1. AMERICA'S MORAL-SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE
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| THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION TO WESTERN CULTURE |
A cutaway view of the Temple
However,
the Southern Israelite kingdom, basically made up of the tribe of Judah (thus
the Jews) had more wisely stayed out of these political doings, and Assyria
left them alone. But such wisdom did not
pass on (as so often happens) to a new generation of Jews, who got mixed up in
the struggles between Egypt and the newly rising power of Babylon, which had
just succeeded in overthrowing Assyrian power.
Finally now it was the Jews turn – at least their leading citizens – to
be carted off to Babylon.
The Jews being led into captivity at Babylon
(in two waves - early 500s BC)
But
they did have one very precious item that they could cling to, which would
serve to keep them mindful of their existence as a distinct people: their own tribal narrative – a history of
their tribal ancestors and their relations with their god Yahweh, a story which
reached all the way back to what they understood as the very beginning of
humankind itself. There in Babylon
incredible religious scholarship would develop under the guidance – not of the
(unemployed) temple priests, but instead by religious teachers or rabbis, who
collected this far-reaching narrative and turned it into a piece of holy
writing, something that the members of the Jewish community could study, meditate on, and be
guided by socially. And they could do so
wherever they found themselves, even there in Babylon. All they needed was some kind of community
center, the synagogue, where they could gather locally on a regular basis (at
least weekly on the Sabbath) and hear a teaching – usually some form of
commentary on their holy Scriptures – presented by their teachers (rabbis) and
elders.
This
also gave the Jews the idea that they served the interests of God in the
broader realm of humankind, for they were led now to understand that God was
not just a Jewish God, but was the God of all people, Babylonians, Egyptians, and everyone
else. And as a special covenant-people
of God's own choosing, they had the larger responsibility of bringing their
awareness of God's role in life to all the people, non-Jews as well as
Jews. Thus they became quite active in
Babylonian affairs, as a "people of God", a "Light to the Nations."
Eventually the Persians conquered the Babylonians, and allowed the Jews then to return to
their lands in Israel. But most chose to
remain behind in Babylon and continue their special lives there (Babylon and
then Persia would continue to serve as a key center of Jewish scholarship and
religious activity). Those that did
return to Jerusalem naturally rebuilt their Temple. However, they did not let go of the Jewish spiritual
practices developed during their Babylonian captivity, but instead kept Jewish life active
around the local synagogues, under the leadership of the rabbinical
scholars. And that would continue all
the way down to the time of the Roman Empire, and the arrival of Jesus. In fact,
it still continues to this day, wherever the Jews find themselves in this world
of ours!
| GREEK (MORE SPECIFICALLY, ATHENIAN) "DEMOCRACY" |
Most
Americans know that the idea of democracy was a political legacy given Western
Civilization by the ancient Greeks (500s-300s BC). Actually it was practiced widely around the
ancient world, and not just in Greece – developed out of the need of tribal
peoples, generally everywhere, to consult with clan or household elders
whenever an important decision affecting the tribe had to be made: when to
hunt, when to go to war, when to make a physical move. It was necessary to get every clan, every
household of the tribe on board with the decision – for unity of purpose was
essential to the survival of the tribe.
Thus democratic consultations would continue until some kind of general
agreement was possible prior to taking action with respect to the event in
question.
Thus
it was that the very ancient or early city-state Athens was quite reliant on the
democratic process of holding meetings to discuss common matters – and have an
affirmative vote from the participants in order to move things forward.
Unsurprisingly, as class distinctions developed, so did class
conflicts. Several efforts were made to
improve the democratic process (a toughening of political requirements under
Draco (thus the term "Draconian," something very brutal as social
measures typically go), countered a generation later by Solon – who attempted a
fairer distribution of responsibilities and rewards. However, this did not make a huge difference
in the Athenian political lineup. Finally, in reaction to Peisistratus'
tyrannical rule (a "tyrant" was actually originally a strong-handed
defender of the rights of the poor) and the rising danger of mounting Persian
power to the East, the popular politician Cleisthenes was led to reform the
constitution by simply re-classifying the Athenians into ten residential or
neighborhood "tribes" and having these tribal districts represented
at the Assembly by citizens chosen by lot.
Fair enough! And thus it was that Athens affirmed itself as a "representative"
democracy.
From
this point on (the mid-400s BC) Athens took on the position as Greece's
leading city-state, particularly when other city-states agreed to send funding
to Athens to support the unified Greek
defenses of the new Delian League against a resurgent Persia.
And
this marked the "Golden Age" of Athens, under the capable political
leadership of Pericles (excellent orator, statesman and general) during the
period from the mid-400s BC to his death in 429 BC, a time in which Athens was also producing the
historical insights of Herodotus (to about 424 BC), the creative works of the
dramatists Euripides and Sophocles (to 406 and 405 BC respectively) and the
outstanding philosophy of Socrates (to his death in 399 BC).
Pericles / Socrates
For
instance, the demagogues led the Assembly to the decision to use the money sent
by the other city-states to Athens for Greek mutual defense
instead to simply beautify Athens itself (new buildings,
improved streets, grand statuary, etc.), despite the protests raised by its
Greek allies. Ultimately these other
city-states would look to Sparta to champion their cause against an
increasingly greedy Athens, and ugly war resulted.
Today's view of the ancient splendor of Athens
Phidias showing the freize of the Parthenon to his friends
by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1868)
Birmingham (England) Museun and Art Gallery
Thankfully
Sparta ignored the demands of its city-state allies (Thebes, Corinth and
others) to enslave the defeated Athenian population, but resolved
instead simply to tear down Athens' city walls, leaving the city
defenseless militarily from that point on (404 BC). This was the beginning of the end of Athenian greatness.
But
the foolishness of Athens' democratic Assembly did not
end there.
In
399 BC, the wisest philosopher of the ancient world, Socrates, was voted the death penalty
by the democratic Assembly – because he annoyed Assembly speakers by calling
into question the wisdom of their words and behavior.
In sum, democracy Athenian-style had led that society
down a very self-destructive road.
This
would be the beginning of the tendency of intellectuals to design from their
desks beautiful societies, or "utopias" (a Greek word meaning
literally "nowhere"!) – built entirely on their own powers of
rational planning, and not on the basis of actual human experience (which tends
to be not very pretty much of the time).
But Plato would have the rare opportunity
as an intellectual to discover how well his ideas actually worked, when he was
invited by the young tyrant of Syracuse, Dion, to put his philosophy to work
there. The end result when Plato faced political reality was
total disaster for Syracuse (20 years of chaos under the social breakdown that
his experiment ultimately produced) and Plato's own arrest, imprisonment and
sale into slavery, which he was finally
purchased out of by a sympathetic fellow philosopher.
As we shall see further on in this narrative, the
Founding Fathers of the American Constitution (1787) were college men, back
when college or university education meant principally a study of the
humanities (philosophy, theology, history, law, and the social sciences). Thus they were very aware of both the
political history of ancient Greece, and the philosophy of the Greeks,
especially Plato and Aristotle. We
shall see more of how this influenced their decision deeply as to how to build
a new Federal system uniting the thirteen newly independent American
states. Full democracy was not
their goal. Democracy was included as part of the dynamic. But they attempted to put it under the
considerable restraint of a constitutional "checks and balances"
system. More about that later.
| ALEXANDRIAN GREECE |
He
first captured the lands bordering the Eastern Mediterranean, including even
Egypt. He then swung his army eastward
and crushed the Persians' own efforts at self-defense in 331 BC.
But Alexander had a roll going, and kept
on conquering, deeper into central Asia, and even down into the Indus River
valley. But his soldiers were at this
point exhausted and wanted to go home, or at least back to Babylon, the former
Persian capital, but now theirs as well.
Thus he turned around (however, losing half his men trying to get across
the Baluchi Desert). But back in
Babylon, Alexander was himself soon to die
(323 BC), probably his death resulting simply from sheer exhaustion.
The
importance to Americans of this Alexandrian legacy is that Greek culture was so
dominant in the times of Jesus and the first century church
that all of Christianity's foundational writings were done in Greek, not the
local Semitic language (Hebrew and Aramaic) of the lands where Christianity was
birthed, or even the Latin of the then-dominant Roman Empire.
| THE ROMAN REPUBLIC |
And
for such an understanding, we Americans are deeply indebted to the Romans, for
it is from them that the concept originated.
Under the Romans, their government or "republic" was
originally designed to be a government not of human wills, whether the will of
one person or even the many. The Roman
Republic was intended to be a government of laws, a permanent body of rules
that would describe the order that all Romans were to live and thrive under –
an unshakeable legal order that would continue forward in a precisely-defined
way regardless of whatever personalities played their assigned parts in this
order. A Republic was intended to be a
system of fundamental or unchanging constitutional laws – not a system governed
by the whims of human ambition and personal political interest, no matter how "rational"
these whims might claim to be. And
these laws were supposedly eternally valid, because they found themselves
detailed on 12 bronze tablets (450 BC) posted in the Roman Forum (central
market and religious center) for all to see.
And all Romans knew these laws well.
| THE EMPIRE REPLACES THE REPUBLIC |
Over
time, but particularly during the wars with the Carthaginians (the three Punic Wars from the mid-200 BC to the
mid-100s BC), the Roman Senate had become the center of all Roman power. It was a club of old Roman families (the "patricians")
joined by a select group of "commoners" (the "plebeians")
of recently acquired wealth, which closed its ranks against the rest of the
Roman common or plebeian citizenry. In
short, the Senate had turned itself into a ruling oligarchy. Meanwhile rising taxes necessitated by
ongoing war, and competition from the growing amount of slave labor acquired in
these wars, were bringing the more middle-class Roman plebeians to ruin. And
yet real Roman power, especially the power of the Roman military, was built on
the loyal services of these commoners as citizen-soldiers. Something drastic needed to be done to save
Rome from collapse or revolution.
Thus
as was the case for Athens, efforts were undertaken by
leading Roman citizens to reform the system, opening up bitter debate as to
exactly how that was to work. "Reform"
invites new forms of reasoning into the older legal order, reasoning which can
go most any way, or at least in the way of the most powerful of the social
groupings within society. In short, the
ancient Roman Constitution proved to be not quite as permanent or unchanging as
a body of laws.
Social
problems thus merely increased as various identity groups wielded reason
against each other as Rome sought to upgrade the now-changing
constitution. Tragically, identity politics was overwhelming
the constitutional republic.
The
Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, as Tribunes (Rome's political officers
representing the interests of the commoner plebeians), attempted reforms in
favor of the plebeians (133-121 BC), which were blocked by a jealous Senate. The
brothers were either clubbed to death by a mob or forced into suicide in
advance of a mob, stirred to action by the Senate.
Marcus Licinius Crassus Julius Caesar
For a while this looked as if it had been exactly the right
development needed by a mighty Rome. And
this "for a while" was set in place by indeed a number of very
capable Roman emperors – Octavian Caesar, Tiberius, Vespasian,
Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and finally Marcus Aurelius – who
governed the Empire during most of the first two centuries of the Christian
era.
But from the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 onward,
Rome (or its military legions that actually did the selection of Rome's
imperial leadership) seemed unable to come up with talented leadership. To a great extent this was caused by the deep
infighting that went on among the legions as one or another legion would
promote its own general as Rome's new emperor.
The situation got so bad that in a 50-year period (running from 235 to
285), constant overthrow or assassinations of emperors (25 in total!) going on
within the higher ranks of the military caused Rome to tumble into deep moral
corruption and social chaos. And thus
did Rome begin its fall from greatness – to the status of its Republic being no
more than a fond memory, actually a tragic memory.
Miles
H. Hodges
