonomia `independence for
something.' » (ibid., p. 154).
(6) Ibid. p. 44-45. Various studies have pointed at the possible link between
`eleutheros' and `liut' (from the Indo-European root * leudh-o), the Old
Germanic word for `people', whereby it may be inferred that this Greek adjective
originally meant the legitimate belonging to an ethnic-bound social and familial
community as the place of development of individual activity. See Berthouzoz OP,
R., Théologien dans le dialogue social, Fribourg : Academic Press, 2006, p. 49.
(7) Raaflaub, K. A., op. cit., p. 24.
(8) Ibid., p. 28.
(9) Ibid., p. 44-45.
(10) « For we are not like many others, descendants of Pelops or Cadmus or
Egyptus or Danaus, who are by nature barbarians, and yet pass for Hellenes, and
dwell in the midst of us; but we are pure Hellenes, uncontaminated by any
foreign element, and therefore the hatred of the foreigner has passed
unadulterated into the life-blood of the city. » (Menexenus 245d)
(11) Stanley, P. V., The Economic Reforms of Solon, St. Katharinen : Scripta
Mercaturae Verlag, 1999, p. 176.
(12) Raaflaub, K. A., op. cit., p. 57.
(13) Davis, R. W., The Origins of Modern Freedom in the West, Stanford :
Stanford University Press, 1995, p. 46. In `Histories', the notion of `nomos' is
« always something essentially and inherently Greek. The famous dialogue between
Xerxes, the barbarian king, and Demaratus, the exiled Spartan king is a perfect
demonstration : Spartans, Demaratus says, are at once free and submissive to a
`master,' the law. The laughter with which Xerxes greets this declaration
indicates his total lack of understanding. » (Brunschwig, J., Le Savoir Grec : A
Guide to Classical Knowledge, Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 645).
(14) Polenz, M., Freedom in Greek Life and Thought : The History of an Ideal,
Dordrecht : D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1996, p. 13.
(15) Dmitriev, S., The Greek Slogan of Freedom and Early Roman Politics in
Greece, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 18.
(16)
http://griceclub.blogspot.fr/2011/04/why-eleutherism-rather-than-liberalism.html\
.
(17) Photopoulos, T., Towards an Inclusive Democracy : The Crisis of the Growth
Economy and Need for a New Liberatory Project, London : Cassell, 1997, p. 179.
(18) Lape, S., Race and Citizen Identity in the Classical Athenian Democracy,
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 25 -
http://historiantigua.cl/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Race-and-Citizen-Identity-in\
-the-Classical-Athenian-Democracy.pdf, p. 6 : « The birth criteria for
citizenship evolved in three stages – from "free birth from an Athenian father,"
to "free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father," to "free and legitimate
birth from an Athenian father and an Athenian mother. » If, as stated p. 25, «
Before the passage of the Periclean citizenship law, there is no evidence that
citizens with known foreign ancestry were considered to be a threat to the polis
or to the democracy", there are strong grounds for thinking that it was simply
because there were then few citizens with foreign ancestry, as immigration from
the Near East was still limited.
(19) Hansen, M. H., In The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes :
Structure, Principles, and Ideology, University of Oklahoma Press Edition, 1999,
translated by J.A. Crook, p. 76.
(20) Patterson, O., Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, 1991, p. 42 ; p.
51.
(21) One aspect of this growing interest in the individual is clearly
illustrated by the philosophical meaning given by the Socratics to the Delphic
precept « know yourself ». While the ancients thought that, in practice, «
self-knowledge can be obtained by some kind of consultation of the `personal
daimon'. » (Betz, H. D., Hellenismus und Urchristentum, Tübingen : Mohr
Siebeck, 1990, p. 160), which implies « that the Delphic maxim orders them to
conjure up their personal daimon and get control of it by magical procedures ;
the Socratics sought it through the outcome of philosophical self-examination,
through a careful examination of their `conscience'. » « They identified the
self with the psyche [daimon]… (which) to the Socratic circle came to mean the
rational faculty. They assumed the main task of life was to care for this psyche
; the word arete (virtue or excellence) was redefined to mean the excellence of
the psyche [ in Homer, `arete' means `martial excellence'] ; caring for it meant
to develop the peculiar excellence of reason and to ensure that reason is
dominant over all other faculties. They thought moral and political life would
be placed on a sound foundation only when all citizens recognized the supremacy
of reason. » (Dawson, D., Cities of the Gods : Communist Utopias in Greek
Thought, New-York-Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 55)
(22) Ibid., p. 9. The deepest meaning of `nomos', from `nemein', `to divide',
`to pasture', for early Hellenes, is perhaps revealed in the following
penetrating remarks : it was the « immediate form in which the political and
social order of a people becomes spatially visible — the initial measure and
division of pasture- land, i.e., the land-appropriation as well as the concrete
order contained in it and following from it… Nomos is the measure by which the
land in a particular order is divided and situated ; it is also the form of
political, social, and religious order determined by this process. Here,
measure, order, and form constitute a spatially concrete unity. The nomos by
which a tribe, a retinue, or a people becomes settled, ie, by which it becomes
historically situated and turns a part of the earth's surface into the
force-field of a particular order, becomes visible in the appropriation of land
and in the founding of a city or a colony. » (Schmitt, C., The Nomos of the
Earth in the International Law of the Jus. Translation and Introduction by G. L.
Ulmen, Telos Press Publishing, 2006, p. 70).
(23) Conklin, W. E., The Invisible Origins of Legal Positivism : A Re-Reading of
a Tradition , Dordrecht : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001, p. 26).
(24) Evola, J., Revolt against the Modern World, Rochester, Vt : Inner
Traditions International, 1995, p. 20-21.
(25) Hall, R. Plato, London : Routledge, 2004, p. 13-14.
(26) See F. Heinimann, Nomos und Physis : Herkunft und Bedeutung einer Antithese
im Griechischen Denken des 5. Jahrhunderts, Darmstadt : Wiss. Buchges., 1980, p.
125.
(27) Hall, R., op. cit., p. 14.
(28) Olson, R., Science Deified and Science Defied : The Historical Significance
of Science in Western Culture, Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of
California Press, 1983, p. 88.
(29) Arguments, if not for racial equality, at least for social equability were
drawn for most of them from scientific themes. For example, in Euripides' `The
Pheonissea', « equality among men is tied to the exact quantitative
considerations that apply to calenderial astronomy, and human ethical
considerations are seen as analogous to the course of inanimate phenomena. »
(ibid. p. 90)
(30) Ibid., p. 91.
(31) Ibid., p. 92.
(32) Ibid., p. 93. As such, as clearly seen by Hegel, Sophism had a tremendous
corrupting effect on Athenian democracy, while it was the forerunner of modern
freedom : « When reflection once comes into play, the inquiry is started whether
the Principles of Law (das Recht) cannot be improved. Instead of holding by the
existing state of things, internal conviction is relied upon ; and thus begins
subjective independent Freedom, in which the individual finds himself in a
position to bring everything to the test of his own conscience, even in defiance
of the existing constitution… This decay even Thucydides notices, when he speaks
of everyone's thinking that things are going on badly when he has not a hand in
the management. » (Hegel, G. W. F., The Philosophy of History, New York : Dover,
1956, translated by J. Sibree, p. 253.
(34) Roederer C., Moellendorff, D., Jurisprudence, Lansdowne : Juta and Company
Ltd, p. 31.
(35) Fouchard, A., Aristocratie et démocratie : idéologies et sociétés en Grèce
ancienne, Paris : Les belles lettres, 1998, p. 371. For a discussion of Plato's
attempt at reconciling `nomos' and `physis' in a synthesis, see Hall, R., op.
cit., p. 13-31.
To Plato, `nomos' is not a mere convention, nor is it opposed to `physis' ; on
the contrary, `nomos' is consistent with it. The assumption that `nomos' and
`physis' are antithetical results from a misapprehension about the term `physis'
: « It is his view that physis has been misconstrued by the upholders of
these-doctrines [the Sophists] ; they have, in fact, reversed the natural order
of things. What these thinkers refer to as `natural' and `primary', is actually
secondary and derivative, and that to which they refer as `natural' and
`secondary' is preeminently natural. Presumably basing their thought on Greek
cosmological speculation, these modern wise misuse the term `nature' to signify
the chance processes by which the primary substances (on their view, fire,
earth, air and water) were created. Soul was derived from these at a later
stage, along with those things related to the soul (ta psyches). This, Plato
claims, is the source of the "senseless opinions of all those who have ever
undertaken investigations into nature." » (Byron, S., Plato's Resolution of the
Nomos-Physis Antithesis, a thesis, MA, McGill University, 1984, p. 56-57) « The
nomos-physis antithesis is a faulty distinction engendered by the erroneous
notion that physis is characterized by material substance and that soul and
those things related to soul are derived from these materials substances at a
later date. Plato demonstrates against this that soul and the things of the soul
are logically prior to material substance and, consequently, are truly natural.
« There is, however, a problem with this account. Plato is sometimes depicted as
a prototypical natural law theorist. And, as Morrow claims, there is little
doubt that Plato foreshadowed and influenced the Stoic conception of the `law of
nature', carrying out the philosophical footwork, so to speak, needed to reunite
the concepts of nomos and physis. In praising the role that intelligence is to
play in legislation and in claiming that laws which fail to promote the good are
not true laws, Plato was clearly formulating ideas developed by subsequent
natural law theorists. » (ibid. p. 59)
The essential complementary of `physis' and `nomos' emerges clearly, as do the
limitations of Plato's attempt at reuniting them, from this most insightful and
powerful gloss of Heidegger's interpretation of the former : « Etymologically,
the term physis derives from the Indo- Germanic root bhu, bheu (corresponding
Greek word is phuo), which means self-emergence, "to emerge, to hold sway, to
come to stand from out of itself and to remain standing". Accordingly the root
meaning of Being denotes the implications of self-subsistence and self-emergence
of entities. Physis is Being itself, which is by nature in-itself-abiding and
self-unfolding. It means growing or emerging. Physis is accordingly explained as
that which emerges from itself, or self-opening unfolding. It is the coming
forth and unfolding, the self-opening, which at the same time returns to its
source : withdrawal. Physis as a ground word means the emergence into the open,
the emergent return into itself… Physis means the emerging – abiding sway.
Physis brings beings to the `world,', to be as they are. » (Manithottil, P.,
Difference at the Origin : Derrida's Critique of Heidegger's Philosophy of the
Work of Art, New Delhi : Atlantic, p. 29-30) « The distortion of the concept of
physis took place with the translation of physis into Latin as natura (nasci),
which means `to be born,' `to originate'. By this translation the fundamental
meaning of physis is already ignored. Here we understand physis not in the
originary sense of the emerging and abiding sway, but rather as the nature of
things, as being prior to all beings. Thus, in the course of time, the
fundamental Greek experience of physis is turned into the philosophy of nature,
"a representation of all things according to which they are really of material
nature." » (ibid., p. 30) « In Plato, the essence of truth as the correctness of
the representation, and thereby, philosophy becomes the inquiry into the truth
of beings in terms of Ideas. His thinking causes the change in the essence of
truth ; physis is turned into the look of beings as being, the real is
interpreted and determined by Ideas. And this change in the essence of truth
dominates the entire history of philosophy till today… In Aristotelian
metaphysics, the narrowing down of the meaning of physis takes place in the
direction of a physical or materialistic interpretation of this term (physis).
He describes the nature as "the grounds of beings as such," `what is, as such
and as a whole.' In short, beings — as such and as a whole — is physis, to mean
the emerging-abiding sway as their essence and character ; but the narrowing
down of physis takes place to mean what naturally or physically is… The
conceptualization of the meaning of beings, the humanization of truth, leads to
the distortion of the original Greek experience of the meaning of physis.
Metaphysics is the distortion of the archaic meaning of physis » (ibid., p.
31-32) while « the etymological implications of the term physis and its
corresponding Latin translation natura, nature, indicate how the original
meaning of Being as physis is degraded into physics, what a thing is… » (ibid.,
p. 28-29) « With the human concern and the question of the meaning of beings
began the degradation of the earliest meaning of Being as physis. The
humanization of truth determines the truth of things in a rational way. » (ibid.
p. 28).
(36) In Plato's Gorgias, virtue and happiness are equated by Callicles with «
Luxury, intemperance, and freedom ». Aristotle and Plato argued that freedom,
especially as an ideal, can easily be corrupted and degenerate into licence
(Gorg. 492c5, Laws, III 701a7 ; Politics, VI, 2, 1317b11–13, 4 1319b30–2), for,
when defined in the Athenian democratic sense as « doing whatever one wishes »
(Pol. V, 10, 1310a31-2), freedom hinders one from attaining personal moral
perfection and becomes a threat to constitutional order (Pol. V, 12, 1316b21-7 ;
VI, 4, 1318b38–1319a1) ; analogously, to Tacitus, only fools can identify
`licencia' to `libertas'; « libertas at Rome and with regard to Romans is not an
innate faculty or right of man, but the sum of civic rights granted by the laws
of Rome ; it consequently rests on those positive laws which determine its
scope. This fundamental idea implies that libertas contains the notion of
restraint which is inherent in every law. In fact, it is the notion of restraint
and moderation that distinguishes libertas from licentia, whose salient feature
is arbitrariness ; and libertas untempered by moderation degenerates into
licentia. True libertas, therefore, is by no means the unqualified power to do
whatever one likes ; such power—whether conceded or assumed—is licentia, not
libertas. » (Wirszubski, Ch., Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome During the
Late Republic and Early Principate, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press,
1950, p. 7) « Libertas is quite consistent with the dictates of the disciplina
Romana, mos maiorum, and instituta patrum, because it is conceived of as a right
and faculty, not of an isolated individual, but of the citizen in the organized
community of the Roman State… libertas at Rome was not the watchword of the
individual who tried to assert his own personality against the overriding
authority of society. » (ibid., p.8)
(37) Benn, A. W., History of Ancient Philosophy, Watts & Co., 1912, p. 44.
(38) The striking « similarity in manner of thinking between the Greek Sophists…
of the fifth century B.C. and the advocates of liberal ideas in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries » needs hardly to be stressed. (Ritchie, D., Natural
Rights : A Criticism Of Some Political And Ethical Conceptions, Vol. 11, London
: Routledge, 2004 (first published in 1894), p. 25.
What was to be known later as individualism, both as a belief, a belief in the
primary importance of the individual and of personal independence, and as a
doctrine, a doctrine advocating freedom from government regulation in the
pursuit of a person's economic goals, and holding that the interests of the
individual should take precedence over the interests of the state or social
group, was already behind the Sophist and Cynic corruption of the concept of
`eleutheria'.
(39) Keulartz, J., Struggle for Nature : A Critique of Radical Ecology, London :
Routledge, 1998, p. 110.
(40) Davis, C. H. S., Greek and Roman Stoicism and some of Its Disciples, Boston
: Herbert B. Turner & co., 1903, p. 29. The utilitarian aspect of knowledge in
Sophism is mirrored in the humanising philosophy of Socrates, who « like the
Sophists… rejected entirely the physical speculations in which his predecessors
had indulged, and made the subjective thoughts and opinions of men his
starting-point. He endeavored to extract from the common intelligence of mankind
an objective rule of practical life. Socrates aimed to from the contemplation of
nature, and to turn its regard on its own phenomena. » (ibid., p. 34)
(41) Ibid., p. 29.
(42) Sunne, D. G., Some Phases in the Development of the Subjective Point of
View during the Post-Aristotelian Period, The University of Chicago press, 1911,
p. 9.
(43) Ibid., p. 10.
(44) Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to himself : an English
translation with introductory study on stoicism and the last of the Stoics,
Translated by Gerald H. Rendall. London : Macmilan, 1898, xl-xlii.
(45) Sayre, F., Greek Cynics, Baltimore : J. H. Furst, 1948, p. 4.
(46) Ibid., p. 7.
(47) DL, VI., 29, in Clément, M., Le Cynisme à la renaissance d'Erasme à
Montaigne, Genève : Droz, 2005, p. 141.
(48) Evola, J., Ride The Tiger, Rochester : Inner Traditions International,
2003, p. 49.
(49) Thornton, B. S., Greek Ways : How the Greeks Created Western Civilization,
Encounter Books, 2000, p. 176.
(50) Evola, J., op. cit., p. 53.
(51) Desmond, W. D., Cynics, Berkeley : University of California Press, 2008, p.
153-54.
(52) Ibid., p. 101-2.
(53) Ibid., p. 219.
(54) Shea, L., The Cynic Enlightenment: Diogenes in the Salon, Baltimore : The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, p. 11.
(55) Marcus Tullius Cicero., On The Commonwealth, Columbus (Ohio) : The Ohio
State University Press, translated by G. H., Sabine, 1929, p. 17-18. In his
`Hermotimus', Lucian of Samosata pictures a city where « all the citizens are
aliens and foreigners, not a native among them ; they include numbers of
barbarians, slaves, cripples, dwarfs… Such distinctions as superior and
inferior, noble and common, bond and free, simply do not exist here, not even in
name. » It is pictured as Utopian…
(56) Goulet-Caze, M. O., The Cynics : The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its
Legacy, Berkeley-L.A.-London, University of California Press, 1996, p. 111.
(57) Howard, D., The Primacy of the Political : A History of Political Thought
from the Greeks, p. 82.
(58) Marcus Tullius Cicero., op. cit., p. 18. The promotion of cosmopolitanism,
as might be expected, was not purely ideal, anymore than it was disinterested ;
the motives behind it, not as abstract as its formulation. For example, the
concept of hospitality or rights of a foreigner (`xenia') put forward by
Aristippus of Cyrene, one of Socrates' pupils - apparently, the first to have
taken money for his teaching – and the founder of the Cyrenaic school of
philosophy, was designed to secure his personal freedom (Branham, R. B.,
Goulet-Caze, M. O., The Cynics : The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy,
Berkeley & Los Angeles : University of California Press, p. 111).
(59) Sayre, F., Diogenes of Sinope : a Study of Greek Cynicism, Baltimore : J.H.
Furst, 1938 p. 28.
(60) Garnsey, P., Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine, Cambridge :
Cambrige University Press, 1996, p. 132.
(61) See Davis, C. H. S., op. cit. ; Marcus Aurelius, op. cit., p.
xxxvi-xxxviii.
(62) Sunne, D. G., op. cit., p. 18-19.
(63) Dillon, J. M., The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220, Cornell
University Press, 1996, p. 80-81.
(64) Sunne, D. G., op. cit., p. 30-31.
(65) Ibid., p. 33. « No one has discoursed with greater eloquence than he on the
intrinsic value of virtue. The true criterion is an internal one, consequences
are morally irrelevant ; the will is the only good. Another evidence of the
subjective standpoint is the prominence given to the gentler and more
sympathetic side of character; although his writings bear the impress of the
sterner and more virile traits, Cicero was an influential factor in the progress
toward the gentler virtues. Another conception that is conspicuous in Cicero's
ethics is that of humanism, a feeling of universal sympathy ingrafted by nature
for man simply as a human being. Most prominent is the tendency toward the
subjective attitude in the transition from the conception of supreme good to
that of supreme law. Cicero's legal mind had a tendency to give a jural aspect
to the rational law and he was probably the first to identify explicitly the law
of nature with the jus gentium. Discussing the universal law he says, the divine
reason has the authority of commanding in regard to right and wrong, attaching a
penalty in case of disobedience. For Cicero, then, the law of nature, from the
objective standpoint, is a supreme code ; and from the subjective, a natural
principle distinctly commanding what to do and not to do. Thus in ethics Cicero
allied himself in general to the Middle Stoa, but made further advance toward a
subjective standpoint by giving wider so both in religious beliefs and in
ethical doctrines to the personal element and the inner control. » Ibid., p. 34.
(66) Strozierp, R. M., Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity : Historical
Constructions of Subject and Self, Detroit (Mich.) : Wayne State University
Press, 2002, 170-171.
(67) Sunne, D. G., op. cit., p. 40.
(68) Ibid., p. 43.
(69) Ibid., p. 46.
(70) Ibid., p. 47.
(71) Davidson, W. L., The Stoic Creed, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1907, p. 135.
Both Stoicism and Cynicism derived their cosmopolitan outlook from a study of
`human nature' that led them to conceive it as a set of faculties and ends
proper to all human beings irrespective of temporal and geographical variations
in customs, habits, and laws. Stoics' cosmopolitanism was based on altruism ;
Cynics' on egoism. It was nonetheless cosmopolitanism.
(72) Fernandez-Santamaría, J. A., Natural Law, Constitutionalism, Reason of
State, and War, New York : Peter Lang Publishing, 2005, p. 19.
(73) Davis, C. H. S., op. cit., xivi.
(74) Ibid., xivi-xiviii.
(75) Garnsey, P., op. cit., p. 133.
(76) Kamtekar, R., Distinction Without a Difference ? Race and Genos in Plato,
in Philosophers on Race. Critical Essays, Oxford : Backwell, 2002, p. 7 ; p. 9.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapt\
er/9780631222262/001.pdf.
(77) In Bobzien, S., Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford :
Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 339.
(78) If what the term `pathos', which Cicero tells us he struggled to translate
into Latin, actually means is, as is sometimes suggested, `disturbance',
possibly even `disease' in the figurative sense, it could be related to the
Buddhist notion of dukkha. In this case, `apatheia' could also be related to the
fifth quality of the Aryan warrior, who is reminded that « Craving does ill and
aversion does ill ; and there is a middle way by which to avoid craving and by
which to avoid aversion : a way which gives sight and vision, which conduces to
calm, which leads to clear vision » (Majjhima-Nikaya, 3), since, as has been
well observed, to certain late Stoics, « the mark of the foolish person is that
he takes a lot of things to be goods and evils which in truth are neither, for
instance, life, health, strength, good looks, a good reputation, power, wealth,
and their opposites. As a result the foolish person develops an inappropriate
attachment to, or revulsion from, these things which he takes to be goods or
evils. This attachment or revulsion constitutes an enslavement, because it
prevents the foolish person from doing what he would reasonably want to do in
pursuit of his own good. It is these presumed goods and evils which become his
masters, run and determine his life, in that they now make him compulsively go
after them or run away from them, without regard for what he would need to do if
he were to follow his own true interests ». Frede, M., A Free Will : Origins of
the Notion in Ancient Thought, Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of
California Press, 2001, p. 67. Conversely, freedom would be a matter of having
the ability to act on one's own, to act at one's discretion, to act on one's own
account, to act independently (ibid.). However, no Stoic ever saw past this,
which is considered as a starting point in the totalistic ascetic economy of
`The Doctrine of Awakening' - to Seneca, « The Body is but the Clog and Prison,
of the Mind tossed up and down, and persecute with Punishments, Violences, and
Diseases. »
(79) Garnsey, P., op. cit., p. 133.
(80) Ibid., p. 137.
(81) Ibid., p. 132.
(82) Ibid., p. 75.
(83) Ibid., p. 150.
(84) Ibid., p. 142.
(85) Ibid.
(86) Ibid., p. 144.
(87) If Stoic thinkers, like Aristotle, defined psychology as the capacity for
reason, in stark contrast to him « they rejected the idea that there are
different `types' of human souls and with it the hierarchical social and
political structures that Aristotle advocates in the Politics and elsewhere. »
(Richter, D., S., Cosmopolis : Imagining Community in Late Classical Athens and
the Early Roman Empire, Oxford & New York : Oxford University Press, p. 67). Of
course, they rejected them in principle only.
(88) Garnsey, P., op. cit., p. 150
(89) Ibid.
(90) Ritchie, D., op. cit., p. 35.
(91) Downing, F. G., Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline Churches : Cynics and
Christian Origins II, London : Routledge, 1998, p. 17. Both the verb `act out'
and the expression `social role' are particularly apt to express the subversive
dimension of Stoic `ethical' teaching : you do not have a social function, in
accordance to your own nature and qualifications, `you act out a social role' ;
`you act out a social role', and, since it is a `role', you may eventually
change it, willingly or not.
(92) Ierodiakonou, K., Topics in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford : Clarendon Press,
1999, p. 162.
(93) Boym, S., Another Freedom : The Alternative History of an Idea, Chicago :
The University of Chicago Press, 2010, p. 13. To be sure, nor in Diogenes'
thought and in his `master''s, nor in stoicism, whether in its Greek or in its
Roman flavour, was `inner freedom' about a blank renunciation of worldly things
; Antisthenes' ideal was merely to render himself as independent as possible of
external things ; in Roman Stoicism, a great emphasis was put on the notion of
duty, an even greater emphasis than on that of self-mastery, so that the idea of
inward tranquillity and of that of public duty appears rather balanced in
Seneca's work.
(94) It should be clear that much the antitraditional nature of the ideas and of
the action of those philosophical schools and religious sects lies in their use
of a weapon of the occult war identified by J. Evola as the « deliberate
misidentification of a principle with its representatives. » Traditional
institutions may have decayed both in Greece and in Rome, partly through the
corruption of their representatives, and yet, instead of requiring that
individuals unworthy of the normative and operative principles they were
supposed to embody and manifest be replaced by qualified individuals, these
schools and sects claimed that the principles themselves were false and
deleterious, and that they should be replaced with their own tenets. They were
fiercely critical of the `polis' as such and of its basis, the `nomos', as such.
This wide-ranging criticism means etymologically `apoliteia'.
(95) Winter, B. W., Philo and Paul Among the Sophists, Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press 1997, p. 225.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MyAhfT8KQ4cJ:lionelwindsor.\
net/bibleresources/bible/new/Wisdom_1Corinthians.rtf+%22+boasting%22+paul+imitat\
e+sophists&cd=6&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr.
(96) Downing, F. G., Cynics, Paul, and the Pauline Churches : Cynics and
Christian, London and New York : Routledge, 1988, p. 71.
(97) Ibid., p. 72.
(98) Ibid., p. 73.
(99) Goodman, E., The Origins of the Western Legal Tradition : From Thales to
the Tudors, Sydney : The Federation Press, 1995, p. 62-63. On the other hand,
(popular) Cynicism offered the humbles turned cynics « freedom from restraint,
change of scene, wide tolerance of behaviour, and a living (of a sort) without
work. » (Dudley, D. R., A history of Cynicism from Diogenes to the 6th Century,
London : Methuen, 1937, p. 147) There is no reason why Paul's audience would not
have it in mind.
It has been repeatedly pointed out, with some grounds, that Cynicism was an
attempt to « cloak rebellion with respectability » : « The opponents of
convention had standardized both the manner and the matter of their assault into
a conventional form, which demanded of its expositors no originality of thought,
but rather, at best, unimpeachable asceticism and sufficient wit and rhetorical
power to hold the attention of an audience. » (ibid. p. 127) – like the
Sophists, « The Cynics scoffed at the customs and conventionalities of others,
but were rigid in observance of their own. » (Sayre, F., op. cit., p. 18) The
Greek historian Appian was even more specific in his criticism of Cynicism : «
We see many of these now, obscure and poverty-stricken, wearing the garb of
philosophy as a matter of necessity, and railing bitterly at the rich and
powerful, not because they have any real contempt for riches and power, but from
envy of the possessors of the same. » (Mith. 5.28).
The preaching of pious poverty as a leverage tool for social mobility is also a
common feature in the lives of many celebrated Egyptian ascetics and notorious
bands of Egyptian and Syrian monks, as well as in the career of « a collection
of « beggars, fugitives, vagabonds, slaves, day laborers, peasants, mechanics,
of the lowest sort, thieves and highwaymen, » who found that « by becoming
monks, they became gentlemen and a sort of saints, »
(http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c1.htm) starting with Georgius of
Cappadocia, « born at Epiphanin, in Cilicia, was a low parasite, who got a
lucrative contract to supply the army with bacon. A rogue and informer, he got
rich, and was forced to run from justice. He saved his money, embraced Arianism,
collected a library, and got promoted by a faction to the Episcopal throne of
Alexandria. » (Emerson, R. W., Essays and English Traits : Emerson, Cosimo,
2009, Vol. 5, p. 407).
Basically, the more one becomes familiar with the Cynic mindset, the more one
realises that it has never been as gleeful as it is today in the barking of
committed artists in the broadest sense.
(100) Kleingeld, P., Kant and Cosmopolitanism : The Philosophical Ideal of World
Citizenship, Cambridge (Engl.) : Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 2.
(101) Ibid.
(102) « Pistis is primarily a term for the basic grasp and conviction that goes
into the initial call and conversion to the Christ gospel. In this use it is an
occurrent phenomenon that has to do with entering the group. Pistis is of course
also something that continues to be there… That is why Paul may use it in 5:6 to
introduce the theme of `ethics' within the group, that is, once a person has
entered it. Still, pistis apparently has its primary logical place — one might
even say its missionary Sitz im Leben — in connection with conversion and
entering the group. The pneuma by contrast is an entity that is primarily
connected with being in the group. It highlights a certain stable state of the
believer. » (Engberg-Pedersen, T., Paul and the Stoics, Edinburgh : T & T Clark,
2000, p. 158).
(103) Goodman, E., op. cit., p. 62-63.
(104) Blumenfeld, B., The Political Paul : Justice, Democracy and Kingship in a
Hellenistic Framework, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004, p. 23-24
(105) Rasimus, T., Engberg-Pedersen, T., Dunderberg, I., Stoicism in Early
Christianity, Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Academic, 2010, p. 180.
(106) Blumenfeld, B., op. cit.
(107) More interesting for the purposes of this study is his claim that « This
view of (mystical) citizenship is consistent with the Hellenistic Pythagoreans'
view of the king's justice. » It would need further elaboration.
(108) Longenecker, R. N., Paul, Apostle of Liberty, Regent College Publishing,
2003, p. 159-160.
(109) Ellul, J., The Ethics of Freedom, Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1976, p. 96.
(110) Deming, W., Paul on Marriage and Celibacy : The Hellenistic Background of
1 Corinthians 7, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1995 p. 161.
(111) Basically, the seeds of this interest were sown much earlier in the
mystery cults : « The cult of Demeter was connected with the Eleusinian
mysteries, and the wild cult of Dionysus accepted, among its initiates, citizens
and slaves, rich and poor. Here the old and new, the agricultural religion with
the Homeric gods, the rational and irrational merge. These cults, with their
egalitarian approach and emphasis on the individual, contributed to the
transcendental breakthrough as much as the rational, natural philosophers and
the political thinkers of the polis. » (Eisenstadt, S. N., The Origins and
Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, New York : State of New York University
Press, 1986, p. 54).
(112) Stoic resonances are clear in Philo. Since the general view is that the
link between Stoic thought and Christian thought on slavery is to be found in
his writings, through a misconstruction of Aristotle's theory on slavery, it
might not be uninteresting to summarise his views on the matter : « Philo's two
kinds of slavery are a simplified version of the early Stoic typology… Philo
follows the Founding Fathers of Stoicism in placing all the emphasis on slavery
of the soul and in characterizing it as submission to the passions or emotions
(here they are desire, fear, pleasure and grief). His line on slavery according
to the law… is consistent with Stoicism. His teaching on the wise man is
recognisably Stoic. There is no contradiction between Philon usage of `slave by
phusis' : each is compatible with a Stoic position on slavery. » (Garnsey, P.,
op. cit., p. 173)
« Philo had before him two kinds of slavery : Slavery is applied in one sense to
bodies, in one sense to souls. Bodily slavery is a consequence of capture in war
or sale or birth. Slaves in the body are not ipso facto real slaves : they are
inferior to their masters only in fortune… True slaves, that is, moral slaves,
are those who are dominated by feelings or passions. Moral slavery, in Philo as
in orthodox Stoicism, was avoidable : it lay within the sphere of our control,
responsibility and accountability. (ibid., p. 171).
« Philo also believed that moral slavery was ordained by God, who has created
two natures, one servile, the other blessed. He went on to sanction the
subjection of moral slaves to institutional slavery, because they need to be
controlled, in their own and in everyone else's interest. Philo makes the
transition from moral slavery to physical slavery. Moral slaves, it seems,
should be physical slaves. » (ibid., p. 172).
For the Stoic strain in Christianity, see Arnold, E. V., Roman Stoicism,
Cambridge (Eng.) : University Press, 1911.
(113) Garnsey, P., op. cit., p. 173.
(114) Ibid.
(115) Dodd, B. J., The Problem With Paul, Downers Grove. III. : InterVarsity
Press, 1996, p. 100-101.
(116) Garnsey, P., op. cit., p. 176. As the literary form known as chiasmus is
used and abused in the Old Testament, in which « The history of Israel was
commonly (internally) interpreted and summarised using the motif of divine
reversal, involving the downfall of enemies and the vindication of the suffering
people of God »
(http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/1812/1/Paul_and_the_Rhetoric_of_Reversal.pdf,
p. 35), so it appears significantly in many parts of the Gospels - whose «
writers utilise the theme of reversal, and see it as coming to fulfilment in the
events associated with the coming, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension,
and return of Jesus Christ », whose gospel « is presented as a message of
impending (but inaugurated) reversal. » (ibid. p. 40) -, playing a considerable
role in Paul. This significant use is rooted in the fact that chiasm « infused
the thought and speech patterns of the Semitic mind, and in this manner found
its way into the Old Testament and then into the New Testament. » (Man, R. E.,
The Value of Chiasm for New Testament Interpretation, `Biblioteca Sacra', 41,
April-June 1964, p. 146) This rhetorical device is part of the Pauline strategy
of `status reversals', or rather of inversion of values which lies at the heart
of the « good news ». 1 Corinthians 7.22 (« For he that is called in the Lord,
being a servant, is the Lord's freeman : likewise also he that is called, being
free is Christ's servant ») is most illustrative of this rhetoric.
(117) Johnson, L. T., The Writings of the New Testament : An Interpretation,
London : SCM Press, 1999, p. 401.
(118) Ibid.
(119) Ibid.
(120) Rodriguez, R. R., Racism and God-Talk, New York : New York University
Press, 2008, p. 145-146. It is hardly surprising that Ephesians, 6:9 (« And you,
masters, do the same things to them, forbearing threatenings, knowing that the
Lord both of them and you is in heaven; and there is no respect of persons with
him ») is thought by Chrysostom to indicate that masters are to serve slaves.
(121) Garnsey, P., op. cit., p. 155.
(122) Byron, J., Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity,
Tuebingen : Mohr, 2003, p. 17.
(123) Bickerman, E. J., Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Leiden : E. J.
Brill, 1986, p. 148.
(124) Chadwick, W. E., The Social Teaching of St Paul, Cambridge (Eng.) : The
University press, 1906, p. 80 - Incidentally, Paul's whole rhetoric of moral
exhortation is drawn entirely from the paraenetic tradition of his Pharisaic
background.
(125) See, for example, Edwards, J. R., The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of
the Synoptic Tradition, Grand Rapids : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2009.
(126) Kee, H. K., The Beginnings of Christianity : An Introduction to the New
Testament, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005, p. 453 – « The third
witness is Josephus (37-93 AD), a Jewish historian writing in Greek. In his
works, Josephus sometimes mentions Stoicism and Epicureanism. Contra Apionem
contains the following remarks : "I do not now explain how these notions of God
are the sentiments of the wisest among the Grecians… and how they were taught
them upon the principles that he [Moses] afforded them… for Pythagoras,
Anaxagoras, and Plato, and the Stoic philosophers that succeeded them, and
almost all the rest, are of the same sentiments, and had the same notions of
God's nature." (Ap 168) ».
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/21575/thedrama.pdf.txt;jsession\
id=27E40E8736826129738470D3D035E4CA?sequence=1.
(127) http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bets/vol09/9-1_yamauchi.pdf.
(128) Davis, R. W., op. cit., p. 43. See also Kent, C. F., The Makers and
Teachers of Judaism From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Herod the Great,
New York : Scribner's, 1911, p. 101.
(129) Byron, J., op.cit., p. 4. This notion later found its way in Islam, in
which `Adb Allah' means `slave of God' : « According to Abu Hafs, being a slave
is an adornment of God's bondsman, and whoever gives it up divests himself of
this adornment. (Qushayri, Risala 91, Bab al-cubudiyya ; Sendschreiben
283/25.6). There is nothing more honorable than being a slave of God and no more
perfect name for the believer than that of slave. During the most honorable hour
which was allotted to the Prophet on earth, that of his Ascension, God
designated him with the name : "Lofty is He who caused His slave to travel at
night" (surah 17/1 ; according to ibn `Atâ Allah, pious men have become sultan
by chosing to be slaves of God (Sharh al-hikam, 2/128). » (in Ritter, H., The
Ocean of the Soul : Man, the World, and God in the Stories of Farīd Al-Din
Aṭṭar.Translated by John O'Kane, with editorial assistance of Bernd
Radkte. Leiden : E. J. Brill, 2003, p. 291).
(130) Davis, R. W., op. cit., p. 43.
(131) Hooke, S. H., Myth, Ritual, and Kingship : Essays on the Theory and
Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel, Oxford : Clarendon
Press, 1958, p. 24.
(132) Raaflaub, K. A., op. cit., p. 269.
(133) Evola, J., op. cit., p. 241.