Damien F. Mackey
Part One:
Too narrow a view of ‘Greek’ sages
Clement of Alexandria believed that Sirach had influenced the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (Strom. 2.5); Saint Ambrose (Ep. 34) suggested that Plato was educated in Hebraïc letters in Egypt by Jeremiah.
What is generally thought to be wrong with the view of St. Clement pertaining to Heraclitus, and that of St. Ambrose pertaining to Plato?
Well, for those who know both their ancient biblico-history and history of ancient philosophy, it would have been utterly impossible for the pre-Socratic Heraclitus, conventionally dated to c. 535 - c. 475 BC, to have been influenced by Sirach, conventionally dated approximately three centuries later, to c. 200 BC; and for the prophet Jeremiah in Egypt, c. 560 BC, conventional dating, there to have educated in Hebrew letters, Plato, conventionally (and variously) dated to c. 428/427 or 424/423 - 348/347 BC.
In conventional terms, the lives of the two biblical prophet-sages did not overlap at any point with those of the two supposed (Ionian) ‘Greek’ luminaries.
But is the conventional historical view the correct one?
Was it really quite impossible for Heraclitus to have been influenced by Sirach, or for Plato to have been instructed by Jeremiah?
Or were Sts. Clement and Ambrose correct (or at least closer to the mark) in what they said?
I am of the opinion that so-called Ionian and Greek philosophy, and its philosophers, have been wildly over-stated down through the ages, and that philosophy and the pursuit of wisdom arose instead from the Hebrews – and was undoubtedly absorbed by the Phoenicians, the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians even before it ever really took hold in mainland Greece.
In other words, Greek was, at best, a third-hand recipient of inspired philosophical wisdom.
I further believe that the so-called Ionian and mainland Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus, but most notably the famous trio of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, were non-real, composite characters, based largely upon Hebrew (Israelite-Jewish) prophets and sages.
Socrates, most definitely, has certain hallmarks of a Hebrew prophet. See e.g. my series:
'Socrates' as a Prophet
‘Socrates’ as a Prophet. Part Two: Presumed Era
The era in which ‘Socrates’ is thought to have emerged pertains to c. 600-300 BC, known as “The Axial Age”. It is thought to have been a time of some very original characters and religio-philosophical founding fathers:
Socrates, Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster.
‘Socrates’ as a Prophet. Part Three: A Composite Figure
Socrates and Jeremiah were alike in many ways. Both, called to special work by oracular or divine power, reacted with great humility and self-distrust. And, whenever Socrates or Jeremiah encountered any who would smugly claim to have been well instructed, and who would boast of their own sufficiency, they never failed to chastise the vanity of such persons.
Again, the Book of Jeremiah can at times employ a method of teaching known as ‘Socratic’:
‘Socrates’ was (as it seems to me) based in part – and perhaps in fairly solid part – upon the prophet Jeremiah, but he also bear likenesses, particularly in his martyrdom, to the Maccabean elder, Eleazer.
There is also much about Jesus Christ in ‘Socrates’ as many have observed.
According to a legend, Socrates even appeared in a premonitory dream to the wife of Pilate asking her to intercede on behalf of Jesus.
The great mix that is ‘Socrates’, the biblical elements and the Greek elements, explain how, in a work such as Plato’s Symposium, base paganism is found hand-in-hand with the highest mysticism. Socrates, in the Symposium, is typically Greek, a perverse and practised pederast: https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Sodomy/greek_homos.htm
Two of Plato’ s works, The Phaedrus and The Symposium, paint a brilliant picture of what the attitude toward pederasty was at the time. In the opening pages of The Phaedrus, Phaedrus and Socrates are discussing a speech that Lysias – a popular orator of the day - has written; a speech that was “…designed to win the favor of a handsome boy….” Socrates seems to understand why one would write a speech on this subject, and even states that man “cannot have a less desirable protector or companion than the man who is in love with him.” The Symposium goes into even greater detail about pederasty.
The setting is a symposium – a type of dinner party that only included males as guests, and had entertainment, wine, and discussion of politics and philosophy – in which several men are gathered and all give speeches about why a love of boys is a good thing. Phaedrus - the first to give his speech - states, For I can’t say that there is a greater blessing right from boyhood than a good lover or a greater blessing for a lover than a darling [young boy]. What people who intend to lead their lives in a noble and beautiful manner need is not provided by family, public honors, wealth, or anything else, so well as by love. Pausanias - the second speaker - adds even more to this argument when he states Aphrodite only inspires love among men for young boys, and not women. Those inspired by Aphrodite are naturally drawn to the male because he is a stronger and more intelligent creature.
Socrates also comments on the importance of pederasty in his own life. He says, “My love for this fellow [Agathon- another member of the party who is a beautiful young boy] is not an insignificant affair.” Yet another member of the party, Alcibiades, also loves Agathon and tries to discredit Socrates when he says, “…Socrates is lovingly fixated on beautiful young men, is always around them – in a daze….”
Yet the Symposium will, on the other hand, exalt love as almost along biblical lines:
The Platonic doctrine of eros, the locus classicus of which is the Symposium, and the biblical conception of agape love have joined together like tributaries to form a mighty and deep river from which the Western world has drawn its primary conceptions of love. As Irving Singer contends in his magisterial study on the nature love, the philosophy of love in the Western world … stems from two principal sources: on the one hand Plato, his followers, and his critics; on the other hand Christianity arising out of Judaism and merging with Greek philosophy begun by Plato. ….
It was actually the Greek philosophy, I suggest, that had absorbed the higher biblical ideals, thereby rescuing the former from its most base tendencies.
I am currently well advanced in the reading of a remarkable book written by Arthur Herman, an author of breathtaking knowledge. It is his book, The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization, which ought to be a compulsory philosophical textbook. It covers Plato’s view on love in the Symposium, too, and just about everything else. Bill Frezza’s excellent review of the book reads in part:
…. For the first of these 900 years, the Schools of Athens laid the foundation of Western thinking, with Plato’s Academy becoming the model for every monastery, university, and totalitarian regime. Meanwhile, Aristotle’s legacy bequeathed to us capitalism, the scientific method, and the American Revolution.
As history has ebbed and flowed, we’ve seen the influence of each school wax and wane. Plato’s theory of decline and yearning for a vanished utopia informed the inward turning of European societies following the collapse of the Roman Empire ”—while Aristotle’s faith in human potential and vision for continual progress fueled the Renaissance and Enlightenment—“the Light”. Along the way, Herman lays out the contributions of subsequent philosophers, who echoed one or the other of these themes, both through their teachings and through the deeds of the societies that embraced them. ….
It is truly remarkable how author Arthur Herman manages to keep alive these two strands, the Platonic and the Aristotelian, jostling in tension with each other all the way throughout human history. My big problem, though, whilst reading the book, has been my strong conviction that Plato and Aristotle, as well as Socrates, were not real historical figures.
If so, then there must be some more significant source of wisdom and knowledge than Platonism and Aristotelianism running throughout the course of human thinking.
And, is it time to take a second look at what the Church Fathers have said about Plato, and about Heraclitus, and about the true inspiration for much that we now call Greek philosophy? Tertullian had exclaimed: “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?”
In other words, “We are looking for the New Jerusalem, not the New Athens” (Brian Zahnd).
The most “obscure” Heraclitus
“We have no idea of who and what [Heraclitus] was.
We do not understand what he was saying”.
Nicolas Eias Leon Ruiz
Unlike the classical Plato, about whom we know so much, and whose writings we have in abundance, Heraclitus emerges as a most obscure character. According to Marc Cohen (2002), for instance, in his article “Heraclitus”:
- Fl. 500 B.C. in Ephesus, north of Miletus in Asia Minor. He was known in antiquity as “the obscure.” And even today, it is very difficult to be certain what Heraclitus was talking about. As Barnes says (Presocratics, p. 57):
“Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour.”
The reason for this is Heraclitus’s dark and aphoristic style. He loved to appear to contradict himself. Some of his doctrines sound incoherent and self-contradictory even if he did not perhaps intend them that way. ….
[End of quote]
Why do the early so-called Ionian and Greek philosophers come across as being so enigmatic and obscure, even quite odd in some cases, various of these (e.g., Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates) having left no personal written record?
The only time that Jesus is recorded as having written something, he wrote “on the ground”, and it had to do with a matter of morality and the Law (John 8:3-11).
But when Socrates, for his part, wrote in the ground to prove a point (in the Meno), he actually drew geometrical figures.
That a part of the character whom we call ‘Socrates’ was drawn from Jesus Christ (also the prophet Jeremiah and from the martyred Eleazer of the Maccabees), I suggested in Part One: https://www.academia.edu/37879947/Church_Fathers_suggest_a_different_chronology_for_Heraclitus_for_Plato._Part_One_Too_narrow_a_view_of_Greek_sages?email_work_card=view-paper
This all accounts for the greatness and firm witness to truth of the composite ‘Socrates’.
On the other hand, “The Strangeness of Socrates” (see Article in Philosophical Investigations 9(2):89 - 110 · March 2008) arises because ‘Socrates’, as a Greek, is actually - just like the various ‘Ionian’ philosophers - something of a square peg in a round hole. Historians of ancient philosophy having been trying to fit square pegs into round holes, or vice versa. Those who have been called ‘philosophers’, from Thales to Socrates, were not real Ionian, or mainland Greek personages, but were, instead, fictitious characters based largely (though perhaps not entirely) upon real Hebrew (Israelite-Jewish) priests, sages and prophets.
‘Socrates’, originally prophetic Hebrew, ends up becoming a geometry-teaching Greek.
And the same sort of “strangeness” is found in the case of the “obscure” Heraclitus who absolutely baffles scholars.
Why? Because Heraclitus is just another square peg in a round hole.
Those like Nicolas Eias Leon Ruiz, who emphasise the religious and the mystical elements in the thinking of Heraclitus, come far closer to the truth than do those who would strait-jacket Heraclitus purely to natural philosophy.
Previously I have written with reference to Ruiz:
Whilst textbooks on the history of philosophy universally commence with the supposed Ionian Greeks … [I] would urge for a complete re-orientation of influence by arguing that certain (if not all) of the key figures labelled ‘Greek’ (or Ionian) philosophers, ostensibly influenced by the Hebrews (as say the Fathers), were in actual fact Hebrew (Jewish) biblical characters who later became distorted and re-cast in Greco-Roman folklore. The Greco-Romans confused the ethnicity, geography and chronology of these original sages, who were essentially prophets and mystics, and down-graded them by turning them purely into natural philosophers.
It seems imperative that the common mystical element has to be re-considered, contrary to Mark Glouberman’s mistaken (I believe) view of “Western rationality’s trademark mastery over the natural world”, over the “earlier [religious] mode of thought” of the Hebrews. (“Jacob’s Ladder. Personality and Autonomy in the Hebrew Scriptures”, Mentalities/ Mentalités,13, 1-2, 1998, p. 9).
For studies more astute than Glouberman’s, whose opinion, sadly, the majority might share, would indicate that some of these ancient philosophers – now so cramped to merely natural philosophy and the elements (earth, fire, water, etc.) – were actually men of great wisdom and enlightenment, religious and mystical.
….
Nicolas Elias Leon Ruiz (Heraclitus and the Work of Awakening) has perceived this mystical quality in the case of the enigmatic but highly significant Heraclitus, supposedly a Greek of Ionian Ephesus. In his Abstract, Ruiz well explains why commentators have invariably found Heraclitus to be an ‘obscure’ thinker (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache):
….
Heraclitus is universally regarded as one of the fathers of western philosophy.
However, the characterization of the nature of his contribution varies widely. To some he is an early example of rational, empirical, scientific inquiry into the physical world. To others he was primarily a brilliantly innovative metaphysician.
Still others prefer to see him as the distant ancestor of the great German dialecticians of the 19thcentury. In the 20th century, certain existential phenomenologists all but claimed him as one of their own.
Behind all of this stands a fundamental set of assumptions that is never questioned. Whatever else may be the case, we know that Heraclitus was, essentially, a rational human being like ourselves. He was a philosopher, concerned with explanation and exposition. He was a thinker, and his fragments encapsulate his thought.
It is because of this that Heraclitus has been completely misunderstood. We have no idea of who and what he was. We do not understand what he was saying. Perhaps the greatest irony is that Heraclitus himself, at the very outset of what he wrote, explicitly predicted that this would happen.
Everyone who writes about Heraclitus will make at least passing reference to his legendary obscurity. Some will talk about the oracular character of his writing. A few go so far as to say that his thought bears the traces of revelation, his expression, of prophecy. This is as far as it goes. The problem is that this rather metaphorical way of talking about Heraclitus misses the point entirely. His writing was not just “obscure,” it was esoteric.
Heraclitus did not merely employ an oracular mode of expression: he was an oracle. What he said was a revelation and he was its prophet. Heraclitus was far from the early rationalist or primitive scientist he has been made out to be. He was what we today would call a mystic.….
[End of quote]
As far as goes the statement of St. Clement of Alexandria, that Sirach had influenced Heraclitus (Strom. 2.5) - which, with St. Ambrose’s statement (Ep. 34) that Plato was educated in Hebraïc letters in Egypt by Jeremiah had kicked off this present series, whose purpose is essentially chronological - there are significant difficulties due to, on the one hand, the well-known obscurities surrounding Heraclitus, and, on the other, uncertainty as to the exact era of Sirach.
The Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), generally the wisdom of Sirach himself, was, according to some views, written down by Sirach’s grandson, Jesus:
“Sirach was written by a Jewish scribe who lived in Jerusalem in the early third century BC. His name was Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach. He is often called simply "Ben Sira".”
In this sense, the grandson (some argue that he may even have been “the son, or perhaps the grand- son, or even great grandson of Sirach”: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1508405) “Jesus, son of Eleazer” here may have been somewhat like Moses with Genesis in editing (translating) an earlier body of writing.
But the matter is complicated (at least as far as I am reading it) by the fact that some versions of Sirach have the grandfather as Jesus (Sirach 1: Foreword): “That is why my grandfather Jesus devoted himself to reading the Law, the Prophets, and the other books of our ancestors”.
Then there is the ever-occurring problem of chronology.
The Book of Sirach was, as we found, written in c. 200 BC (conventionally speaking).
So, even if the life of the grandfather is to be counted backwards from this date, it could not have extended back far enough for him to have preceded (or, at least been contemporaneous with) Heraclitus as presently calculated.
We learned in Part One that the conventional dates for Heraclitus are given as c. 535 - c. 475 BC.
Baruch key to Heraclitus,
to Plato in Egypt?
“If we adopt the widely accepted exilic dating of Isaiah 40, the sanctuary traditions which I have been reconstructing have implications which reach beyond Old Testament study.
The early apologists, both Jewish and Christian, maintained that Plato learned from Moses, that he was Moses speaking Attic Greek”.
Margaret Barker
My interest here is - rather than Margaret Barker’s “widely accepted exilic dating of Isaiah 40” - that common view amongst the early Jewish and Christian apologists that Plato had borrowed from, or even was, Moses.
This belief fits perfectly with the theme of this current series that the so-called ‘Ionian’ and mainland Greek thinkers, including Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, were literary figures based largely upon real Hebrew priests-sages-mystic-prophets-martyrs.
It may also explain what St. Ambrose (today is his feast-day, 7th December,) was claiming when he wrote (in Ep. 34) that Plato was educated in Hebraïc letters in Egypt by Jeremiah. That claim, a chronological impossibility according to all conventional reckonings, may now be due for some serious re-consideration.
And the most likely candidate for a ‘Plato’ instructed in Hebrew by the prophet Jeremiah in Egypt, would have to be young Baruch, who was indeed a disciple and scribe of Jeremiah’s (Jeremiah 36:4-10):
Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.
And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up; I cannot go into the house of the Lord:
Therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the Lord's house upon the fasting day: and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities.
It may be they will present their supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way: for great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people.
And Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house.
And it came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, that they proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem.
Then read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord, in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the higher court, at the entry of the new gate of the Lord's house, in the ears of all the people.
- {just as Plato is thought to have been a disciple of the Jeremiah-like Socrates} - and who was indeed in Egypt with Jeremiah.
Here is the crucial passage about Egypt and Tahpanhes from Jeremiah 43:4-7:
So Johanan, Kareah’s son, and all the army officers and the rest of the people disobeyed the Lord’s command to stay in the land of Judah. Johanan, Kareah’s son, and all the army officers took the remaining Judeans who had returned to the land of Judah after being scattered among the nations— men, women, children, the king’s daughters, everyone Nebuzaradan the captain of the special guard had left with Gedaliah, Ahikam’s son and Shaphan’s grandson, including Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch, Neriah’s son. They went to the land of Egypt, as far as Tahpanhes, for they wouldn’t obey the Lord.
Of some possible relevance to this, Greg Moses (1996)
http://pages.prodigy.net/gmoses/moweb/bythedog.htm
will argue for an Egyptian influence upon the thinking of Plato:
"By the Dog of Egypt": Plato's Engagement with Egyptian Form,
and the Scholarship of Cheikh Anta Diop
….
I am here to seek, in the presence of specialists, an avenue toward fruitful reflection which may entertain within one universe the things we might learn if we spoke of Plato and Egypt together.
It should also be obvious from the title of this presentation that I shall be speaking under the influence of the late Senegalese philosopher Cheikh Anta Diop. In other words, I will advance three of Diop's propositions: 1) that Plato is an optimist after the fashion of the Heliopolitan theology, 2) that the heritage of Egyptian civilization deserves greater attention as a Western heritage, and 3) that there are elements in the heritage of Egyptian education which tend to suppress the advancement of science. In sum, I will argue that Plato's increasing fascination with Egyptian form invites us to follow Diop's suggestion that by acknowledging and investigating our Egyptian heritage, we shall be in a much better position to assess who we are today and where we should be heading. ….
[End of quote]
For an insight into the profound influence of Hebrew wisdom upon Greek philosophy, especially the testimony of St. Clement of Alexandria {who also had Sirach influencing Heraclitus} one might read, for example Leslaw Lesyk’s:
Plato as Greeks’ Moses in Clement’s of Alexandria conceptualization
Lesyk writes in one place of St. Clement’s telling testimony that Jewish wisdom “was chronologically older than Greek philosophy”:
“… Clement [of Alexandria] argues that Jewish philosophy (Judaism) was chronologically older than Greek philosophy. Clement observes [Strom V 140, 2]:
(…) is shall be assumed that it was the Hellenes [Greeks] that the Lord referred to as thieves [a ref. to John 10:8) …. If we wanted to take a closer look at their texts, we would instantly collect even an excessive amount of material to prove that the whole Hellene’s wisdom was borrowed from the barbarian philosophy (Jewish philosophy – auth) ….
Plato, in the theologian’s opinion, was so brilliant because the whole Greek philosophy made use of Jewish philosophical reflection, and besides, he drew knowledge from Moses himself.
[End of quotes]
There are also traditions, particularly eastern ones, according to which Baruch was Zoroaster, another of those “Axial Age” founding fathers, along with Socrates, Confucius and Buddha. Refer back to my article:
‘Socrates’ as a Prophet. Part Two: Presumed Era
The era in which ‘Socrates’ is thought to have emerged pertains to c. 600-300 BC, known as “The Axial Age”. It is thought to have been a time of some very original characters and religio-philosophical founding fathers:
Socrates, Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster.
I have already dealt with Socrates, and Buddha (another of those biblical appropriations).
See my series beginning with:
Buddha just a re-working of Moses
It would make sense that, as devout and learned Jews (Daniel and his companions, Baruch) moved (or were moved through exile) or travelled eastwards (Assyria, Babylonia, Persia), then Hebrew wisdom would have permeated eastern thought. Hence there arises the possibility that Baruch became re-defined in Persian minds as Zoroaster. According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, for instance, article “Baruch”: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/baruch-baruk-baruk-in-ar
Baruch is of interest to Iranian studies chiefly because he was identified with Zoroaster by the Syriac authors Išoʿdād of Marv (3rd/9th cent.) and Solomon of Baṣra (7th/13th cent.), an identification perpetuated by some of the Arab historians (see the material collected by Richard Gottheil, “References to Zoroaster in Syriac and Arabic literature,” in Classical Studies in Honour of Henry Drisler,New York, 1894, pp. 24-32, as well as Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés. Zoroastre, Ostanès et Hystaspe d’après la tradition grecque,Paris, 1938, repr. Paris, 1973, I, pp. 49ff., and the texts referred to and published in the second volume).
The identification of Zoroaster with the disciple of Jeremiah is puzzling, and the explanations put forward for it have not been quite convincing. It has been pointed out, for example, that an action attributed to Jeremiah was to hide the fire of the Jerusalem Temple, so that it should not be soiled by the Babylonians, and in this he could have something in common with the prophet of ancient Iran and his concern with fire. The analogy seems both remote and unsatisfactory, because this would make Zoroaster the equivalent of Jeremiah, not of Baruch. The latter, however, had become in Jewish apocryphal literature a figure of such great mystical wisdom, being credited as the author of a number of visionary revelations involving mystical flights to heaven, that the equation with Zoroaster, the great seer of Iran, might not have seemed too far-fetched.
The important thing about this identification is that in certain Christian circles in Iran, perhaps also among Jews, and possibly also among Muslims, efforts were made to create a common denominator between the two sets of traditions, the Judeo-Christian on the one hand, and the Iranian on the other. Similar attempts at harmonizing and equating figures from the two traditions are found, for example, with regard to Yima (Jamšēd), whose legend partly coincides with that of the prophet Isaiah; Gayōmard, who is expressly identified with a variety of biblical figures; and other persons of Iranian mythology and history.
[End of quote]
In this context, the following article with its inclusion of Heraclitus in a Persian context, and even linking him with Zoroaster (Zarathustra): “Heraclitus strikes a prophetic note that has reminded more than one reader of Zoroaster (West, p. 186)”, now becomes highly interesting: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/greece-iii
Persian Influence on Greek Thought
....
iii. PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON GREEK THOUGHTIRAN AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY
The idea of oriental, and especially Iranian, origins of Greek philosophy was endowed by antiquity with a legendary aura, either by declaring that Pythagoras had been Zoroaster’s pupil in Babylon (a city where neither of them had probably ever been), or by writing, as did Clement of Alexandria (Clement of Alexandria, 5.9.4), that Heraclitus had drawn on “the barbarian philosophy,” an expression by which, in view of the proximity of Ephesus to the Persian empire, he must have meant primarily the Iranian doctrines.
The idea of oriental, and especially Iranian, origins of Greek philosophy was endowed by antiquity with a legendary aura, either by declaring that Pythagoras had been Zoroaster’s pupil in Babylon (a city where neither of them had probably ever been), or by writing, as did Clement of Alexandria (Clement of Alexandria, 5.9.4), that Heraclitus had drawn on “the barbarian philosophy,” an expression by which, in view of the proximity of Ephesus to the Persian empire, he must have meant primarily the Iranian doctrines.
….
The question of an Iranian origin of Heraclitus’s doctrines was raised by Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher, whose work as well as that of his successors Friedrich Creuzer, August Gladisch, etc., have been reviewed by Martin Lutchfield West (pp. 166 ff.). There are several fragments which expound Heraclitus’s reflections on fire. “This cosmic order, which is the same for all, was not made by any of the gods or of mankind, but was ever and is and shall be ever-living fire, kindled in measure and quenched in measure” (Fr. 29); “the transformations of fire: first sea, and of sea, half is earth, half fiery water spout” (Fr. 32); “all things are counterparts of fire, and fire of all things, as goods of gold and gold of goods” (Fr. 28). According to Heraclitus, “fire lives the death of the earth, and air lives the death of fire, water lives the death of air, and earth that of water” (Fr. 76). Another fragment names lightning: “The thunder-bolt steers all things” (Fr. 64). And another one says that fire is to judge all things at the end of the world (Fr. 72).
In the Gāθās the role of fire is fundamental. Twice Zarathushtra calls upon “the fire of Ahura Mazdā,” either to make offerings to it (Y. 43.9) or to acknowledge its protection (Y. 46.7). In all the other passages, fire is an instrument of ordeal. Ordeal is found only once in the Gāθās (Y. 32.7) as an actual practice, but several times there is reference to a future ordeal which is to be made by means of fire to separate the good from the wicked. Here fire is the instrument of truth or justice (aṧa, q.v.), from which it derives its power (hence the epithet aṧa-aojah). This connection of fire with aṧa is constant, e.g, “I wish to think, insofar as I am able, of making unto thy fire (O Ahura Mazdā!) the offering of veneration for Aṧa” (Y. 43). And when each of the elements are placed under the protection of the Aməṧa Spəntas, who surround Ahura Mazdā (qq.v.), Aṧa is the patron of fire.
There was also a doctrine of cosmic fire. Fire penetrated all the six stages of creation. Although this is not attested before Zādspram’s Wīzīdagīhā (1.25), its antiquity is proven by the appearance, both in Iran and in India, of two equivalent classifications, one in three fires, one in five.
Parallel to the relationship of fire with Aṧa is Heraclitus’s doctrine that fire is ruled by Dikē “Justice” (not by the Logos as is the case in the Stoic interpretation of Heraclitus). As West writes (p. 137), “the sun’s measures are maintained, through the Erinyes, by Dikē, and since the sun’s measures cannot be isolated from the measures of the world at large, it must be possible to say that Dikē governs the whole process.”
Heraclitus’s god watches men the whole time, not only by day. Ahura Mazdā sees all that men do (Y. 31.13) and is not to be deceived (Y. 45.4). He is never asleep and never dulled by narcotics (Vd 19.20). “Heraclitus’ conception of the soul’s history is, from a Greek point of view, novel. It has a deep ‘account’ that increases it-self . . . According to the Pahlavi books [e.g., Mēnōg ī xrad 2.118 ff.], at death, the soul’s good and bad deeds are counted up, and determine its fate” (West, p. 184).
The fravašis (q.v.) are parallel to Heraclitus’s hero-spirits and to the immortals “that live the death of mortals.” “Heraclitus’ novel emphasis on the function of Eris or Polemos in determining the apportionment of the natural world, his conviction that opposition is the essence of the universe has long seemed to comparativists a counterpart of the Zoroastrian doctrine of agelong war between Ahura Mazdā and Aŋra Mainiiu. Heraclitus strikes a prophetic note that has reminded more than one reader of Zoroaster” (West, p. 186).
Pausanias attributed to the Chaldaeans and the Magi an influence on Plato’s teachings. And Aristotle at one time considered Plato the founder of a religion of the Good and therefore a continuator of the work of the ancient prophet (Jaeger, pp. 13 ff.). In the myth of Er, the souls must choose between two paths: on the left is the way to descend from heaven to hell, on the right is the ascent of the souls who rise from the Tartarus up to the stars (Replica 614 CD). The very idea of this ascension was quite new in Greece and must have come from the Zoro-astrian belief in the primeval choice and in the Činuuatō Pərətu (see ČINWAD PUHL) separating the good from the wicked. Plato may have heard of it through Eudo-xus of Cnidus, who was well aware of the doctrines of the Magi. In the myth of the Politic, Plato envisaged the idea of an alternate predominance of a good god and an evil god, an idea he may have learned from the Magi. But he decidedly refused it. In the Timaeus time is given as the mobile image of immobile eternity, maybe a Platonic transposition of the Iranian distinction between “time long autonomous” and “time infinite” (Av. zurvan darəγō.xᵛaδāta- and zurvan akarana-; see Air Wb., cols. 46 696). The Timaeus owed much to Democritus, whose relationship with the teachings of the Magi is well attested. In the Phaedrus, Plato, with reference to Hippocrates, views man as an image of the world, a microcosm, an idea propounded in the Dāmdāt nask, a lost part of the Avesta summarized in the Bundahišn and whose antiquity is proved by the Indo-Iranian myth of a primeval man sacrificed and dismembered to form the different parts of the world (Duchesne Guillemin, 1958, pp. 72 ff.). ….
In the Gāθās the role of fire is fundamental. Twice Zarathushtra calls upon “the fire of Ahura Mazdā,” either to make offerings to it (Y. 43.9) or to acknowledge its protection (Y. 46.7). In all the other passages, fire is an instrument of ordeal. Ordeal is found only once in the Gāθās (Y. 32.7) as an actual practice, but several times there is reference to a future ordeal which is to be made by means of fire to separate the good from the wicked. Here fire is the instrument of truth or justice (aṧa, q.v.), from which it derives its power (hence the epithet aṧa-aojah). This connection of fire with aṧa is constant, e.g, “I wish to think, insofar as I am able, of making unto thy fire (O Ahura Mazdā!) the offering of veneration for Aṧa” (Y. 43). And when each of the elements are placed under the protection of the Aməṧa Spəntas, who surround Ahura Mazdā (qq.v.), Aṧa is the patron of fire.
There was also a doctrine of cosmic fire. Fire penetrated all the six stages of creation. Although this is not attested before Zādspram’s Wīzīdagīhā (1.25), its antiquity is proven by the appearance, both in Iran and in India, of two equivalent classifications, one in three fires, one in five.
Parallel to the relationship of fire with Aṧa is Heraclitus’s doctrine that fire is ruled by Dikē “Justice” (not by the Logos as is the case in the Stoic interpretation of Heraclitus). As West writes (p. 137), “the sun’s measures are maintained, through the Erinyes, by Dikē, and since the sun’s measures cannot be isolated from the measures of the world at large, it must be possible to say that Dikē governs the whole process.”
Heraclitus’s god watches men the whole time, not only by day. Ahura Mazdā sees all that men do (Y. 31.13) and is not to be deceived (Y. 45.4). He is never asleep and never dulled by narcotics (Vd 19.20). “Heraclitus’ conception of the soul’s history is, from a Greek point of view, novel. It has a deep ‘account’ that increases it-self . . . According to the Pahlavi books [e.g., Mēnōg ī xrad 2.118 ff.], at death, the soul’s good and bad deeds are counted up, and determine its fate” (West, p. 184).
The fravašis (q.v.) are parallel to Heraclitus’s hero-spirits and to the immortals “that live the death of mortals.” “Heraclitus’ novel emphasis on the function of Eris or Polemos in determining the apportionment of the natural world, his conviction that opposition is the essence of the universe has long seemed to comparativists a counterpart of the Zoroastrian doctrine of agelong war between Ahura Mazdā and Aŋra Mainiiu. Heraclitus strikes a prophetic note that has reminded more than one reader of Zoroaster” (West, p. 186).
Pausanias attributed to the Chaldaeans and the Magi an influence on Plato’s teachings. And Aristotle at one time considered Plato the founder of a religion of the Good and therefore a continuator of the work of the ancient prophet (Jaeger, pp. 13 ff.). In the myth of Er, the souls must choose between two paths: on the left is the way to descend from heaven to hell, on the right is the ascent of the souls who rise from the Tartarus up to the stars (Replica 614 CD). The very idea of this ascension was quite new in Greece and must have come from the Zoro-astrian belief in the primeval choice and in the Činuuatō Pərətu (see ČINWAD PUHL) separating the good from the wicked. Plato may have heard of it through Eudo-xus of Cnidus, who was well aware of the doctrines of the Magi. In the myth of the Politic, Plato envisaged the idea of an alternate predominance of a good god and an evil god, an idea he may have learned from the Magi. But he decidedly refused it. In the Timaeus time is given as the mobile image of immobile eternity, maybe a Platonic transposition of the Iranian distinction between “time long autonomous” and “time infinite” (Av. zurvan darəγō.xᵛaδāta- and zurvan akarana-; see Air Wb., cols. 46 696). The Timaeus owed much to Democritus, whose relationship with the teachings of the Magi is well attested. In the Phaedrus, Plato, with reference to Hippocrates, views man as an image of the world, a microcosm, an idea propounded in the Dāmdāt nask, a lost part of the Avesta summarized in the Bundahišn and whose antiquity is proved by the Indo-Iranian myth of a primeval man sacrificed and dismembered to form the different parts of the world (Duchesne Guillemin, 1958, pp. 72 ff.). ….
[End of quote]
Baruch in Egypt with Jeremiah could be a key to identifying St. Ambrose’s ‘Plato’ in Egypt with Jeremiah.
The writings of Plato, though - considered to be heavily based upon the Bible - may have been influenced as well by Egyptian and Persian thinking.
Probably also a heavy dose of Gnosticism and pagan mystery religions.
Baruch in Babylon and Persia, where he may have become the model for Zoroaster as according to some traditions, may link up with Heraclitus with whom we saw above Zoroaster has been likened.
As for St. Clement’s view that Sirach had influenced Heraclitus, that view would be strengthened if Sirach were also to be identified with Baruch – a subject beyond the reach of this article. There is certainly a degree of “affinity” between Baruch and Sirach, as attested, for example, by Sean A. Adams (2016), Studies on Baruch: Composition, Literary Relations, and Reception: https://books.google.com.au/books?isbn=3110364271
“Baruch and Sirach have a distinctive affinity because of the way they view the complementarity of the Law and the Prophets through the prism of wisdom”.
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