“The unexamined

life is not worth living.”

Socrates

THE GREEKS Greek thinkers of the classical era generated

no lasting religious tradition of world historical importance

Rather quarreling gods of Mount Olympus, secret fertility cults, oracles predicting the future, and ecstatic worship of Dionysus, the god of wine

But the distinctive feature –To affirm that the world was a physical reality governed by natural laws, and to assert that human rationality could both understand these laws and work out a moral and ethical life

The Greeks separated science and philosophy from religion

Developed a way of thinking that had some similarity to the secularism of Confucian thought in China

Greece’s location on the margins of the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia encouraged intellectual activity

Between 600 and 300 BCE, during the Athenian golden age, the Greeks developed artistic, literary, and theatrical traditions that still influence people today

A Greek emphasis on argument, logic, and relentless questioning as well as its confidence in human reason and figuring out the world without reference to the gods

Socrates (469-399 BCE) was an Athenian philosopher who engaged individuals in conversation about the good life

-Socrates used a method of constant questioning of the assumptions and logic of his students’ thinking

-Challenged conventional ideas about wealth and power and urged the pursuit of wisdom and virtue

Socrates was critical of Athenian democracy and on occasion had positive things to say about militaristic Sparta, the enemy of Athens

Authorities accused Socrates of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced him to death

-Socrates was forced to commit suicide by drinking poison

Many classical Greek thinkers lived on the Ionian coast of Anatolia and applied a rational and questioning way of knowing to the world of nature

Thales predicted an eclipse of the sun and argued that the moon simply reflected the sun’s light

Democritus suggested that atoms collided in various configurations to form visible matter

Pythagoras believed that beneath the chaos and complexity of the visible world lay a simple, unchanging mathematical order

These thinkers had a rational and nonreligious explanation for the material world

Hippocrates traced the origins of epilepsy to simple heredity

Herodotus wrote about the Greco-Persian Wars as an effort to discover “the reason why they fought one another”

-His assumption that human reason lay behind the conflict not the whims of the gods made him a historian in the modern sense

Ethics and government also figured prominently in Greek thinking

Plato (429-348 BCE) wrote in The Republic about a society led by a “philosopher-king”

-A “philosopher-king” would be able to penetrate the many illusions of the material world and grasp the “world of forms” in which ideas such as

goodness, beauty, and justice lived in a real way

Aristotle (384-322 BCE), a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great, wrote on practically everything

-Emphasized empirical observation -Famous for his reflections on ethics, a

product of rational training and cultivated habit that could be learned

THE GREEK LEGACY Greek rationalism, art, literature, and theater

persisted for a long time after the golden age The Roman Empire facilitated the spread of

Greek culture Western Europeans rediscovered classical

Greek ideas after the twelfth century CE, as scholars gained access to classical Greek texts

-From that point on, the Greek legacy has been viewed as a central element of “Western” civilization

Greek ideas played a role in formulating an updated Christian theology, in fostering Europe’s Scientific Revolution, and in providing a point of departure for much of European philosophy

But the Greek legacy had entered Islamic culture long before the European rediscovery

-Stimulated Muslims in the fields of medicine, astronomy, mathematics, geography, and chemistry

-Largely from Arabic translations of Greek writers that Europeans rediscovered the Greeks

JESUS A young Jewish peasant/carpenter in the

remote province of Judaea in the Roman Empire

A brief three-year career of teaching and miracle-working

Came into conflict with local authorities Was executed (crucified) His teachings became the basis of the

world’s second great universal religion

Like Buddha, urged the renunciation of wealth and emphasized the importance of love or compassion

-Buddha spoke of metta or loving-kindness -Jesus encouraged love of neighbor and

enemies But unlike Buddha, Jesus inherited from his

Jewish tradition an intense devotion to a single personal deity with whom he was on intimate terms

Jesus’ teachings also had a sharper social and political edge

-Spoke clearly on behalf of poor and oppressed

-Criticized the hypocrisies of the powerful

Definition: Agape The Love of God for mankind (Christian theology)

While it seems like that Jesus intended to reform Jewish traditions, Christianity emerged as a distinct religion

Jesus soon became divine in the eyes of his followers

The transformation of Christianity from a small Jewish sect to a world religion began with Saint Paul (10-65 CE)

-Early convert -Missionary activity in eastern Roman Empire

led to the founding of small Christian communities that included non-Jews (Gentiles)

Earliest converts were usually lower-stratum people

The spread of Christianity was often accompanied by reports of miracles and healings

The exclusive monotheism of Christians led to Rome’s intermittent persecution of Christians

Persecution ended with Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century CE

Roman emperors began to use Christianity to hold together its diverse and weakening empire

-Emperor Theodosius (reigned 379-395 CE) banned all polytheistic ritual sacrifices and ordered their temples closed

As Christianity spread, it developed a hierarchical organization with patriarchs, bishops, and priests

The bishop of Rome emerged as the dominant leader, or pope, of the Church in the western half of the empire, but this rule was not recognized in the east

-This division contributed to the later split between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox branches of Christendom

Doctrinal differences also affected unity of Christianity – A series of church councils at Nicaea (325 CE), Chalcedon (451 CE), and Constantinople (553 CE) sought to define an “orthodox” or correct position on matters of faith

STRAYER QUESTIONS What are the distinctive features of the Greek

intellectual tradition? How would you compare the lives and

teachings of Jesus and the Buddha? In what different ways did the two religions evolve after the deaths of their founders?

In what ways was Christianity transformed in the five centuries following the death of Jesus?