Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian

1
Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian

• Western Syntheses

2
Expansion of the Roman Empire

• Experience of loss (of ones own community,
  identify, political meaning of life)
• Isolation
• Individuals confronted simultaneously both
  ontological loneliness and the universal
• Stoicism
• Zeno from Cyprus, Epictetus
• Focused on Reason and rational individuals
• Strong appeal to nature and (an equal and
  universal) human nature
• - Universal principles
• Care for ones own moral growth, and internal
  detachment from politics (through obedience to
  the authorities)
• Influenced Cicero and Paul

3
The Jewish Tradition

• Strict Monotheism, (first) centered in Jerusalem
• Classical period 1000 B.C. A.D. 500
• Faced several mass deportations (attempt to
  disorganize the Jewish people due to the
  impossibility of subjugating them)
• 721 B.C. - Assyrians take over the North and
  deport the people
• 586 B.C. Babylonians invade the South of Judah
  and deport the wealthy.
• 540 B.C. Persia defeats Babylonia, and the Jewish
  are allowed to return to their land. Many do not
  return, and this opens a tradition of the Jewish
  diaspora
• A.D. 70 Roman Emperor Hadrian decides to burn
  Jerusalem and its temple, smashing the Jewish
  people

4
Diaspora (a community in exile)

• In the three next centuries, the Rabbis develop
  the Talmud (Palestinian and Babylonian)
• System by which it is possible to continue being
  Jewish even without a land and while being
  persecuted (the system lasted 18th
  centuries)Discussions over a very wide variety
  of subjects).
• If Israel had to continue to exist, it had to be
  transformed into a religious community
  independent of land, political sovereignty, and
  even the Temple in Jerusalem (176)
• The autonomy and independence of the Jews seems
  to lie behind their recurrent persecutions (no
  political unit ever accepts but subjection)

5

• Remember Aristotle
• What is the problem with stateless beings? Why?

6
Torah

• Torah (law, nomos? Teachings). Different
  definitions of the Torah
• Fear (respect) and Awe
• Series of Covenants between Yaveh and the Jewish
  people. Yaveh appears as a national(?) and
  jealous God, the one who imposes himself before
  other deities of other peoples.
• No Jewish theology (the presence of God is not
  put into question... His presence is evident)

7
The Greek vs. the Jewish

• Jewish
• God creates man (God loses all anthropomorphic
  features)
• Impulse to rise to heaven in reverence and awe
• Strict beliefs
• Human life organized around faith
• The beginning of virtue is the fear of God.
• Importance of Deeds and action
• Act Justly!

• Greek
• Men create Gods (anthropomorphic Gods)
• Impulse to bring the Gods down with us and to
  live with them
• Flexible beliefs
• Faith developed into philosophy (Idea) and
  science (skepticism) or pantheism
• Knowledge is virtue
• The soul is like the city
• Think Clearly!

Afterlife?
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Jesus

• Relies on the Bible but adds a new principle
• Love
• Love as a way of life
• (Why do we have to love each other?)
• The other is always first (Why?)
• Celebration of altruism and humility
• The emphasis is put on the afterlife (the
  afterlife is the real thing)
• Salvation
• Reason, as our other skills, fail us we are so
  imperfect. It is not ourselves, but our faith and
  love towards God what may save us

9
Forms of Framing Fault
Greeks The Jewish The Christian
Ethics of Shame Ethics of Obligation/ Debt Ethics of Guilt (internalization)
Consequences on subjectivity? Political
consequences?
10
Saul/Paul/Saint Paul (3- 66)

• Born Saul in a wealthy Jewish family from Tarsus.
  Saul/Pauls father was a Roman citizen
• Exposed to Hellenism
• Sent to Jerusalem to be trained in Gamaliels
  rabbinical school
• Synthesis of the Judaic, Roman, and Greek
  traditions
• Saul grew anti-Christian (he thought that the new
  sect should be banned)
• In Syria, near Damascus, he had a vision of Jesus
  (turned blind,) and the cure of his blindness by
  Christian Ananias this led to Sauls conversion
  and baptism.
• Three missionary journeys (of a few years each)
• Arrested and tried/martyr(?)

Was Paul the one who made Christianity into a
new religion?
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Saint Pauls Letter to the Romans

• Written about AD 57 58
• Main themes
• Justification (by faith)
• Jews/non-Jews universalization of the reach of
  Jesus message.
• Attitudes of Christian towards government
• (Stoic influences)

12
Universalization and Interiorization of the Law

• 225 Circumcision has value if you observe the
  law, but if you break the law, you have become as
  though you had not been circumcised.
• 229 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly
  and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by
  the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a mans
  praise is not from men, but from God.

13
Not Law, but Faith.

• 320 no one will be declared righteous in his
  sight by observing the law rather, through the
  law we become conscious of sin.
• 413 It was not through law that Abraham and
  his offspring received the promise that he would
  be heir of the world, but through the
  righteousness that comes by faith.

14
Chapter 13 Submission to the Authorities

• Everyone must submit himself to the governing
  authorities, for there is no authority except
  that which God has established. The authorities
  that exist have been established by God.
  Consequently, he who rebels against the authority
  is rebelling against what God has instituted, and
  those who do so will bring judgment on
  themselves.

Foundation of the theory of the Divine origins of
political power
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Time /History
No unending cycles anymore History has a
beginning and an end.
(Eternal) Heaven
Creation Paradise Original Sin Fall
(Sin/Death)
Prophets, Jesus Church Reformation
History
Last Judgment (end of History)
(Eternal) Hell
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Modern philosophy and political theory will
reproduce this scheme of ours of understanding
time and History, even if it appears
secularized(Hegel, Marx, Comte Fukuyama)
Postmodernism questions this narrative, and
recuperates the Ancient idea of eternal
recurrence