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1. AMERICA'S MORAL-SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE

JEWISH, GREEK AND ROMAN CULTURES

CONTENTS

The Jewish contribution to Western culture

Greek (more specifically, Athenian) "Democracy"

Alexandrian Greece

 The Roman Republic

The Empire replaces the Republic

 The textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work
        America's Story – A Spiritual Journey © 2021, pages 16-25.
THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION TO WESTERN CULTURE

As with all cultures, Western or Christian culture is a unique blend of various contributing sub-cultures, ones however which combined around the idea of the importance of the sovereignty of the individual.  This is partly a Jewish idea, partly a Greek idea, and partly a Roman idea, into which Jesus came to sum up the idea of the sovereign individual.  Each of these sub-cultures helped to develop that key idea.  And so it would profit us greatly in coming to an understanding of the deeper character of our Western civilization if we took a closer look at each of these contributing sub-cultures.  And it is most logical to start with the earliest, and in a way the most determinative, of these ancient sources:  Judaism.

The Jewish contribution to Western culture.  Anciently, Israel (of which the Jews were the southern-most of the 12 tribes) at one point went at life pretty much like all the other nations of the day.  Their capital city, Jerusalem, possessed not only royal palaces but also a Temple, where – under the leadership of the Levitical priests – they performed animal sacrifices in worshiping their god Yahweh.

But in becoming a rich and successful people, the Israelites soon fell away from their devotion to Yahweh, who then abandoned them to the folly of their own political planning and operating.  They became reckless in their messing with the growing powers of the Egyptian Empire to the south of them and the Assyrian Empire to the East of them.  If they had been wise, they would have stayed out of the growing struggles between these two neighboring empires, for this was not God's plan for them.  And they had prophets who warned them of the dangers of such foolish involvement in the larger political battles going on at the time.  Eventually Israel got itself in trouble with Assyria, and the cruel Assyrians marched ten of the twelve tribes of Israel off to captivity, where they scattered the Israelites among the peoples of their empire, and soon much of the Israelite identity simply dissolved, never to recover again.

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.

But by the grace of God, the Babylonians let the Jews at least remain together as a community in captivity.  Thus the Jewish identity was not lost.  But still, as a people's religion defined the very nature of their societies back then (and still today) they were in a bit of a quandary.  The Babylonians would not let them build in Babylon a temple to their god Yahweh (the one in Jerusalem in fact had just been torn down by the Babylonians), and thus it seemed at first that there would be no way for those relocated to Babylon to hold onto to their unique social identity.

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.

And it was all very democratic, in the way that all young men were expected to demonstrate – as a rite of passage into manhood – the ability to perform this kind of rabbinical Biblical study and teaching.  In a way it was an early version of the "priesthood of all believers"!

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"

"Democracy" is a term used today by Americans to describe what it is that they understand America to be in its very essence – unfortunately not always with the clearest understanding of what is involved with such a concept or social identifier.  But it is a powerful idea nonetheless, made somewhat dangerous at times because, unlike the Founders of the American Republic over two hundred years ago who understood the possibilities and dangers both of the idea of democracy, to Americans today it has become something like a religion in itself.

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.

But when the population of Athens began to grow, participation of all Athenian citizens in such decisions became problematic.  There simply were too many people involved to conduct such business in an orderly fashion.  Consequently, small groups of people – especially ones that could claim a longer line of Athenian ancestry – would tend to take control, turning themselves into something of a ruling class.  And the xenoi (foreigners) not born of Athenian ancestry, who were even more numerous than the Athenian citizenry, had no place at all in this process, not to mention the slaves, who outnumbered even the xenoi.

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.

For a time this reform, plus the mounting danger of an aggressive Persia taking control in the eastern Greek lands of Ionia, brought unity to the Athenian population, bringing even the Greek city-states to amazing unity under Athenian leadership.  It even forced Athens' chief political rival in Greece, Sparta, to cooperate with Athens militarily.  And this unity finally allowed the Greeks to defeat the Persians at Marathon (490 BC) and Salamis (480 BC).

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).

But moral problems within Athens itself had begun to mount during that same period.  Peace had brought not democratic nobility of spirit, but a new greediness, stoked by the political self-interests of a series of leading Assembly speakers, clever Sophists or "wise ones," able to convince – through the most clever use of "reason" – the representatives of the people to do the most unwise, most self-destructive things, merely because it played to the interests of one or another of these "demagogues."

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.

How stupidly selfish Athenian democracy had become.  And the Athenian representatives would also foolishly ostracize (expelling for ten years) Athens' very best military leaders – actions inspired by jealous Assembly speakers.  What was this democratic body thinking?   All of this helped lead to Athens' ultimate defeat in a series of Peloponnesian Wars (the second half of the 400s BC).

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.

Socrates' pupil Plato tried to find a better approach to political wisdom by developing in a key philosophical work, Politeia (commonly known by its Latin name, Republic) his own idea of what a well-run society should look like.  But the success of such a venture depended entirely on the wisdom of the leading politician, not the wisdom of the people (which Plato doubted was obtainable anyway).

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.

Plato's own student, Aristotle, was more cautious in his approach to political design, actually studying historically various patterns of social governance.  In his famous works, Politics, he stated that on the basis of his research, the measure of good or bad in a society and its government appeared to depend not on the constitutional form of government itself – whether a government was made up of one (as in a monarchy) or a few (as in an aristocracy) or the many (as in a democracy) – that is, not by how many ruled, but by how morally they ruled.  A rule of one could be good – or bad – depending on the moral quality of the ruler.  A rule of the many could be good – or bad – as for instance a rule by an enlightened citizenry would be considered good ... whereas rule by a frenzied mob would most definitely be viewed as some perverse form of popular tyranny.   Thus to Aristotle, "good" or "bad" depended not on how many ruled but how well the society was ruled by its own high moral standards.  Failure to hold to its foundational standards would soon enough bring any society to ruin.

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

While we are on the subject of ancient Greece, it is important to bring into the narrative the role that a single individual, Alexander of Macedon, would play in the development of the ancient world.  He was the son of Philip II of Macedon, the latter a strong warrior who many of the Greeks had looked to in order to bring Greece out of the disorder ongoing in that land since the days of the Peloponnesian Wars.  Philip, anticipating a permanent (or dynastic) call to Greek governance, prepared to have at his side a son, Alexander, well informed in the ways of the people Philip intended to rule.  So he sent Alexander off to study under the very wise Aristotle.  But Philip was killed in 336 BC, and his 20-year-old son suddenly found himself at the head of his father's project.

Most amazingly, Alexander proved to be as much a leader as his father.  He was finally able to assemble the Greeks into some kind of united community, to take on the powerful Persians directly – in Persian territory itself this time. There would be no more just sitting passively waiting to fend off another Persian assault, as had been the pattern previously.  Alexander intended to go at the Persians in their own world.

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.

Alexander thus left a huge Greek legacy for his successors to deal with (they ultimately split Alexander's huge empire into a number of smaller empires).  And it left a lasting Greek cultural imprint on the entire region, not only in the Eastern Mediterranean but even into the Mesopotamian lands (principally today's Iraq) and large sections of central Asia.

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

Actually, America long-identified itself as a republic – not as a democracy.  There is a difference.  A republic refers simply to the idea of the actual ownership of a society – not the particular method by which it goes about the business of being governed.  The word "Republic" comes from the ancient Latin res publica or "thing of the people."  A Republic belongs to no particular ruling dynasty (such as the kings or emperors), no ruling class, no particular tribe, sect or socio-economic group within a society.  It belongs to all the people of that society.

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.

This was the key to Rome's early success in its expansion across Italy, and then across the Mediterranean world (and Europe north of the Alps as well).  Unlike tribes and nations that have a very hard time bringing conquered peoples into their social order as fellow members (choosing instead to enslave them or butcher them on the spot), the Romans offered participation of those they recently conquered in their society as full members, provided they were willing to come under Roman law and live accordingly as Roman citizens.  That was not only fair, it was powerfully effective in developing Rome's wide-spread multi-ethnic republic.

And it created a powerfully effective socio-economic order.  Given their legalistic mindset, Romans almost instinctively organized the world around them physically and materially as they conquered it, building roads (still standing today in many places) to provide rapid communication, troop movement and ultimately commerce connecting the Roman center to its outlying territories.  Wherever they conquered they planted military camps (naturally on a perfectly uniform grid pattern!) ... which became the heart of new commercial towns which quickly grew up around these garrisons.  They cleared the seas of pirates and kept marauding tribal raiders from central and east Europe closed out beyond a well-defended line running from the Rhine River in Germany to the Danube in the Balkan Peninsula. Consequently, the Mediterranean world that Rome had "conquered" experienced an unprecedented peace and prosperity, one that made Rome the very model of civilization itself to millions of people.

THE EMPIRE REPLACES THE REPUBLIC

But again, such politics – even Republican politics – is not a perfect thing.  It involves people.  And people can be very messy to work with.

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.

This brought forward the military leader Marius (108-100 BC) who tried to use his power to clean out the corruption in both the military and the massively expanding Roman bureaucracy.  But in the end, he was unable to stop the Roman fall into deeper "Social War."  This in turn led General Sulla to march his troops into Rome (a highly illegal act), designed to undercut the plebeian reform party and strengthen the position of the Senate.  Thus Rome came under the first of its military dictators (82-79 BC) or "emperors" (from the Latin imperator or military commander).

But the chaos only deepened, especially with Spartacus's slave uprising (73-71 BC).  At this point, the Senate looked completely to the Roman military to save Roman society.  This resulted in the selection of three generals – Crassus, Caesar and Pompey – to bring Rome back under control.  But instead, it simply put Rome through the process of a growing political competition among these three military giants.  One last effort was made – by Cicero – to bring Rome back under constitutional rule.  But getting nowhere, Cicero retired from politics, the last significant spokesman for Roman Republicanism.  Finally, with Caesar coming out on top in the competition among the generals – by marching his troops on Rome in 49 BC – Rome now found itself under full military rule.  The Republic had just begun its conversion from Republic to Empire (imperator-ruled).

And it would be Caesar's adopted-son (actually nephew) Octavian "Augustus" Caesar who would complete the conversion, as he tightened up Roman "Republican" society just as a general would tighten the ranks of his army.  His absolute hold over Roman society did finally bring about much-needed social order.  But it also ended forever the role of the Roman commoners in determining the shape and behavior of their society. Rome was now ruled "from the top down" by a rigidly organized Roman military imperium.  The "Republic" now existed in name only.

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.



Go on to the next section:  Early Christianity

  Miles H. Hodges