29/11/2015 Plato or Paul? The Digital Dialogue

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By Daniel Mininger on November 2, 2009 1:58 PM 0 3Curtir

Plato or Paul? | Comments (10)

Many medieval philosophers were concerned with formulating a synthesis betweenAristotle and Christianity (Many of the proofs of Gods existence owe a lot to Aristotle).However, I noticed something while reading through Phaedrus. There are a lot ofconcepts/phrases that Plato puts into Socrates mouth that are eerily similar tophrases/concepts used by Paul of Tarsus, who singlehandedly wrote most of the ChristianNew Testament.

In terms of manuscript analysis, I remember Professor Long stating that we don't haveany manuscripts of Plato's dialogues that date before ~1000 AD. But, we haveManuscripts of Paul's epistles that date back to ~200/300 AD. Since the Church waseffectively the only institution in Europe that worried about preserving philosophicaldocuments in the middle ages, I think it's possible that some monks might have pepperedsome of Paul's phrases into Plato's work in order for synthesis to go smoother.

The first similarity that caught my eye was this:

"For there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which areprecious to souls in the early copies of them: they are seen through a glass dimly; andthere are few who, going to the images, behold them in the realities, and these only withdifficulty." (Phaedrus 250b)

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; butthen shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

The concept is that the earthly word is inhibiting us from experiencing divine reality.Obviously there are great metaphysical differences between what Plato is suggesting, andwhat Paul writes about. But I'm still curious if there was any alterations in the platonic text.

Another example that caught my eye:

"And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteriesand along becomes perfect" (Phaedrus 249c)

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed intothe same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corinthians 3:18)

The idea here is that aligning yourself to the divine allows you to attain that which isimpossible without aligning yourself to the divine.

The last obvious parallel I found wasn't between Plato and Paul, but between Plato andLuke:

"he has forgotten mother and brethren and companions, and he thinks nothing of theneglect and loss of his property; the rules and properties of life, on which he formerlyprided himself, he now despise, and is ready to sleep like a servant, whenever he isallowed, as near as he can to his desired one, who is the objective of his worship, and thephysician who can alone assuage the greatness of his pain" (Phaedrus 252a)

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife andchildren and brothers and sisters yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." (Luke14:2627)

It might be easy to assume that the biblical authors were referencing Plato, but the lack ofmanuscripts makes such a position hard to defend. If the texts were developed in isolation(which is doubtful, considering the popular opinion that Paul was familiar with the Greekphilosophers) then it's interesting how similar some of the concepts are.

Categories: Hermeneutics, Phaedrus

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29/11/2015 Plato or Paul? The Digital Dialogue

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omgitscodyy 63p +1

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Tags: Bible, Jesus, Manuscripts, Paul, Plato

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· 316 weeks ago

This is a sort of chicken or the egg argument. This goes back to a common theme I and othershave drawn in that Socratic philosophy and religion, in both grappling with the same ideas andproblems, are virtually impossible to distinguish from one another. Socrates did come beforeChristianity, and probably influenced its evolution, but there is evidence that the church inpreserving these dialogues may have allowed some of Christianity to get in there as well.Impossible to tell.

I can see this as an argument that opponents of religion could make when reading Socrates;the the church threw in Christian Imagery so that they can make the ReligionSocrates claim(This is not aimed at you Daniel even in the slightest. I am merely drawing my own conclusion).So I don't know how relevant a discussion of "who came first" will be, and we should justaccept that there is considerable bleedthrough of both in both and leave it at that.

· 316 weeks ago

Historical criticism is a fascination of mine. If you've ever read any of the books put out by theJesus Seminar, or any of the opposing Christian scholars, then you know just how complex andseemingly counterintuitive arguments surrounding historical manuscripts are.

Part of me is intrigued by the apparent lack of historical criticism done with the works of Plato,at least in comparison to that of religious texts. Granted, religious texts are arguably moreimportant, at least to some. But when dealing with philosophy, (even the existence of Socrateshimself) I'd expect a lot of scholarship to be focused on the meta issues. I mean there are avast amount of problems with having manuscripts 200/300 years after the fact (most NewTestament manuscripts date to around there, that's not the assumed authorship date). But wedon't have any dialogues that date back past ~1000? That seems like a huge problem to me,and brings into question how much of the content of these texts was edited and changed.

I know there are debates and arguments concerning specific dialogues and whether or not Platoactually authored them, but small edits in favor of synthesis seem to be more probable to mymind.

I have nothing against religion. In fact, if pressed, I'd admit to some sort of Christianity. Butthat debate has nothing to do with the the potential edits that were made.

Maybe these were just common analogies/phrases. I'm curious if there was intentionalreferences made, regardless of which document was actually authored first. The impacts can,potentially, be rather substantive. If the Biblical authors were pulling from Plato, then littlechanges within the context of our discussion. But if Plato was edited to include aspects ofspirituality that weren't originally included, then it can change the direction of our discussionfairly dramatically.

I believe Anthony made a comment in class to the effect of "If we throw out the assumption ofthe divine..." Well, if the texts were clearly edited then maybe we should throw out theassumption of the divine.

Perhaps this is more of a paper topic than a blog post topic :)

· 316 weeks ago

Also, there's the option that there was no intentional or volitional referring to either work by anyof the authors. This would beg questions concerning whether or not spirituality is ontological. Itwould also beg a lot of questions concerning the differences in the metaphysical frame workboth Paul and Plato are writing about.

I'm not sure how much of Plato's speech is metaphorical, and how much of it he is describingwhat he believes to actually be true (souls rebirth after 10,000 years, philosophers of coursebeing the individuals who come out with divine inclinations, etc).

Certainly it seems as though some sort of spirituality is imbued in the way Socrates (Plato)approaches the world. The similarities may truly be coincidental, and the texts weren't edited atall. I just found the parallels to be rather apparent.

2 replies · active 316 weeks ago

· 316 weeks ago

It's actually very interesting you brought this up. I know from RL ST 001 that often some ofthe meaning of many ancient documents have been lost from translation to translation.Reading the Bible in the Greek or Latin is often quite different from the English translations.The same basic message still gets through, but different words had different meanings andso forth. I imagine it's like watching Color TV for the first time after a world of Black andWhite. For example, when the Bible says Moses walked in the desert for 40 years, its notactually 40 years it just means a really long time. That's why you'll never see me or otherChristian apologists advocating a literal reading of the Bible. How could you after centuries

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29/11/2015 Plato or Paul? The Digital Dialogue

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Tony Arnold 54p +1

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Daniel Mininger 38p +1

of translations?

But I don't think it changes the overall meanings of the texts, just colors it in a certain waythat may have been different than the original artist's intent. Socrates using very Christianwordings doesn't diminish Plato's work. and unless you're familiar with the Bible, you're probnot going to pick up on it anyway.

But to add another possible wrinkle, didn't Arab and Muslim traders also preserve Greekwritings during the dark ages, only to reintroduce them during the Renaissance? So howmuch did the Muslim writers change parts of the original to fit Islam? Or did they at all? Ihonetly cannot remember my ancient history.

· 316 weeks ago

You're right, Cody. I believe it was the Umayyad Caliphate that was chiefly responsiblefor the preservation of the Aristotelian texts. Several of the caliphs were philosophicallyoriented, had the texts translated to Arabic, the texts made their way through thecaliphate over to Spain, the caliphate's westernmost point, and there they were translatedinto the Romance languages and Hebrew, and were given the opportunity to disseminatefurther through Europe. From my view, I don't see that the translations were adulterated,at least not at liberty; rather, Jews, Christians, and Muslims (all of them had a hand, andone of the most notable examples of this convergence and harmony of the Abrahamic"Big Three" in preserving, translating, and engaging these texts is in Moorish Spain andthe halls of the Caliphate of Cordoba) attempted to reconcile the Greek texts with theirreligious beliefs.

· 316 weeks ago

Great observations, Daniel. I would say that it's fairly likely that Paul and Christianity in generalwere influenced by Plato. For instance, there is good reason for the Augustinian divisionbetween the City of Man and the City of God being referred to as Neoplatonic: the parallel withthe visible world (of objects) and the intelligible world (of ideas [eidos]) is pretty clear. I wish Ihad the background to argue this position that you apparently have, Daniel, but unfortunately Ido not. However, I would like to remind us that in order to examine this connection we musttreat Christianity not as a revealed religion but as the humanly constructed one that it is. Thatsaid, in constructing or modifying a belief system humans rely on precedent of some sort,whether it be oral or written, and this is especially true in the case of the two later Abrahamicreligions, which continue with some alteration the thread of the Old Testament books. It is morethan possible that Christianity, in going a new direction from the Hebraic tradition that changesits complexion considerably, relied heavily on such thinkers as Plato to buttress its conceptionof morality, the afterlife, the relationship with the divine, etc. We should flesh this out morebecause, contra Cody, I believe that it's very important to discover, if possible, who came firstin this situation. For one, if Plato were shown to have clear influence, as I suspect he did, itmight help us not to be so dogmatic in our approach to religion and instead appreciate thewisdom of the historical human philosophical discussion for its own sake, to practice the ethicalwisdom contained therein for its own sake, and to avoid selfrighteous indulgence of anytempting monopolistic claims to wisdom, as woefully has been the wont of certain Christiansects for most of Christianity's timeline (and the same rings true for certain other religions).

1 reply · active 316 weeks ago

· 316 weeks ago

You make a few really good points Tony. First of all, in any literary critical analysis, it'simperative that we don't privilege any specific texts because we want them to be in the right,because their being right supports are presupposed ideology. Unfortunately, it's incrediblyhard to approach any issue like this without predispositions towards one side or the other. Ilike to think I let the evidence speak for itself, but very often evidence isn't obviouslyconclusive and inferences must be made.

One thing I'm not sure I see the connection between is Augustine and the topic at hand.There's a roughly 350 year period between Paul and Augustine. The early Church Fatherswere certainly influenced by and had knowledge of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, etc. Thedevelopment of thought within the early Church Fathers might be relevant, but I'm not surehow. They were as diverse as any group of thinkers ever has been.

In terms of authorship, what we have from Paul we're fairly certain is from Paul. We knowthat a few of the Gospels have been edited (hell, an entire chapter was added to Mark at onepoint), but edits within Paul are harder to identify due to his specific style of argumentation. Iam not nearly familiar enough with the bulk of platonic texts to know when his style changesdramatically, or be able to identify abnormal turns of phrase.

I have no doubt that Paul was familiar with Plato, but the extent to which he relied on hisphilosophical concepts is debatable. Much, if not all, of Paul is heavily influenced by Hebrewthought (which makes sense, since he was a Jew). The whole concept of resurrection isincredibly unique to Hebrew thought, and not even all of them agreed on it. The fact thatPaul's entire metaphysical framework is based off of the supposed resurrection of Jesusseems to imply that he wasn't terribly reliant on Platonic thought. However, that does notrule out the possibility of him using phrases from Plato in order to articulate his position. Soit is quite possible that Paul was making allusions to the famous Greek philosopher.

You said, "if Plato were shown to have clear influence, as I suspect he did, it might help us not to beso dogmatic in our approach to religion and instead appreciate the wisdom of the historicalhuman philosophical discussion for its own sake"

I am inclined to agree, although I'm not sure it would be seen this way. If Paul wasinfluenced by Plato, it is not to derive any central metaphysical concepts. The centralconcepts of Plato's understanding of the soul/life seem to stand in contrast to Paul'sconcept of the soul/life.

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29/11/2015 Plato or Paul? The Digital Dialogue

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Plato was alive, what, roughly 350 years before began to write? I think the cyclical conceptof the soul is something very foreign to the model Paul is establishing. Maybe that's adifference between Hebrew and Greek thought, I don't know.

· 316 weeks ago

The texts very well may have been edited, but as is the case with most of these writings, wewill probably never know. Even the Authorized King James version was translated with rulesattached as to what rules it should follow. Just as Cody said about the Color TV, the messagecan be similar, but never perfect. It would be nice to imagine that these texts were in factuntouched and original, but oh how simple it would be to place a small passage within a text.__Ido agree that the similarites are intriguing but does the potential of added content make thetexts worth any less?

· 316 weeks ago

Just a note about dating. I am not an expert in this area, but it seems that the oldestmanuscripts we have of Plato's texts date to 895 CE, although we have fragments of papyrifrom the second or third century CE. See, The Oxford Handbook of Plato. As for Paul, theoldest manuscript seems to date, as mentioned, back to 200 CE. See, the work of DavidTrobisch.

Although it is important to understand the provenance of these texts, we must engage them asthey have been handed down to us over time. Our encounter with them, across the centuriesand in a different language, needs to be sensitive to the fact that we no longer have access tothe originals. Yet something of the truth these texts articulate can still be discerned.

· 316 weeks ago

I think that we, as people engaging in a philosophical enterprise, can't ignore the activities ofthe documents themselves. I am by no means attempting to discredit discussion about thecontent of the documents, but what use is discussing content if we ignore the discussion,which can potentially affect our reading of the content, surrounding the development of thatcontent.

The flow of this course has, thus far, been philosophical literary analysis. But I don't think thisis just a fictional literature class where we're only concerned with the text, and throw out theauthor and possible redactors. If we're worried about true knowledge, and truly aligningourselves towards what is true, then we have to consider the origins of the documents we'restudying. So far, my impression is that we're treating these dialogues as historical works,otherwise we would consider the character of Socrates completely irrelevant, and focus solelyon what Plato is trying to say through the various characters. And if we're working off of theassumption that these works are historical, it might be worth some time discussing why weassume that these works are historically accurate and reliable.

EDIT: Thanks for the link Professor Long. That information is very useful.

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