Zechariah and Socrates

by Damien F. Mackey Was Socrates a prophet? The question may not be as silly as it might at first appear. Socrates as a Prophet The Evolution of Socrates The prototypal ‘Socrates’, and indeed ‘Mohammed’, are (my own view) non-historical composite entities, fictitious persons, as according to what I wrote as well of Apollonius of Tyana and Philo in my article: Apollonius of Tyana, like Philo, a fiction (2) Apollonius of Tyana, like Philo, a fiction | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu These all, however, were based on real biblico-historical people. From this basis, ‘they’ underwent a considerable literary-historical evolution, thereby picking up aspects of other characters and eras not truly belonging to ‘them’. Striking Christian aspects, for instance, such as the Prophet Mohammed’s supposed ascension from Jerusalem into the seventh heaven. Such borrowings from Christianity must have occurred during the long evolution of the system known today as ‘Islam’. Likenesses to Hebrew Holy Men Socrates and the biblical prophet Jeremiah were alike in many ways. Both, called to special work by oracular or divine power, reacted with great humility and self-distrust. And, whenever Socrates or Jeremiah encountered any who would smugly claim to have been well instructed, and who would boast of their own sufficiency, they never failed to chastise the vanity of such persons. Again, the Book of Jeremiah can at times employ a method of teaching known as Socratic: “Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?” - Jeremiah 32:26, 27. THIS method of questioning the person to be instructed is known to teachers as the Socratic method. Socrates was wont, not so much to state a fact, as to ask a question and draw out thoughts from those whom he taught: http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/scr_index.php?act=bookSermons&book=Jeremiah&page=6 Similarly in the case of the prophet Zechariah, as we read in another place, “God used what we today call the Socratic method to teach Zechariah and the readers of this book”: http://www.muslimhope.com/BibleAnswers/zech.htm But perhaps to none of the Old Testament prophets more than Jeremiah would apply the description ‘gadfly’, for which ‘Socrates’ the truth-loving philosopher is so famous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_gadfly The term "gadfly" (Ancient Greek: μύωψ, mýops[1]) was used by Plato in the Apology[2] to describe Socrates's relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. The Book of Jeremiah uses a similar analogy as a political metaphor. "Egypt is a very fair heifer; the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north." (46:20, Darby Bible) Could this last be the actual prompt for the Socratic gadfly concept? The Hebrew prophet Malachi has been called “the Hebrew Socrates”. Thus we read at: http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/component/option,com_devotion/qid,3/task,show/resource_no,34/ .... Although little or nothing is known of the personal life of Malachi the prophet, nonetheless he has given us one of the most interesting books in the Bible. Not only is this the last book of the Old Testament, it is also the last stern rebuke of the people of God, the last call for them to repent, and the last promise of future blessing for Israel. In Malachi's day the people had become increasingly indifferent to spiritual matters. Religion had lost its glow and many of the people had become skeptical, even cynical. The priests were unscrupulous, corrupt, and immoral. The people refused to pay their tithes and offerings to the Lord and their worship degenerated into empty formalism. While the people had strong male lambs in their flocks, they were bringing blind and lame animals to be offered on the altars of Jehovah. Malachi was commissioned by God to lash out against the laxity of the people of God. This prophecy is unique for it is a continuous discourse. In fact, Malachi has been called "the Hebrew Socrates" because he uses a style which later rhetoricians call dialectic. The whole of this prophecy is a dialogue between God and the people in which the faithfulness of God is seen in contrast to the unfaithfulness of God's people. Thus Malachi is argumentative in style and unusually bold in his attacks on the priesthood, which had become corrupt. …. [End of quote] Socrates and Jeremiah were very humane individuals - Jeremiah’s constant concern for the widow and orphan - men of profound righteousness, always trying to do all that was good for the people. Both Socrates and Jeremiah were hated for having challenged the gods of the society; Jeremiah, of course, being a loyal Yahwist. Socrates, like Jeremiah, had followers or disciples who also were inspired by him and were willing to go into exile and defy the government for him. The name “Socrates”, which, I believe, does actually occur in the New Testament (I cannot just now find the appropriate reference), is thought to indicate the following: https://www.behindthename.com/name/socrates “From the Greek name Σωκράτης (Sokrates), which was derived from σῶς (sos) meaning "whole, unwounded, safe" and κράτος (kratos) meaning "power".” Might not the name perhaps, instead, have originated with the phonetically like Hebrew name ‘Zechariah’ (זְכַרְיָה) - of which ‘Sokrates’ is a most adequate transliteration (allowing, of course, for a typically Greek ending, -tes, to have replaced the Hebrew one)? Martyrdom But can the prophet Jeremiah also have been a martyr, as the philosopher Socrates is so famously considered to have been? There appears to be much uncertainty about how and when Jeremiah actually died. According to one tradition, the great prophet was martyred by stoning whilst an exile in Egypt: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8586-jeremiah The Christian legend (pseudo-Epiphanius, "De Vitis Prophetarum"; Basset, "Apocryphen Ethiopiens," i. 25-29), according to which Jeremiah was stoned by his compatriots in Egypt because he reproached them with their evil deeds, became known to the Jews through Ibn Yaḥya ("Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah," ed. princeps, p. 99b); this account of Jeremiah's martyrdom, however, may have come originally from Jewish sources. Jeremiah’s life was so full of suffering and persecution, however, that one will discover in, for example, The Jerome Biblical Commentary (19:98), the designation of the substantial block of Jeremiah 36:1-45:5, as the “Martyrdom of Jeremiah”. And, whilst Jeremiah is not recorded in the OT as having suffered a life-ending martyrdom, there was an earlier prophet Zechariah who assuredly did. And his end was brought about most interestingly, in light of the above, by stoning (2 Chronicles 24:20-21 (NRSV): Then the spirit of God took possession of Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada; he stood above the people and said to them, ‘Thus says God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has also forsaken you.’ But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord. Perhaps, though, the death by martyrdom in the Old Testament (Catholic) Scriptures that most resembles that of ‘Socrates’, is that of the venerable and aged Eleazer about which we read in 2 Maccabees 6:18-31: The Martyrdom of Eleazar Eleazar, one of the scribes in high position, a man now advanced in age and of noble presence, was being forced to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh. But he, welcoming death with honour rather than life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, spitting out the flesh, as all ought to go who have the courage to refuse things that it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life. Those who were in charge of that unlawful sacrifice took the man aside because of their long acquaintance with him, and privately urged him to bring meat of his own providing, proper for him to use, and to pretend that he was eating the flesh of the sacrificial meal that had been commanded by the king, so that by doing this he might be saved from death, and be treated kindly on account of his old friendship with them. But making a high resolve, worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the grey hairs that he had reached with distinction and his excellent life even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly, telling them to send him to Hades. ‘Such pretence is not worthy of our time of life,’ he said, ‘for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretence, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.’ When he had said this, he went at once to the rack. Those who a little before had acted towards him with goodwill now changed to ill will, because the words he had uttered were in their opinion sheer madness. When he was about to die under the blows, he groaned aloud and said: ‘It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him.’ So in this way he died, leaving in his death an example of nobility and a memorial of courage, not only to the young but to the great body of his nation. And this may be where it becomes necessary once again to invoke our composite theory. The two accounts of martyrdom have sufficient similarities between them for the author of the apocryphal 4 Maccabees to consider: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4rP118zc8e4C&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq Eleazer as a “New Socrates” … the archetype of the semi-voluntary intellectual martyr: he is a νομικός in the royal Court (4 Macc 5:5) … he is implicitly compared with Socrates by the metaphor of the pilot (4 Macc 7:6) … young people regard him as their “teacher” (4 Macc 9:7)”. For Eleazer (a “New Socrates”) as the second martyred Zechariah, to whose death Jesus Christ refers in e.g. Luke 11:50-51, see my article: Jesus Christ gives meaning to ancient history and geography (2) Jesus Christ gives meaning to ancient history and geography