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Think of the ancient world as Classical music. Think of Greek Philosophy as Rock n' Roll or Rhythmn and Blues.
There is still Classical music, but, Rock and Roll overtook and dominanted popular tastes and changed the marketplace.
Now, think of Hip Hop in relation to Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll begins to fade and a whole new cultural ethos begins to dominate popular tastes. Fashions change, speech changes, attitudes change.
Plato is Hip Hop and Aristotle is Rock and Roll. Both co-exist. But, those who prefer one to the other break down into definite groups of a certain age, ethnicity and cultural bias.
So too with Philosophy and Religion as Alexander the Great's conquest introduced a new beat to an old generation and an exciting way of thinking to younger people among them.
As small children in a world of wonders; ancient people mixed awe and curiousity into speculation about how and why things are as they appear.
The most influential thinkers, the ancient Greeks, split into two main groups.
The PLATONISTS and the ARISTOTELIANS. (Mystics and Logical Rationalists)
Alexander the Great conquered nations, tribes and peoples leaving a backwash of Greek Philosophy in his wake.
In the marketplace of ideas it is the "better" idea which defeats the others. Soon, Greek thinking had saturated the belief matrix of every religion and tradition. Greek influence dominated long-held ideas about the Universe and changed them gradually into a mutation of what they once were.
PLATONIC philosophy held sway due to actual academy teaching of eager students who came from everywhere and returned with much to tell.
I would like to concentrate on the Greek ideas about "the beginning" and demonstrate how this penetrated Semitic thinking, religion and belief and prepared the way for the ideas which sprung up like mushrooms in the Christian Era.
But, I don't want to be boring about it! I'll focus on just one main idea: THE LOGOS.
Step One
Realize the ancient Greeks believed that there was always something instead of nothing.
All things were made out of this something. There was never a time in which there was first, nothing.
The idea of nothing or zero is a fairly modern idea! Did you know this? Well, I don't have time to persuade you right now. Do some reading for yourself.
[A latter-day philosopher in the Catholic Church first introduced the idea that God created out of nothing (EX NIHILO)]
What was this something out of which everything is made and how did it get to be something?
This was the question Plato asked himself and his students.
If this question and process interests you; read on. If not, go watch reruns of I love Lucy!
Plato and other Greeks separated the something (called LOGOS) into two categories: Form and Matter.
Science today likes to use the terms: GENUS and DIFFERENTIA. (example:BIRDS: ROBIN)
Whatever organized the something into specific animals, vegetables and minerals was thought of as an all-encompassing metaphor of rational intelligence. Plato's LOGOS was a personified intelligence; a poetic way of referring to the way things seemed to work together beautifully.
Plato developed a theory. THE FORMS were the ideal somethings which already pre-existed without actually existing. If this sounds stupid think of it like this.
A carpenter holds in his mind the idea of a chair he wants to make. The carpenter uses materials which already exist to build that idea into an actual chair. The idea is a potential chair and what the carpenter builds is the actual chair.
Except.....there is no carpenter! This elusive intelligence...this LOGOS is behind the possibility and allows men to capture the idea in order to think and build and create.
By the time of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, logos was the term used to describe the faculty of human reason and the knowledge men had of the world and of each other. Plato allowed his characters to engage in the conceit of describing logos as a living being in some of his dialogues. The development of the Academy with hypomnemata brought logos closer to the literal text. Aristotle, who studied under Plato, first developed the concept of logic as a depiction of the rules of human rationality.
The Stoics understood Logos as the animating power of the universe.
wikipedia
This was a HUGE idea. It rocked the world. It laid down a new beat and had people's minds dancing to a new way of thinking.
Everything that was possible was already out there in this....this....ideal form and all you had to do was tune in to the right frequency and BLAM! You could dance to this new beat and be a really cool dude!
The craze was learning to tune-in to the right FM station and let this LOGOS inform your thinking!
But, what were the call letters of this station? How did you tune in?
Naturally, there were people who cashed in! A set of secret society's protected the idea of LOGOS and FORMS and how you tune in. It was turned into a kind of exclusive nightclub where only the cool people were allowed in to participate in the greatest entertainment in the universe.
You had to walk the walk and talk the talk and be totally cool with the rituals. Just like today, you have to wear the chains and the baggy clothes and the bling bling or you aren't hip to the hop.
Every geographical region started their own version of the cool club you had to join to hip. These cults, religious groups, splinter factions of mainstream belief systems radicalized thinking and behaviors. The older folks disapproved and kicked them out and the younger folks went crazy for the "new" way. The more things change; the more they stay the same!
By the time the 1st century comes around, even the oldest of religious groups had picked up on some of the hip language and cool ideas just to keep from sounding old-fashioned.
Judaism bonded with Greek thought in the time of the Maccabees. The Jews fought back and were successful for a short time. Then, they were swallowed up. That long silent space in the bible between the book of Malachi and Matthew is silent for a reason!!
In the time of JESUS, most Jews had changed. The ancient old-fashioned "Moses-style" Jew was out of fashion! It was the newer cool-dude Greek-thinking Jew that was hip to the newest trends. Not all of them--oh no! There were fuddy-duddy Jews that dressed the old way and spoke the old language, but, they weren't cool.
The Greek speaking Jew also was Greek THINKING as well!
When you start to think Greek you are thinking ideas and philosophy from the Greeks and that includes how you think about LOGOS.
The old-fashioned Jews resented the Greek-fashioned Jewish thinking and vice verse! The Septuigent Bible represented ancient Jewish (Old Testament) ideas and everybody used this bible. But, heck dude--IT WAS WRITTEN IN GREEK!!
The Roman Empire had swallowed up the world and dominated everyone--but--even the Romans wanted to be Cool! They didn't want to be old-fashioned either! The Romans simply became Greek in their thinking too! The Romans stole the Greek religious ideas, philosophy and rationale and changed some of the names--but--kept the essential ingredients of hip-hop culture!
Jews were under a Roman yoke. However, the Roman yoke and the Greek ideas surrounded them in the air they breathed and the conversation on the street and arguments in the Synagogue!
Today, we read in the Book of John the Greek word LOGOS and wonder if John simply meant a literal: "Word" or did he mean the Greek metaphor of Logos: personified intelligence in perfect Form? ????? ????? ????? ?????
Some scholars of the Bible have suggested that John made creative use of double meaning in the word "Logos" to communicate to both Jews, who were familiar with the Wisdom tradition in Judaism, and Hellenic polytheism, especially followers of Philo. Each of these two groups had its own history associated with the concept of the Logos, and each could understand John's use of the term from one or both of those contexts.
Was John representing Greek thinking? Was John simply saying what Plato and Heraclitus had been saying and adapting it to Hebrew religious modality?
Especially for the Hellenists, [Greek-influened people) however, John turns the concept of the Logos on its head when he claimed "the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us"
Is John toying with the metaphor or changing it from personification into actual Person? ????? ????? ????? ?????
Keep in mind that public debate was a national pastime among the Romans and Greeks alike. No man was held in higher esteem than the one who used Rhetoric impeccably to persuade with logic.
Old-fashioned Jews argued by making the appeal to emotion and Authority! rather thanlogic. New-fashioned Greek-influenced Jews learned a better way: rational persuasion!
In rhetoric, logos is one of the three modes of persuasion (the other two are pathos, emotional appeal; and ethos, the qualification of the speaker or distinguished character sentiment or morality). Logos refers to logical appeal, and in fact the term logic derives from it. Logos normally implies numbers, polls, and other mathematical or scientific data.
Logos has many advantages:
- Data is hard to manipulate, meaning that it is harder to argue against a logos argument.
- Logos enhances ethos by making the speaker look prepared and knowledgeable to the audience.
Our Bible translations of today are far removed from the influence of the Roman empire and its fascination with all things Greek. Moreover, the arguments, debates, skirmishes and heresies of theology are in the distant past as well which produced the wording of scripture. Hundreds of years of subsequent Catholic thinking and Catholic philosophy overlay our vision of the Gospels.
Augustine and Aquinas speak louder than any ancient Greeks to our modern ear. If for no other reason; because of proximity to our own schools of thought and heritage.
Try substituting for LOGOS the Greek definition in John's Gospel and see what kind of sense it makes.
You decide if our modern understanding is the result of Catholic tampering or not.
I'll leave you this final tidbit from philosopher Moritmer J. Adler (Great Books of the Western World, Enclopedia Brittanica, etc) in his writings on how best to persuade in salesmanship.
Adler refers to the differences between the use of Pathos, Ethos and Logos:First of all, they must recognize those human desires that they can depend upon as being present and actively motivating forces in almost all human beings -- the desire for liberty, for justice, for peace, for pleasure, for worldly goods, for honor, good repute, position, or preference. Taking for granted that such desires generally abound with driving force, persuaders can call upon them for the objectives they have in mind, concentrating on the reasons why the course of action recommended is a better way of gratifying them than some alternative that a competitor might be trying to sell.
Here it is the logos rather than the pathos that persuaders must employ to tip the scales in their favor, whether they are trying to make their products more desirable than those of competitors or trying to make their candidate for public office preferable to an opponent for the office. Both products may serve the same purpose and so both may be responsive to a desire that exists and that they need only invigorate; their task, therefore, is to give the reasons why their product should be preferred.
John was selling his own vision of Jesus to a world crammed full of demi-gods, gods, emperors, potentates and such. Could he expect to make the sale with a scruffy old wandering beggar-rabbi put to death by the Romans?
Didn't John need to grasp for a selling point that made his Jesus-Messiah more than a tribal icon? Didn't John need to make Jesus pre-eminent, foremost and superior to all other products on the market?
Then the appeal to Authority (Ethos) and emotion (Pathos) would have to take a back seat to Logos (rational intelligent FORM) in the person of--not just a Rabbi, not just a Messiah, not just a son of a god, not just a demi-god, but, THE ORIGINAL SOMETHING (????? )that Plato and Heraclitus and Aristotle spoke of in ancient times which the Hebrews were promised as a chosen people?
Think about it.