Esteemed ‘Fathers’ of religion, philosophy, law and literature largely of Hebrew inspiration

by Damien F. Mackey “… both the prophets and the sages are considered to be among the foundational figures for their respective civilizations as well as powerful defenders of the faith. Moreover, as transmitters of the Heavenly Law, the Confucian sages served in a capacity familiar to anyone knowledgeable in the position of the prophets within the Jewish tradition”. Dr. Youde Fu Introduction ‘Salvation is from the Jews’, declared the Lord of Salvation (John 4:22). Salvation, which involves the total inner transformation of the human being, even here on earth, a re-emerging from the womb, being re-born (3:3), affects human wisdom, philosophy, culture, ethics, science, and so on. In other words, it is wholly civilising. Thus it comes as no surprise to me that the great ‘Father’ thinkers, sages, philosophers, lawgivers, holy men, lauded in the text books – often names with barely a shred of biographical detail, or even preserved writings, or speech – turn out upon closer examination to be spectral figures with their basis in one or more famed biblical Hebrew person. ‘Fictitious non-historical composites’, or ‘intellectual hybrid fictions’, as I call them. Yet, these mere shadows of the underlying reality upon which they are based are often called Fathers, the presumed archetype - they being thought of, Dr Youde Fu has said, “among the foundational figures for their respective civilizations”. I am thinking of ‘archetypes’ such as Thales of Miletus (Father of Philosophy); the Buddha (Father of the Great Asian Religion); Solon of Athens; Socrates (Founder of Western Philosophy) and Plato; Herodotus (Father of History); Homer (Father of Epic Poetry); Aeschylus (Father of Tragedy); Lycurgus the Lawgiver (Father of the Spartan Constitution); Zoroaster; Confucius (Father of Chinese Philosophy); Mohammed; etc. The Hebrews (Israelites, Jews), though, do not hold the entire monopoly. For instance, the ancient admiral, Lysander – famous, though not really an archetype – and considered to have been a Spartan, may actually have been an Egyptian, Usanahuru (Udjahoressne[t]), the admiral son of pharaoh Tirhakah: Admiral Lysander was probably an Egyptian (7) Admiral Lysander was probably an Egyptian USAN[H]UR[U] AND [L]USAN[D]ER The point here being that Israel, Egypt, the ancient Near East, had the precedence over the later Greco-Roman traditions, which were at least third-hand removed from the cultural centre. Tertullian, an early Christian theologian, polemicist and moralist, had challenged, with a fair degree of justification: “What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the Academy to do with the Church? What have heretics to do with Christians? Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart. Away with all attempts to produce a Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic Christianity! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after receiving the gospel! When we believe, we desire no further belief. For this is our first article of faith, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides”. (Tertullian, Heretics, 7). Previously I have written on this subject, which might also be couched in the words of the prophet Zechariah 9:13: “I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece …”. The impact of the ancient Near East (particularly Israel) upon our western civilization has been enormously underestimated, with practically all the glory - except in religion - going to the Greeks and the Romans. It is typical for us to read in the context of our western upbringing and education, in favour of Greco-Roman philosophy … politics and literature, statements such as: “Our European civilization rests upon two pillars: Judeo Christian revelation, its religious pillar, and Greco-Roman thought, its philosophical and political pillar”. “The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture”. “Virgil's Aeneid, inspired by Homer and inspiration for Dante and Milton, is an immortal poem at the heart of Western life and culture”. Nor do we, even as followers of Jesus, tend to experience any discomfort in the face of the above claims. After all, Jesus only said ‘salvation is from the Jews’ (John 4:22) - not philosophy, not literature, not politics. But is not ‘salvation’ also wholly civilizing? Yes, it most certainly is. And it will be the purpose of this article to show that philosophy and other cultural benefits are also essentially from the Jews, and that the Greeks, the Romans and others appropriated these Jewish-laid cornerstones of civilization, claiming them as their own, but generally corrupting them. [End of quote] What makes a Jew? Owing to the faith of Father Abraham – a characteristic that needs to be underlined – the Hebrews (Israelites, Jews) were the Chosen People of God. The land of Canaan was to be theirs – but only for so long as they continued to be children of Abraham in faith. This has become a hot button issue today, with the Israeli Zionists claiming a right to the entire land and seeking to erase the Palestinians entirely from Gaza. But, for one, who, today, is ethnically a Jew? Considering the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) and the total destruction of Israel and “Babylon” (Jerusalem) by the Gentile armies, the mass slaughter and captivity of the inhabitants, any certain connection of would-be Jews with the Twelve Tribes of Israel can be hanging by only a very slender thread. Secondly, Judaïsm itself was brought to a shuddering halt, with ‘the old stone Temple’ (Benedict XIV) completely destroyed, ‘not one stone left upon another’ (Luke 21:6). The would-be Jews of today are thus forced to cling desperately to the Wailing Wall as being a last vestige of the magnificent Temple of Yahweh - whereas this Wall is actually an impressive piece of a Gentile fort. “This was the work of the Lord, it is a marvel in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23). Jesus foretold to his closest disciples that, with his return within that very generation, the old Judaïc system would be completely swept away. The Temple would be reduced to nothing because he was the new Temple - a spiritual Temple made of living stones that can never be destroyed (John 2:18-19, 21-22): The Jews then responded to him, ‘What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in three days’. … the Temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Zionism’s desire for a third temple, for another Messiah, is therefore completely futile. The Book of Revelation was, in part, a bill of divorce (Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.). The once-beloved bride, Judaïsm, had gone bad, turned into a whore, yea, even worse than a whore (cf. Ezekiel 16:33). And so Judaïsm would have to undergo the fate of a whore, being stoned and burned. The once-beloved bride had long ceased to walk faithfully in the ways of Abraham and the prophets, whom it killed, culminating with the murder of the Prophet of Prophets: Theme of Apocalypse – the Bride and the Reject (2) Theme of Apocalypse – the Bride and the Reject The way of Abraham, on the other hand, was predicated upon this Jesus, who described the Jews, claiming to be children of Abraham, as children of the Devil (John 8:44): ‘You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies’. Saint Paul, in Galatians, makes it abundantly clear that the vital connection with Abraham is only through Jesus Christ, the “seed” of Abraham (Galatians 3:29): “And if you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise”. See my article: Covenant between God and Abram wonderfully foreshadows the immolation of Jesus Christ (8) Covenant between God and Abram wonderfully foreshadows the immolation of Jesus Christ Jesus came to take the new Bride, the Church: Jesus Christ came as Bridegroom (8) Jesus Christ came as Bridegroom Greco-Roman wisdom and literature As clever as some of it may be, in itself, the Greco-Roman appropriations of the Hebrew literature do not have anywhere near the impact of the originals. For, as said above, “… the Greeks, the Romans and others appropriated these Jewish-laid cornerstones of civilization, claiming them as their own, but generally corrupting them”. Homer (whoever he really may have been) clearly borrowed for his mythological epic, The Odyssey, from the historico-biblical Books of Tobit and Job: Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit (2) Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit St Jerome saw resemblance of Tobit to Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ (2) St Jerome saw resemblance of Tobit to Homer's 'The Odyssey' What is historical in the case of the Hebrews, becomes myth at the hands of the Greeks. And Plato (whoever he really may have been) appears also to have been influenced by the Book of Job. The tradition referred to by Saint Ambrose (Ep., 34) needs to be recalled here, that Plato was educated in Hebraïc letters by Jeremiah in Egypt. This would make Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, who was in Egypt with him (Jeremiah 43:6-7), a strong candidate for a Hebrew matrix for Plato, particularly considering that Baruch was said, by some authors, to have been another of those guru type Fathers, Zoroaster: Morris Jastrow, Jr. - JewishEncyclopedia.com “The Arabic-Christian legends identify Baruch with Zoroaster …”. Thus Plato, in The Republic and Protagoras, will (so I think) manage to water down a passionate biblical dialogue from the Book of Job, a matter of life and death, turning it into a relatively amiable discussion amongst gentlemen. There can be a similarity in thought between Plato and the Jewish sages, but not always a similarity in tone. Compared with the intense atmosphere of the drama of the Book of Job, for instance, Plato’s Republic, and his other dialogues, such as Protagoras, artful as they may be, come across sometimes a bit like gentlemen’s discussions over a glass of port. “… mere shadows of the underlying reality upon which they are based …”. W. Guthrie may have captured something of this general tone in his Introduction to Plato. Protagoras and Meno (Penguin, 1968), when he wrote (p. 20): … a feature of the conversation which cannot fail to strike a reader is its unbroken urbanity and good temper. The keynote is courtesy and forbearance, though these are not always forthcoming without a struggle. Socrates is constantly on the alert for the signs of displeasure on the part of Protagoras, and when he detects them, is careful not to press his point, and the dialogue ends with mutual expressions of esteem. …. [End of quote] Compare this gentlemanly tone with e.g. Job’s ‘How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?’ (19:1-3), and Eliphaz’s accusations of the holy man: ‘Is not your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniquities [which supposed types of injustice on the part of Job Eliphaz then proceeds to itemise]’ (22:5). In Plato’s dialogues, by contrast, we get pages and pages of the following sort of amicable discussion taken from the Republic (Bk. 2, 368-369): [Socrates] ‘Justice can be a characteristic of an individual or of a community, can it not?’ [Adeimantus] ‘Yes’. [Socrates] ‘And a community is larger than an individual?’ [Adeimantus] ‘It is”. [Socrates] ‘We may therefore find that the amount of justice in the larger entity is greater, and so easier to recognize. I accordingly propose that we start our enquiry …’. [Adeimantus] ‘That seems a good idea’, he agreed. …. Though Protagoras is a famous Sophist, whose maxim “Man is the measure of all things, of those that are that they are, and of those that are not that they are not” (Plato’s Theaetetus 152), I have often quoted in a philosophical context, this Protagoras may actually be based upon - according to my new estimation of things - the elderly Eliphaz of the Book of Job, at least in part. Whilst Eliphaz was by no means a Sophist along the Greek lines, he was, like Protagoras with Socrates, largely opposed to his opponent’s point of view. And so, whilst the God-fearing Eliphaz would never have uttered anything so radical or atheistic as “man is the measure of all things”, he was, however, opposed to the very Job who had, in his discussion of wisdom, spoken of God as ‘apportioning out by measure’ all the things that He had created (Job 28:12, 13, 25). Now, whilst Protagoras would be but a pale ghost of the biblical Eliphaz, some of the original (as I suspect) lustre does still manage to shine through - as with Protagoras’s claim that knowledge or wisdom was the highest thing in life (Protagoras 352C, D) (cf. Eliphaz in Job 22:1-2). And Guthrie adds that Protagoras “would repudiate as scornfully as Socrates the almost bestial type of hedonism advocated by Callicles, who says that what nature means by fair and right is for the strong man to let his desires grow as big as possible and have the means of everlastingly satisfying them” (op. cit., p. 22). Eliphaz was later re-invented (so I think) as Protagoras the Sophist from Abdera, as a perfect foil to Socrates (with Job’s other friends also perhaps emerging in the Greek versions re-cast as Sophists). Protagoras stated that, somewhat like Eliphaz, he was old enough to be the father of any of them. “Indeed I am getting on in life now – so far as age goes I might be the father of any one of you …” (Protagoras 317 C). That Eliphaz was old is indicated by the fact that he was the first to address Job and that he also referred to men older than Job’s father (Job 15:10). Now, just as Fr. R. MacKenzie (S.J.) in his commentary on “Job”, in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, tells of Eliphaz’s esteem for, and courtesy towards, Job (31:23): Eliphaz is presumably the oldest of the three and therefore the wisest; he is certainly the most courteous and the most eloquent. He has a genuine esteem for Job and is deeply sorry for him. He knows the advice to give him, the wisdom that lays down what he must do to receive relief from his sufferings … so does W. Guthrie, reciprocally (I suggest), say: “Protagoras – whom [Socrates] regards with genuine admiration and liking” (op. cit., p. 22). But, again, just as the righteous Job had scandalised his friends by his levity, according to St. Thomas Aquinas (“Literal Exposition on Job”, 42:1-10), “And here one should consider that Elihu had sinned out of inexperience whereas Job had sinned out of levity, and so neither of them had sinned gravely”, so does W. Guthrie use this very same word, “levity”, in the context of an apparent flaw in the character of Socrates (ibid., p. 18): There is one feature of the Protagoras which cannot fail to puzzle, if not exasperate, a reader: the behaviour of Socrates. At times he treats the discussion with such levity, and at other times with such unscrupulousness, that Wilamowitz felt bound to conclude that the dialogue could only have been written in his lifetime. This, he wrote, is the human being whom Plato knew; only after he had suffered a martyr’s death did the need assert itself to idealize his character. Job’s tendency towards levity had apparently survived right down into the Greek era. Admittedly, the Greek version does get much nastier in the case of Thrasymachus, and even more so with Callicles in the Gorgias, but in the Republic, at least, it never rises to the dramatic pitch of Job’s dialogues with his three friends. Here is that least friendly of the debaters, Thrasymachus, at his nastiest (Republic, Bk. I, 341): [Socrates] Well, said I, ‘so you think I’m malicious, do you Thrasymachus?’ [Thrasymachus] ‘I certainly do’. [Socrates] ‘You think my questions were deliberately framed to distort your argument?’ [Thrasymachus] ‘I know perfectly well they were. But they won’t get you anywhere; you can’t fool me, and if you don’t you won’t be able to crush me in argument’. [Socrates] ‘My dear chap, I wouldn’t dream of trying’, I said …. Socrates and Plato are similarly (like the Sophists) watered down entities by comparison with the Middle Eastern originals. Such is how the Hebrew Scriptures end up when filtered through the Greeks, [and, in the case of Plato, perhaps through the Egyptians and Babylonians before the Greeks, hence a double filtering]. Even then, it is doubtful whether the finely filtered version of Plato that we now have could have been written by pagan Greeks. At least some of it seems to belong clearly to the Christian era, e.g. “The just man … will be scourged, tortured, and imprisoned … and after enduring every humiliation he will be crucified” (Republic, Bk. 2, 362). I submit that this statement would not likely have been written prior to the Gospels. Socrates The era in which ‘Socrates’ is thought to have emerged pertains to c. 600-300 BC, known as “The Axial Age”. It is considered to have been a time of some very original characters and religio-philosophical founding fathers: Socrates, Plato, Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster. This age has been defined as, e.g.: http://history-and-evolution.com/LFM/ch1_page2.htm “… the enigmatic synchronous emergence of cultural innovations and advances across Eurasia in the period of the Classical Greeks and early Romans, the Prophets of Israel, the era of the Upanishads and Buddhism in India, and Confucius in China”. It was during this approximate period of ancient history that the Jews (Israelites) were being scattered amongst the nations due to their apostasies. Some outstanding Jewish men and women arose in those times, into high positions, Tobit, Ahikar, Job, Jeremiah, Ezra, Daniel, Queen Esther, Mordecai, all of whose fervent Judaïsm would certainly have influenced the pagan peoples around about. There is something quite bizarre about Socrates, thought to have been (with Plato) the Founder of Western Philosophy. His thoughts, as transmitted by Plato, can attain to the very heights of Theology, yet can then quickly spiral into base pagan immorality (e.g. pederasty: The Symposium). This is because, while drawing from much that is scriptural, hence highly enlightened, the Dialogues themselves are firmly rooted in a pagan culture. In various ways, Socrates is thought to resemble the Hebrew prophets (Jeremiah, Zechariah, Malachi). The C18th Enlightenment intellectual, George Hamann, saw Socrates as a virtual Christian believer, even as a type of Jesus Christ. I discussed this in my article: ‘Socrates’ as a Prophet (3) ‘Socrates’ as a Prophet …. Hamann finds a foreshadowing of Christ in Socrates’ notorious ugliness. Greeks, like the Jews of Jesus’ day, were “offended that the fairest of the sons of men was promised to them as a redeemer, and that a man of sorrows, full of wounds and stripes, should be the hero of their expectations.” Even the Spirit is evident in the life of Socrates. In an oblique reference to the Spirit’s role in the conception of Jesus, Hamann compares the spirit or genius that inspired Socrates to the “wind” that allowed “the womb of a pure virgin” to become fruitful. …. Martyrdom Further bizarre: The Trial of Socrates The trial and execution of Socrates in Athens in 399 B.C.E. puzzles historians. Why, in a society enjoying more freedom and democracy than any the world had ever seen, would a 70-year-old philosopher be put to death for what he was teaching? The puzzle is all the greater because Socrates had taught--without molestation--all of his adult life. What could Socrates have said or done that prompted a jury of 500 Athenians to send him to his death just a few years before he would have died naturally?” The answer to this apparent conundrum is that the martyrdom of Socrates was not a real historical occurrence, but was another of those pale Greek appropriations of life-and-death Hebrew realities. Perhaps the death by martyrdom in the Old Testament (Catholic) Scriptures that most resembles that of Socrates, is that of the venerable and aged Eleazer in 2 Maccabees 6:18-31. The two accounts of martyrdom have sufficient similarities between them for the author of the apocryphal 4 Maccabees to consider: 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)”. Ancient China The Chinese do not have a propitious pedigree, having arisen, as the Sinites, from the cursed stock of Canaan, son of Ham (Genesis 9:24-25): “When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers’.” Cf. Genesis 10:15, 17: “Canaan was the father of … Hivites, Arkites, Sinites …”. What’s more, the country lies far distant from the centre of culture. If the Greco-Romans were approximately third-hand recipients of Hebrew and ancient Near Eastern wisdom and insights, then the Chinese were well further removed even than that. That is why Chinese culture still preserves very ancient vestiges such as hieroglyphic writing, instead of the alphabet. The Greeks and Romans liked to boast of their inventions and innovations. So do the Chinese, judging by Chinese people with whom I have worked, who were wont to claim that the Chinese were the inventors of many surprising things. Or, did they appropriate inventions just like the Greco-Romans? For instance, Dr. Stephanie Dalley has shown that the screw pump, accredited to Archimedes (c. 250 BC, conventional dating), was being used by the ancient Assyrians roughly half a millennium earlier. And, as I noted in my article: Solomon and Sheba (6) Solomon and Sheba …. Much has been attributed to the Greeks that did not belong to them - e.g. Breasted [119] made the point that Hatshep¬sut's marvellous temple structure was a witness to the fact that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the later Greeks would be credited as originators. …. In that article, I also explored the possibility that the famous (so-called) Athenian sage and statesman, Solon, was merely a Greek appropriation of Israel’s King Solomon. “Given the Greeks' tendency to distort history, or to appropriate inven¬tions, one would not expect to find in Solon a perfect, mirror-image of King Solomon”. And I think that something very similar may be said, but with even more conviction, for the Chinese philosopher and sage, Confucius, in whom Dr. Youde Fu recognised a likeness to the Hebrew prophets: “… the Confucian sages served in a capacity familiar to anyone knowledgeable in the position of the prophets within the Jewish tradition”. “Dr. Fu began by exploring the similarities between the prophets and the Confucian sages. He explained how both the prophets and the sages served as intermediaries between the divine and the people. In the case of the prophets, they alone were considered to possess the ability to comprehend and disseminate the will and words of God. Similarly, the Confucian sages, who represented the pinnacle of human knowledge and morality in traditional Chinese culture, communicated the mandate of Heaven to the people”. Like Socrates and Plato, but even more distantly removed, Confucius (Kong Qiu) embodies some exalted Hebrew concepts about God and Heaven, and morality. Sadly, the modern Chinese ‘Canaanites’, the heathen Communists, use the name to promote their barbaric propaganda: Confucius says … well whatever Communist China wants him to (6) Confucius says … well whatever Communist China wants him to The rightful Father of Philosophy can only be God the Father through whose Word, incarnated as Jesus Christ, He has made all things (John 1:1-5). Saint Bonaventure was perfectly correct, then, when he nominated Jesus Christ as “the metaphysician par excellence”. Of the famed ‘archetypes’ of philosophy, wisdom, ethics, law, invention, that I listed at the beginning of this article, perhaps none of these was, in actual realty, an historical person. I have already discussed Socrates and Plato, Solon, Homer, Zoroaster, and Confucius. And I have written a fair amount, by now, on Thales of Miletus as a Western appropriation of Joseph of Egypt (Imhotep). See, for example, my article: Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy (6) Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy Thales: “Not much is known about the philosopher’s early life, not even his exact dates of birth and death”. Based on Moses were the Buddha: Buddha partly based on Moses (6) Buddha partly based on Moses but only in his beginnings (there is a lot of the influence of Jesus Christ also in there). The Buddha for Beginners “For over 2,000 years, people across cultures have been inspired by the Buddha’s life. But who was he, really?” Good question. And the same (Moses connection) goes for the supposed Spartan Lawgiver, Lycurgus: Moses and Lycurgus (6) Moses and Lycurgus “The historical figure of Lycurgus, the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, is shrouded in mystery and legend”. Lycurgus - Wikipedia “As a historical figure, almost nothing is known for certain about him, including when he lived and what he did in life. The stories of him place him at multiple times. Nor is it clear when the political reforms attributed to him, called the Great Rhetra, occurred”. And Aeschylus, the supposed Father of Tragedy, appears to have been based upon that most fascinating of Jewish prophets, Ezekiel - as others have noted as well: Ezekiel and Aeschylus (6) Ezekiel and Aeschylus Aeschylus – Arthistory.net “Little is known of the life of Aeschylus”. The Prophet Mohammed, about whose non-historicity I have no doubts whatsoever, is an extremely complex mix, having elements of Moses, Jephthah, Tobit and Tobias (captives in Nineveh) - especially the latter, Tobias, whose parents’ Hebrew names, when converted into Arabic, are the very names of Mohammed’s parents. Hence, too, all Mohammed’s anachronistic associations with Nineveh. Again, there is much of the New Testament (including Jesus) in the fictitious life of Mohammed – e.g. ascending to heaven from Jerusalem. Archaeological fact proves to be a great obstacle for Mohammed and Islam. For sure proof that Mohammed could not possibly have existed, see e.g. my article: Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate (6) Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate The Essence of Culture and Civilisation No one, in the course of my lifetime, has embodied culture (“the culture of life”) and civilisation (“the civilisation of love”) as did Saint (Pope) John Paul II ‘the Great’. There is much talk today abut one’s “culture” – which often amounts to things as banal as what foods its people eat, and how they dress. John Paul was a true philosopher, a Marian being, who clearly understood that the perfect interface with the Divine Mediator is Mary the Immaculata.