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Strauss held that there was a crisis in the Middle Ages for all of the major revelational-related religions because they did not know what to do with Plato and Aristotle's natural wisdom. These Greek texts had been lost but were being rediscovered both from the Arabs and from direct contact with Greek learning. A Platonic tradition was seen in Augustine, for whom Platonism was known also through Cicero. But the real crisis came in the Renaissance. What do believers do about the incredible knowledge that is found in Plato and Aristotle, who evidently did not know anything about revelation? Theories proposed either that they had a private revelation (and in the case of Plato, even people like Voegelin suspect it), or that what the natural mind can do is vast, and to be praised. |
AHRC - History of the Hebrew language
The Greeks adopted the Hebrew alephbet around 800 to 600 BCE for their own use, but reversed the picture and the Hebrew aleph became the Greek alpha. Between 600 and 200 BCE the Greek alphabet evolved to what is very close to the modern Greek alphabet. The Romans then adopted the Greek alphabet sometimes with a few changes of their own.
NPNF1-02. St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine Author: Schaff, Philip (1819-1893)
Chapter 11. How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to ...
Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concerning God, in which they recognize considerable agreement with the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this, that when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jeremiah, or, whilst travelling in the same country, had read the prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself have expressed in certain of my writings.1 But a careful calculation of dates, contained in chronological history, shows that Plato was born about a hundred years after the time in which Jeremiah prophesied, and, as he lived eighty-one years, there are found to have been about seventy years from his death to that time when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scriptures of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea, and committed them to seventy Hebrews, who also knew the Greek tongue, to be translated and kept. Therefore, on that voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who was dead so long before, nor have read those same scriptures which had not yet been translated into the Greek language, of which he was a master, unless, indeed, we say that, as he was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he also studied those writings through an interpreter, as he did those of the Egyptians,—not, indeed, writing a translation of them (the facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy in return for munificent acts of kindness,2 though fear of his kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but learning as much as he possibly could concerning their contents by means of conversation. What warrants this supposition are the 152 opening verses of Genesis: "In the beginning God made the heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible, and without order; and darkness was over the abyss: and the Spirit of God moved over the waters."3 For in the Timæus, when writing on the formation of the world, he says that God first united earth and fire; from which it is evident that he assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain resemblance to the statement, "In the beginning God made heaven and earth." Plato next speaks of those two intermediary elements, water and air, by which the other two extremes, namely, earth and fire, were mutually united; from which circumstance he is thought to have so understood the words, "The Spirit of God moved over the waters." For, not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by those scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought that the four elements are spoken of in that place, because the air also is called spirit.4 Then, as to Plato’s saying that the philosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking thing in this connection, and that which most of all inclines me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant of those writings, is the answer which was given to the question elicited from the holy Moses when the words of God were conveyed to him by the angel; for, when he asked what was the name of that God who was commanding him to go and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was given: "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, He who is sent me unto you;"5 as though compared with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those things which have been created mutable are not,—a truth which Plato zealously held, and most diligently commended. And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in that book where it is said, "I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel, who is sent me unto you."
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EV speaks of a "dominance" when the law of the polis is the only law that matters, (as it appears to be the case in Aristotle, since all the terminology concerns itself only with the justice of the polis--and yet there is also justice of arrangements of other kinds). The dominance of a political justice established by the law of the polis obliterates the justice that extends beyond the justice of the polis to that which is eternal and immutable, as opposed to that which is changeable. Why? If you grant preminence to the law (nomos) of the polis ("the dominance of the politikon") there is nothing to check what we understand as "positive law" The law of the polis is then the only arena wherein arbitrary law arises against it. The dominance of the politikon is when the law of the polis is itself right by nature. It is law no longer accountable to anything else. Nor is it positive law, which only arises in a situation where the law of the polis is no longer preeminent. That's my take, so far. |