1. Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian
Western Syntheses

2. Expansion of the Roman Empire
Experience of loss (of one’s own community, identify, political meaning of life)
Isolation
Individuals confronted simultaneously both ontological loneliness and the universal
Stoicism
Zeno from Cyprus, Epictetus
Focused on Reason and rational individuals
Strong appeal to nature and (an equal and universal) human nature
- Universal principles
Care for one’s own moral growth, and internal detachment from politics (through obedience to the authorities)
Influenced Cicero and Paul

3. The Jewish Tradition Strict Monotheism, (first) centered in Jerusalem
Classical period: 1000 B.C. – A.D. 500
Faced several mass deportations (attempt to disorganize the Jewish people due to the impossibility of subjugating them)
721 B.C. - Assyrians take over the North and deport the people
586 B.C. – Babylonians invade the South of Judah and deport the wealthy.
540 B.C. Persia defeats Babylonia, and the Jewish are allowed to return to their land. Many do not return, and this opens a tradition of the Jewish diaspora
A.D. 70 – Roman Emperor Hadrian decides to burn Jerusalem and its temple, smashing the Jewish people

4. Diaspora (a community in exile)
In the three next centuries, the Rabbis develop the Talmud (Palestinian and Babylonian)
System by which it is possible to continue being Jewish even without a land and while being persecuted (the system lasted 18th centuries)—Discussions over a very wide variety of subjects).
“If Israel had to continue to exist, it had to be transformed into a religious community independent of land, political sovereignty, and even the Temple in Jerusalem” (176)
The autonomy and independence of the Jews seems to lie behind their recurrent persecutions (no political unit ever accepts but subjection)

5. Remember Aristotle:
What is the problem with stateless beings? Why?

6. Torah
Torah (law, nomos? Teachings). Different definitions of the Torah
Fear (respect) and Awe
Series of Covenants between Yaveh and the Jewish people. Yaveh appears as a “national”(?) and jealous God, the one who imposes himself before other deities of other peoples.
No Jewish theology (the presence of God is not put into question... His presence is evident)

7. The Greek vs. the Jewish Afterlife? Jewish Greek
God creates man (God loses all anthropomorphic features)
Impulse to rise to heaven in reverence and awe
Strict beliefs
Human life organized around faith
“The beginning of virtue is the fear of God.”
Importance of Deeds and action
Act Justly!
Greek
Men create Gods (anthropomorphic Gods)
Impulse to bring the Gods down with us and to live with them
Flexible beliefs
Faith developed into philosophy (Idea) and science (skepticism) or pantheism
Knowledge is virtue
The soul is like the city
Think Clearly!
Afterlife?

8. Jesus Relies on the Bible but adds a new principle Love
Love as a way of life
(Why do we have to love each other?)
The other is always first (Why?)
Celebration of altruism and humility
The emphasis is put on the afterlife (the afterlife is the “real thing”)
Salvation
Reason, as our other skills, fail us… we are so imperfect. It is not ourselves, but our faith and love towards God what may save us…

9. Forms of Framing Fault Greeks The Jewish The Christian Ethics of Shame
Ethics of Obligation/ Debt
Ethics of Guilt
(internalization)
Consequences on subjectivity?
Political consequences?

10. Saul/Paul/Saint Paul (3- 66)
Born Saul in a wealthy Jewish family from Tarsus. Saul/Paul’s father was a Roman citizen
Exposed to Hellenism
Sent to Jerusalem to be trained in Gamaliel’s rabbinical school
Synthesis of the Judaic, Roman, and Greek traditions
Saul grew anti-Christian (he thought that the new sect should be banned)
In Syria, near Damascus, he had a vision of Jesus (turned blind,) and the cure of his blindness by Christian Ananias this led to Saul’s conversion and baptism.
Three missionary journeys (of a few years each)
Arrested and tried/martyr(?)
Was Paul the one who made Christianity
into a new religion?

11. Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans
Written about AD 57 – 58
Main themes:
Justification (by faith)
Jews/non-Jews: universalization of the reach of Jesus’ message.
Attitudes of Christian towards government
(Stoic influences)

12. Universalization and Interiorization of the Law
2:25: “Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.”
2:29: “No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God”.

13. Not Law, but Faith.
3:20: “no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin”.
4:13: “It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith”.

14. Chapter 13: “Submission to the Authorities”
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”
Foundation of the theory of the Divine origins of political power

15. Time /History
No unending cycles anymore; History has a beginning and an end.
(Eternal)
Heaven
Creation –Paradise
Original Sin
Fall (Sin/Death)
Prophets, Jesus… Church… Reformation…
History
Last Judgment
(end of History)
(Eternal)
Hell

16. Modern philosophy and political theory will reproduce this scheme of ours of understanding time and History, even if it appears secularized (Hegel, Marx, Comte… Fukuyama)
Postmodernism questions this narrative, and
recuperates the Ancient idea of “eternal recurrence”