Epictetus against Consumerists and Other Cowards
This very limited discussion of Epictetus is intended as a contribution to the wider discussion of capitalism and Christianity. I do not intend to explore the intricacies of Stoic thought, either its merits or errors, but to show quite simply that, quite apart from Christianity, there is an ancient and distinguished tradition of moral philosophy that provides a severe critic of the consumerist ethos.
Epictetus' Life
Little is known of the life of Epictetus. The son of a slave woman and, for a good part of his life, a slave himself, Epictetus was born near the end of the reign of Claudius (murdered in A.D. 54 by his wife, Nero’s mother) and he died, perhaps, about the time of Marcus Aurelius’ accession in 121. He had already established a reputation as a philosopher by the time Domitian decided to banish the troublesome breed from Rome (c.90). It should be interesting to note that Domitian (like Nero) hated, particularly, two groups: Stoics and Christians, neither of whom were willing to worship the emperor. Epictetus went to Nicopolis in Epirus (northwestern Greece), where Augustus had established a colony to commemorate his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. He appears to have traveled to Olympia and Athens.
Like Socrates, whom he admired, Epictetus wrote nothing down, but by change one of his hearers was Arrian, who would become a noted historian. Although a skeptic might be tempted to think that Arrian embellished Epictetus’ prose, the style of the discourses is much cruder and far less polished than Arrian’s own writings.
Stoicism
Epictetus was a Stoic, that is, he adhered to the great teachers of the philosophical tradition founded by Zeno of Citium, who taught in the Stoa Poikile (or Painted Stoa) Athens during the early Third Century. Zeno, taking his cue from Socrates and the Cynics and his more formal system from Aristotle, taught that the end of life was happiness, which could only be achieved by leading a virtuous life in accordance with nature. The early Stoics went very far in denying any value to the ordinary pleasures—and even duties-- of life, but they were imbued with a deep religious reverence for the great god of the universe, whom they identified with Zeus. Cleanthes, Zeno’s successor as head of the school, even wrote a Hymn to Zeus, which survives. Chrysippus, who succeeded Cleanthes, did so much to systematize and expand Stoic thought that he was called the second founder of the school. As a result, it is often difficult to disentangle the original teachings of Zeno and Cleanthes from the richer and more complex system of Chrysippus. It was certainly Chrysippus who developed Stoic logic, and he was more than a little responsible for the Stoic understanding of the physical universe—a theory that owes a great deal to the pre-Socratic Heraclitus’ theory of the “logos”. The logos (word, speech, reason, ratio, proportion) is a natural law by which the universe is kept in balance. As adopted by the Stoics, it exercised a profound influence on the early Christian understanding of the second person of the Trinity.
Book I, Chapter I
Here Epictetus' fundamental Stoic position is presented. Man's conscious life is a matter of the impressions (phantasiai) he receives. This should not be controversial, since whatever else we might choose to believe about our mental life, we know that we are at least powerfully influenced by what we see, hear, taste, experience. Of couse, we could try to avoid unpleasant experiences and impressions, especially if we belong to the hated sect founded by Epicurus who taught that the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain would lead to the highest state of being untroubled (ataraxia), but Epictetus would point out that this pursuit would be vain--we cannot really avoid unpleasantness, whatever we do--and misguided, since "the gods have put under our control only the most exvellent faculty of all and that which dominates the reset, namely the power to make correct use of external impressions."
As he points out, Zeus has not made us masters of the physical world, not even of our own bodies, which suffer pain, disease, decay, and death. As Epictetus who had live in Rome under several unpleasant emperors knows, fortune and life itself are uncertain. He cites a wonderful anecdote of the Stoic martyr and senator Thrasea Paetus, whose death is commemorated in a beautiful epigram of Martial. But even Thrasea falls short of complete Stoic understanding, when he tells Musonius Rufus that he would prefer death today over exile tomorrow: "If you choose death as teh heavier of two misfortunes, what folly of choice! But if as the lighter, who has given you the choice? Are you not willing to practice contentment with what has been given you?"
More to come....
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Dr Fleming,
"Are you not willing to practice contentment with what has been given you?” Musonius Rufus
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
John Maynard Keynes
For greed all nature is too little.
Seneca
From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.
Emile Durkheim
In the philosophy that we are considering, only the contemplative
and active lives are reckoned human. The life of pleasure only, one of
which the end is pleasure, is subhuman; every animal “knows what it
likes,” and seeks for it. This is not an exclusion of pleasure from life as if
pleasure were wrong in itself, it is an exclusion of the pursuit of pleasure
thought of as a “diversion,” and apart from “life.” It is in life itself, in
“proper operation,” that pleasure arises naturally, and this very pleasure
is said to “perfect the operation” itself. In the same way in the case of the
pleasures of use or the understanding of use.
We need hardly say that from the traditional point of view there
could hardly be found a stronger condemnation of the present social
order than in the fact that the man at work is no longer doing what he
likes best, but rather what he must, and in the general belief that a man
can only be really happy when he “gets away” and is at play. For even if
we mean by “happy” to enjoy the “higher things of life,” it is a cruel error
to pretend that this can be done at leisure if it has not been done at work.
For “the man devoted to his own vocation finds perfection. . . . That man
whose prayer and praise of God are in the doing of his own work perfects
himself.” It is this way of life that our civilization denies to the vast
majority of men, and in this respect that it is notably inferior to even the
most primitive or savage societies with which it can be contrasted.
This is a test to see if I can insert Greek:
διὰ τί μὴ υἳον τοῦ θεοῦ;
Sorry, Tom. rr
What was the Cynic response to Stoicism?What would a guy like Antisthenes or Diogenes make out of the Enchiridion?
One of Heraclitus' famous fragmentary quotes is,"all is war."By which he meant that dialectical contrasts conspire to maitain a sort of natural equilibrium.A "balance of power,"if you will.To Heraclitus balance is a kind of accident,and therefore an illusion.The underlying reality is raging conflict.
The ancient schools usually quarrelled with each other, though the Cynics rather died out and were unimportant. I don't think a lengthy discussion of Heraclitus--and that is what it would take--would be fruitful here. My understanding of his thought is that while he sees a world of change and flux, there is a harmony of balance and proportion. That balance would be the underlying reality, if, for him, there was such a reality.
I remember your criticism of the universalistic aspects of Stoicism in Morality of Everyday Life. Do you think that some of the later Stoics qualify such tendencies?
For instance, Cicero in On Duties was influenced by Stoicism, but delimits its gravitation toward universal brotherhood. In Book III, he writes (translation Michael Grant):
"But what forbids them is the moral law which nature itself has ordained. As I have said before - and it needs constant repetition! - there is a bond of community that links every man in the world with every other. Though this bond is universal in application, it is particularly strong as a unifying link between people of the same race: between actual compatriots the link is closer still."
Would Epictetus' Stoicism be Ciceronian in this respect? If so, community would trump capitalism.
Interestingly, some modern critics start at the opposite end. Neoliberalis like Paul Krugman argue that essentially because of our duties to the universal brotherhood of man we must support global capitalism and all it entails, e.g. free trade. (Friedman, Obama et al. have parroted similar lines.) If one starts with the universal brotherhood premise, global capitalism doesn't seem far away.
As a side note, I hope this century fosters more right-wing criticism of capitalism. The Cold War really put the blinders on movement conservatism as far as the pitfalls of capitalism are concerned.
Yes, indeed, the later Stoics are guilty of the same tendency, though it tends to be muted. The Emperor Marcus, for example, distinguishes between what he must do as a human being and citizen of the world from what he must do as a son, father, and emperor. Epictetus acknowledges that there are material things we should appreciate and he also attacks Epicureans for rejecting kinship and friendship. On the other hand, he also goes to far in what Maritain once referred to as "angelism" and in universalism. His system is flawed, but it is a useful corrective and a helpful beginning point.
Let us turn to I.3 and I.11 to see some of this in action.
Mr. Roberts,
Thank you for this good post.
"Does community trump capitalism?
Interestingly, some modern critics start at the opposite end."
You raise the question of whether one can love the abstraction while hating the thing itself. -- "I love mankind but never met an individual that didn't have problems." Reminds me of those folks wanting to save baby seals, dolphins and whales while aborting human beings. I think the hardest folks to love consistently are the folks living in our own homes, they are at the same time, the ones we love the most. That should tell us something about what passes today for "loving your neighbor."
Sempronius,
Heraclitus writes:
"What opposes unites, and the finest attunement stems from things bearing in opposite directions, and all things come about by strife."
But what of love?
Thank you Frank.I really like the pre-Socratics.My favorite is Parmenides and the "Italian" or "Eleatic" school.Dont want to sidetrack this discussion though.
This is a very specialized topic, generally, because it requires the ability to read Greek and, worse, to assess the quality and intent of the sources. Parmenides and Empedocles are somewhat easier to evaluate, because we have a good deal of continuous text. I have a long much too complicated and far too fanciful unpublished and probably unpublishable essay on Empedocles on love and strife and the implications (with beautiful and brilliant observations on the landscape of Agrigento) which I am thinking of stripping down to something readable. At some future point, we might discuss such a topic, but not now. I take it that no one is interested either in the Stoics or in the basic moral question of greed. I'll close it off on Monday, just in case any stragglers wish to contribute something before then.
This is a difficult subject, so I apologize if I handle it roughly. I have almost no background in the history mentioned above. I am struggling with understanding at what point capitalism turns on Christianity.
Could I start instead with a model? In the example of the farmer, the widow and the two slaves, there was nothing anti-Christian about that, assuming all were on the up and up. So how would that system go bad? Is it in the mistreatment of slaves? The bilking of the widow? The farmer's neglect of his family to put in his long hours? The greasing of politicians?
This reminds me of how I perceive the Amish to conduct themselves. It makes me wonder if there is a connection between technological progress or efficiency and communal harm. But I just can't reconcile that such innovation is anti-Christian.
On a related point, the Archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx (!) has written a book, currently only available in German I think, entitled "Das Kapital" (!), which is a Catholic critique of capitalism. Since the Archbishop of Munich is normally made a cardinal, we will soon see Marx getting his ... red hat!
It's not lack of interest on my part. I was told that I needed to supervise some overtime workers Sunday night (of all nights), so that cut into my time for reading Epictetus, among other things. Sometimes I wish I were unemployed so that I could do something worthwhile for a change.
So far, the first four chapters seem easy enough to understand, basically, the message would be 'do what you can about those things you can do something about, but dont worry yourself over things you can do nothing about'. This seems to go along quite well with Christ: 'what does it profit a man to worry?'
Applied to economics (understood as household management) it of course applies to the wants that people have for things they dont really need. It reminds me of a modern mystic named Vernon Howard, who used to tell his audiences (paraphrasing here) that 'society is constantly using advertising to make you believe that you need this or that thing in order to be happy, but those things will not and cannot make you happy or fulfilled.'
There seems to be a lot more in the Discourses than we might think at first glance, and it would be beneficial to study it in detail, but it seems rather hard to come up with the right questions, and we probably do need to move along.
Chapter two is particularly intriguing where it talks about Florus: "Because I do not even deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character.'
One last thing. It seems that in Ancient times exile was seen as worse than death. I can think of a lot of places I wouldn't mind being exiled to, as long at it's not in this empire. "Let us go to Aricia then," he said, "and dine."
The following passages from The Enchiridion emphasize moderation in the face of excess, or what we might think of as consumerism:
(25)
Has any man been preferred before you at a banquet, or in being saluted, or in being invited to a consultation? If these things are good, you ought to rejoice that he has obtained them: but if bad, be not grieved because you have not obtained them; and remember that you cannot, if you do not the same things in order to obtain what is not in our power, be considered worthy of the same (equal) things. For how can a man obtain an equal share with another when he does not visit a man's doors as that other man does, when he does not attend him when he goes abroad, as the other man does; when he does not praise (flatter) him as another does? You will be unjust then and insatiable, if you do not part with the price, in return for which those things are sold, and if you wish to obtain them for nothing. Well, what is the price of lettuces? An obolus perhaps. If then a man gives up the obolus, and receives the lettuces, and if you do not give up the obolus and do not obtain the lettuces do not suppose that you receive less than he who has got the lettuces; for as he has the lettuces, so you have the obolus which you did not give.
(33)
Take (apply) the things which relate to the body as far as the bare use, as food, drink, clothing, house, and slaves: but exclude everything which is for show or luxury.
(44)
These reasons do not cohere: I am richer than you, therefore I am better than you; I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better than you. On the contrary these rather cohere, I am richer than you, therefore my possessions are greater than yours: I am more eloquent than you, therefore my speech is superior to yours. But you are neither possession nor speech.
---
While the Stoics are right to criticize excessive desires, taken to its extreme, Stoic philosophy teaches that only two moral people ever lived: Socrates and Zeno. More reasonable seems the nuanced view of human nature of Aristotle (habit) or Cicero (ancestral duty). While it is one thing to criticize greed, it is also wise to note that one needs some amount of material comfort to be happy and that is is natural for a man to take pride in his material possessions - recognize by both Aristotle and Cicero.
That said, the point of this thread is to show that there was a pre-Christian tradition critical of the consumerist ethos, which Epitetus clearly demonstrates.
Epictetus lived during the decadence of the Roman Empire - a time of excessive wealth and vulgarity, at least according to the satirists, who also criticized excessive consumerism.
In the Satyricon, Petronius' picture of Trimalchio also illustrates the problems of this ethos. Trimalchio was an Asiatic slave who eventually became one of the richest men in Italy. Carrying his chamber pot into a lavish banquet - one "more like a musical comedy than a respectable dinner party" - Trimalchio talks at length of his own virtues, large house, and wealth, and is quite proud of the fact he never read philosophy (a point he makes in an inscription on his burial monument). Poking fun of the new Romans like Trimalchio, Petronius notes that "people today are lions at home and foxes outside." Perhaps empire - as in the time of Rome and today - fosters this type of consumerist ethos. Since man is no longer able to shape his own destiny publicly, he must satiate himself at home.
Yes, it is easy to spot the excesses of Stoic extremism, but we might make similar complaints against St. Francis without wishing to do without his inspiration. It seems to me Epictetus helps to clear our minds on several points: First in teaching us that there were pagans who warned against materialism, hedonism, and greed and quite correctly focussed their attention not on what government can do either to promote or restrain greed but on how we should live. Second, in opposing the materialist Epicurus, whose weaknesses Epictetus skewers in several significant places, not only for Epicurus' materialism but also for the indifference he preached both toward family members but also toward his fellow-men. Now, it is true that Epicurus preached a worse game than he played: the evidence is that he was strongly attached to his friends and I suspect he was if anything not insensitive to suffering but hypersensitive--which is why he preached his doctrine of being untroubled. There are Stoics--and Epictetus sometimes fall into this--who tell us that the death of a loved one should not trouble us, but then he turns, in attacking Epicurus, to showing that all men value these attachments and that if they had known what their son was going to teach, Epicurus' parents would have been justified in exposing him as an infant. This is what I refer to as a retroactive abortion, which should be applied to all who favor abortion.
We are sons of the god Zeus, Epictetus tells us,and we should be prouder of that in us and in our fellows than if we should be adopted by the emperor. We are made in the god's image and given a moral purpose in life, which is not to seek wealth, power, and prestige--all of which depend very largely on chance and external factors he calls "the outside"--but concentrate on doing the duties that lie within our power.
Capitalism and liberal, with their glorification of the individual's pursuit of material satisfaction, wealth, and egotism, is not compatible not only with a Christian's understanding of his purpose in life but also with any good pagan, whether Aristotle or the Stoics. The lesson we need to begin to take from the Stoics is not simply that we can live with less as that we should not overvalue the material blessings we may acquire or lose. Tomorrow in the office, with text in front of me, I'll post a few brief additions. Then I'll put up a brief discussion of Matthew's Gospel--chapter 5, the beginning of the Beatitudes--and I shall challenge any self-described Christian to reconcile those "blessed be etc." with liberal capitalism.
The question is sometimes raised, "Why did Christianity become the new religion of the Old Roman Empire?" It seems to me from this brief discussion that Christ's revelation may have answered question the Stoics raised.
Robert, you have hit it exactly. Justin Martyr in his Apologies explains that Christ taught a higher version of what the best philosophers and poets had said but his teachings and courageous example was taken up not just by philosophers but by ordinary working men who have the virtue and courage of Socrates.
Dr. Fleming,
I don't want to throw the discussion off but I do have a few questions that are related to this. It seems to me in both Homer and Virgil that the souls in the underworld are sad. Some classical critics have suggested it is because they are without their bodies and the resurrection of the just with glorified bodies is really what they longed to know. Since this is a year dedicated to The Apostle, St. Paul, I have tried to read again all his letters and Acts. He too seems to be all about the resurrection and life after death. The East is always praised for its recognition of the mysery and spiritual nature of life (what we might call the inspiration of the flesh) but very suspect of the Spirit made Flesh. It seems more than a coincidence to me that it was "Doubting Thomas" who is said to have been the first to preach the Gospel in India.
The point of all this is that The Gospel clearly was an answer to questions asked. Tom Wolf has become popular writing about American culture in its grand decadence and its faith in
chemistry,biology,moods, feelings of the moment and future progress.
In doing so, he seems to wonder aloud about what the questions of modern culture are concerning the purpose of life -collectively and as indivduals. I too wonder in what form those serious questions are expressed today. AA meetings? Bankruptcy Court? Divorce? War?
Prisons? Untimely Death of Loved Ones? Terror Attacks? Certainly not in public(or private )schools,the University, Film, Art, or Churches (at least in any serious way) or so it seems to me.
If I could, for the sake of argument and the elucidation of truth, pose a question that always comes to my mind whwnever greed is discussed. Obviously, we can say that, for some men, gluttony will result in being inordinatley overweight. This does not apply to all men, and I know that my reasoning is flawed, by I think there is a point to be made somewhere. If the spiritual sin of gluttony can be result in the change of a man's weight, and we all have an idea of what men should weigh depending on their particular heights, what is the physical manifestation of greed? What I mean to say is that, because people's circumstances differ to a very great degree, how can we rightly judge the amount of wealth that it is proper for a man to have in the same way we speak of a man's weight in relation to his pursuit of food? I know I'm off somewhere, so maybe someone can find a reasonable question in here and ask it better.
Sounds vaguely familiar,no?This is from Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws.This passage shows that you needn't have recourse to Jesus in order to correctly diagnose modern economic maladies.Nor to correct them.
One last point.The funny thing about people who elevate economics above all other concerns is that they fail (ultimately) to make any economic sense.Only as an adjunct of higher pursuits can economics flourish.
@21 Edward
Well, there's gluttony, and then there's avarice. And Our Lord noted that "love of money is the root of all evil." There's a lot of evil about these days.
Sounds vaguely familiar,no?This is from Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws.This passage shows that you needn’t have recourse to Jesus in order to correctly diagnose modern economic maladies.Nor to correct them.
Yes. Aristotle also has a very good argument in the Ethics why pleasure and the accumulation of wealth cannot be the primary aim of life-- without recourse to miracles.
But I think that the value of the Bible lay in the fact that not everyone could read Plato, Aristotle and the Greek philosophers, and understand them. The bible is written primarily with the lay folk in mind--Aristotle is not.
In reverse order, I have to disagree on the Bible v. Aristotle. Even devoted readers of the Scriptures come away with looney and dangerous notions unless they are disciplined by a spiritual director or the teachings of a tradition. Aristotle, by contrast, is hard to get entirely wrong, if one will only read him seriously. Montesquieu was wrong about most things--just another Renaissance/Enlightenment wise guy who thought virtue and reason would suffice, though he is in some respects among the less bad. Whether one needs Jesus or not, we can do without Montaigne, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and company. By the way Montesquieu was entirely wrong about the ancient Greeks, and entirely unfair to Greeks of the 18th century, whom he would have despised as Byzantines (a word he apparently introduced into modern languages in the modern sense.
What a shrewd question Edward has posed, one we ought to linger over. Yes, most (though not all) gluttons are fat, and most drunkards are drunk a good deal of the time. But inebriation and fatness are only outward signs of the over-indulgence in an otherwise normal pleasure. Unless he goes to extremes, though, the lecher does not display his vice in his physical person, nor in fact does the glutton always. A man might be an Epicurean who works out constantly and does not overeat and yet is devoted to eating to the point that he turns away from God and his fellow man. C.S. Lewis somewhere talks about the peevish old lady who only wants a bit of dry toast and tea and is forever whining "Why can't I get what I want?" Then the avaricious man will be known not simply by the size of his wallet--some rich men are either lucky or very successful at what they do without being greedy--but in the time he spends, when he does not have to, on money. I know some very reach people who could have retired long away but continue to spend 30-50 hours a week making money. At the very best, this is childish, though in the case of most rich people I know they are far too generous to be guilty of the mortal sin of greed. Their values, however, are distorted. The ancient Greeks loved money, which they regarded as the sign of divine favor, but they despised people who spent their lives getting it through trade, banking, or manufacturing. A free man (eleutheros) is characterized by the free arts/skills (eleutheriai technai, artes liberales) he cultivates, and someone who spend his waking hours doing nothing but make money and eat and play the occasional round of golf, is not a free man.
The early Church fathers were faced with the plethora of old religious forms which were degenerate in the extreme. They followed one of two courses. They either declared that Christianity had the fullness of the Truth and that therefore there was no need to look elsewhere, or they held that all truth, no matter where it was found, belonged to the integrity of the Faith, and was therefore to be accepted, absorbed, and embraced. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, quoting St. Ambrose, “all truth, no matter where it is found, has the Holy Spirit for its author.” In a similar manner, St. Jerome all but adopted the Buddha’s life story and Christianized it as we have in the hagiographical account of.St Josephat.
Catholic Saints have recognized this reality throughout the centuries. St. Justus referred to Heraclitus as “a Christian before Christ,” and Eckhart spoke of an ancient sage in the following terms: “One of our most ancient philosophers who found the truth long, long before God’s birth ere ever there was a Christian faith at all as it is now.” St. Thomas of Villenova taught the same doctrine: “Our religion is from the beginning of the world. A great Christian was Abraham; a great Christian was Moses; so also David and all the patriarchs. They adored the same God, believed the same mysteries and expected the same resurrection and judgment. They had the same precepts, manners, affections, desires, thoughts, and modes of life; so that if you saw Abraham, and Moses, and David with Peter and Andrew and Augustine and Jerome, you would observe, in all essential things, a perfect identity.”[2] One could multiply such quotations but such serves no purpose as long as the principles are understood.
Against this we seemingly have Augustine’s retraction which he wrote at the end of his life in an attempt to correct any misunderstanding that his works might lead to. This Retraction runs as follows: “The very thing that is now called the Christian religion was not wanting among the ancients from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the flesh, after which the true religion, which had already existed, began to be called ‘Christian.
But what can we expect of our times? From the earlist day there were those who said ," I am a follower of Appolo, I am a follower of Paul," Today it has become almost hillarious. If we were really more devoted to truth and less to our own egos, the controversy of being devoted to one German Bishop or Texas Preacher, or Conservative Majority, or Holocaust Denying Bioshop would no longer be important to us, because the vastness and mystery of the Truth would be the pearl more precious than the narrow hearted controversy of religious politics. But ignorance is always an ugly thing.
TJF: "The ancient Greeks loved money, which they regarded as the sign of divine favor, but they despised people who spent their lives getting it through trade, banking, or manufacturing. A free man (eleutheros) is characterized by the free arts/skills (eleutheriai technai, artes liberales) he cultivates, and someone who spend his waking hours doing nothing but make money and eat and play the occasional round of golf, is not a free man."
This fear of money handling certainly was rife in the ancient world. Although some Romans were rich, their daily business operations were often handled by a head slave, and the agricultural norm - of having a country house and living off the land - remained. Plautus, Petronius and Juvenal all ridicule the mercantile class - especially foreign (often Asiatic) financiers. In fact, one could argue that this skepticism of commerce remained until the modern advent of capitalism. Even in Anthony Trollope novels one can witness the lingering suspicion of those who make money via finance or trade - and that was only a little over a century ago.
I have always thought that the smart Greeks read philosophy and the rest went to temple...which is why Julius Caesar could be both an atheist and also take part in the sevices at the temple of Jupiter, showing perhaps that going to temple could be a community affair...As for the religious depth of the ancients, you have to take an entire world view into account as encapsulated in tragedy, philosophy, art etc. so one cannot be dismissive of the "pagans"...They had not one book like the Bible to summarize revealed truths...
Moreover, the only thing I dislike about Christianity is the bitterness it displays towards people of wealth and eminence...(as in how its difficult for a rich man to enter heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle). I suppose this is referring to humbling oneself as a camel has to go on its knees to pass through the gate...What I do not find in Greek and Roman civilization is a sense of empathy or compassion for peoples who somehow have become shipwrecked in life in the Christian sense. In the East, you had the Boddhisatva ideal where you postpone your enlightenment to help others attain it-- i.e. remain active in serving the community...And of course, Christianity is built on the notion of compassion and humility.
With regard to money, even Hindus placed the merchant on the lowest ranks of caste-- despite the fact that the merchants would often be very wealthy--now the values are inverted--as money is considered the most important everywhere and everyone wants to be "successful"--.
"They had not one book like the Bible to summarize revealed truths…"
Christians don't have one book, they have two thousand years of experience creating,destroying,teaching,suffering and living the truths and perversions of their faith in light of Tradition. Bible religion is only one thread and a very small thread of our Tradition. But searching scripture, is not unlike studying philosophy as you view it. A friend of mine who is a Carthusian monk has spent twenty years preparing for this type of study. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and then hours of reading and reflecting and praying. This is the intellectual life and I do not see why it must be described in the decadent forms of contemporary opportunist and emotionalism. The ancient monastic orders of our Christian tradition have much more in common with the ancient Pythagoreans or early students of Plato's Academy such as Aristotle)than any of the Ivy League Schools as they exist today. "Only The fool says there is no God."
Ancient worship was not a regular thing like a church; it was used for festivals and no one except the priests (nearly all of them non-professionals) went inside. So far as I understand India and China, it was a nightmare for the poor. Whatever ideals were professed by intellectuals and gurus, life on the bottom in a caste system would compare unfavorably with ancient slavery, except for publicly owned slaves in mines. There is no bitterness against wealth and eminence in the Christian tradition per se. You are going on a selective misreading of Bible passages and forgetting that the Jews condemned Jesus for associating with tax collectors. Repeatedly we find him associating with the rich and helping them as he would help anyone. No good can possibly be served by forming judgments without extensive study. Most of what you think Christianity is is simply milk-and-water Methodism and Enlightenment abstraction.
"Ancient worship was not a regular thing like a church;"
Dr. Fleming,
Yes, I did not mean to equivocate religions, there are of course pronounced differences but the life of study, research and reflection in the Christian tradition has led to other things in terms of genetics, science and astronomy just as the Pythagoreans are famous for geometry and Math although there was a mystery cult associated with their work as well. Humans have many aspects to their make up and in the current faith of equivocating change to progress, I prefer to point out similarities with our ancient ancestors rather than individual differences. I trust you will not allow me to fudge the facts too much.
It's gathered in the Screwtape Letters.
Most of what you think Christianity is is simply milk-and-water Methodism and Enlightenment abstraction.
I respect other people's religion as what they believe--but I can assure you no educated Hindu would become a Christian---The semitic cults all appear the same to me--revealed truths based on the supernatural and a notion that others have got it all wrong--this goes for Jews, Christians and Moslems--Which is perhaps religious conflicts always begin when semitic cults want to enforce their beliefs on others---
Perhaps as a pagan I can appreciate the Greco-Roman religion which was syncretic---its as if one can breathe freely when one studies them---
Hindus do not try to make others Hindus, nor do Buddhists proselytize. Christians would avoid trouble if they refrained from imposing their beliefs on others---as would do Moslems. This is always what has lead to religious conflict around the world.
It cannot be reduced to a question of believing or not believing for those of non semitic-cults--which is also why while many Christians turn to atheism when they study science ( which I think is just the opposite side of fanaticism i.e. of believing that only you see the truth and others do not), this is not the case for followers of non-semitic cults...It reduces to a matter of different approaches to religion--and the best way is to respect the followers of other religions--except in the case of fanaticism--such as when Muslims want to expand and turn everyone into a Moslem convinced only their Muhammed knows the truth....This is always when the trouble starts...
"Perhaps as a pagan I can appreciate the Greco-Roman religion which was syncretic—its as if one can breathe freely when one studies them"
gargi,
I see it this way. Christianity reconciled Hebraic tradition, Greek philosophy, and Roman social order, and formed a religion which breathed much needed life into a dying Roman empire, and unified and civilized an anarchic, violent, and barbaric northern Europe. Isn't this syncretic?
Does not Christian Europe's great achievements in art, architecture, music, philosophy, literature, law and government, science, social justice, as well as a vibrant folk culture, reveal a religion wherein the human mind and soul can flourish? What kind of air would we be breathing today without our Christian past? What kind of air would we be breathing if we were still Christian?
"The post-Christian state will continue, for a time, to be supported by the religiosity and ethics of its Christian citizens. If their strength fails, the institution society needs lest it sink into anarchy will become iron-plating, leaving the individual no room to breathe as a person. It makes no difference to the enslaved person whether the institution is totalitarian at a national or international level. In regions such as this the institution of the Church, insofar as it still has any room to maneuver, becomes an island of freedom."--Hans Urs von Balthasar
First off, to speak of semitic cults in this connection is a combination of ignorance and bad manners that is not tolerable. It is a waste of time to speak of respecting a religion when you will not take the time to find out anything about it. It is also a waste of time to speak in general terms about Greco-Roman religion which, it is quite clear, you have not studied. You are simply repeating the very old and tired arguments made by Nietzsche and more recently by the followers of Alain de Benoit, a man who does know something, not about Christianity, but about ancient paganism.
If it were true that faithful Buddhists and Hindus never proselytized, then what nasty people they must be. Epictetus, whom I can see you are not reading, in II.xx, ridicules the Epicureans for preaching far and wide that there is no such thing as natural fellowship (physike koinonia) and that those who say there is are deceiving others. "Why do you care, then? Allow us to be decived. Will you fare any the worse, if all the rest of us are persuaded that we do have a natural fellowship with one another....?" Why does anyone preach a sermon or write a book of theology or morals, if not to persuade others to follow his beliefs? One cannot both be a teacher and yet someone who does not teach. This is one of the benefits of the Western tradition, one never learned by the Eastern sages. It is the law of non-contradiction, discovered by Parmenides and codified by Aristotle. Let us be done with these futile over-generalizations that prevent those who utter them and those who read them from learning anything real.
So far as I understand India and China, it was a nightmare for the poor.
Where are the lives of the poor not a nightmare in ancient times? And still a nightmare in modern times in many parts of the world? Or perhaps because they were Easterners, they were not able to treat the slaves the way the Southerners treated chattel slaves (humanely) as has been argued in some posts here by some people. This is absurd. A slave is a slave--does'nt matter where--Life for the poor was not great either in Europe until modern times when they have begun to have the minimum.
Many Christians also practised slavery up until the modern times---
Once again, you are forcing your unreflective and uninformed opinions on a conversation. To avoid a further waste of time, I am shutting this down.