Hellenistic Theo-Philosophy: Sowing the Seeds of Christianity

Despite his search through the evolution of thought from the dawn of civilization, particularly in the Mediterranean and Near/Far East, Charlie still had yet to find that marker, that break, where man had become so convinced of the reality of the empirical world, that reality which had laid its foundation on that which could be measured, weighed, seen or heard, the blind faith in materialism within which the world of objects was wholly distinct from and separate from the observer, their subject.

This to him was the fatal flaw of modern times, the religion of the world that justified selfishness and the blind pursuit of wealth and power and its natural subjugation of selflessness, service and commitment to one’s fellow man and the common good.  This was the same search that drove Robert Pirsig to insanity and led him to create a new metaphysics for the modern age, the Metaphysics of Quality; Quality in his framework being an intuitive state beyond subject and object from which all experience, subjective or objective, sprung forth naturally.

Charlie had looked at the cosmological traditions of the Ancient Sumer-Babylonian culture, the cosmology of the Ancient Egyptians, the cosmology of the Ancient Greeks, the Indo-Aryan theological and metaphysical tradition that was reflected in the Vedas, the cosmological tradition of the Judeo-Christian culture as reflected in the Old Testament, the birth of Western philosophy that was born from Ancient Greece, and even into the life and works of Sir Isaac Newton, and yet nowhere could he find a presumption of a clear distinction of the materialistic world within which we all live and breathe from the person with whom was doing the living and breathing.  Even Newton, despite the field of classical mechanics which stemmed from his seminal work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica at the end of the 17^th century, did not profess the reality of the objective world, but simply the mathematical principles that governed natural philosophy, harkening back to the fields of knowledge, or episteme, that were established by Aristotle two millennia prior.  And yet it was from Newton’s work that the basis and foundation for materialism was born clearly.

The cosmological traditions that grew out of the Ancient Mediterranean and Indo-Aryan civilizations centered around the development of order out of this chaos, a birth of the universe from out of the cosmic void by some central creative principle, be it anthropomorphic in nature or not.  And each of the cosmological traditions spoke of the this primordial order or law being the founding principle upon which the earth, heavens, seasons and other natural laws rested upon to provide for the foundations of human life.  These cossmological traditions spoke of the cycles that governed this order of the universe, cycles which reflected the Ancient’s dependence and observance upon the world around them – the cycles of flood and recession of water of their respective river systems, the passage of the stars throughout the sky throughout the course of the year that marked the seasons, the passage of the sun and moon across the heavens that marked the passage of the days, months and years, even the cycle of birth and death which bounded human life and the soul.

But each of these cosmological and cultural systems also contained complementary mythologies – the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, the Greek journey of Odysseus, the myth of Ra and Horus of the Egyptians, the fables of Krishna in the Mahabharata – all of which made up what the later Greek philosophers deemed mythos, as distinguished from logos or reason.  These respective mythologies spoke to the ethical and moral virtues and qualities which the societies’ citizens should aspire to, wrapping ethical and moral principles in the blanket of fable and story, dipped in just enough history to make the myths credible.

In many cases however, these cosmologies and mythologies, collectively mythos, were also used to establish the legitimacy of power of the respective rulers and priestly classes of these ancient societies, tainting these traditions with some level of propaganda that reinforced this underlying societal order to which all individuals must confirm.  And this bastardization of the mythical and cosmological traditions was not lost on the ancient scholars and thinkers, particularly after the prevalence of writing which allowed scholars and philosophers to begin codifying and documenting their respective metaphysical beliefs.  And it was from this understanding, this knowledge, this rebellion against the lack of rational foundation of the prevailing mythos of these ancient cultures, from which ancient philosophy was born.  And more so than any other culture, it was the Hellenic philosophers that carried this first torch, who dedicated their lives to establishing the supremacy of reason and logic over faith in mythology or the reigning gods, theos, of the day.

During the height of Greek/Hellenic influence in the Mediterranean from the 6^th century BC down through reign of Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC)[1], his empire extending Hellenic influence well beyond the Mediterranean to the East, through the time of Roman influence through the Republic and then into the Roman Empire at the turn of the millennium that dominated the Mediterranean and beyond until at least the fifth century CE, Hellenic philosophical development took root and evolved in a cultural melting pot that included Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman cultures.  And as it developed, their respective cultural theologies and mythologies were synthesized and each of the respective civilizations adapted and evolved the Greek philosophies to their own cultural and theological bent.

With the advent of the Macedonian Empire stemming from Alexander’s conquests, the spread of Greek culture moved beyond just the areas in and around Athens and the surrounding city-states.  Alexander’s empire at its height extended as far south as Thebes in Egypt to as far East as the Indus river in the Indian subcontinent.  This imperial conquest enabled Greek culture and thought to spread throughout the ancient world, at least definitively assimilated into Sumer-Babylonian and Egyptian culture, and at least some evidence that there was Hellenic influence exerted in the Indian subcontinent as well despite Alexander’s failed attempt to conquer the territories east of the Indus River in the Indian subcontinent[2].

Historically, this cultural intermixing and spread of – primarily Athenian – Greek culture into these foreign lands is referred to as Hellenization, and despite its imperial context, this cross-pollination of cultures contained the seeds of much of the philosophical and theological evolution that took place until Christianity took hold in the Western Europe and around the Mediterranean in the 4^th and 5^th centuries CE with the adoption of Christianity as the de facto religion of the Roman Empire.

This next stage of Western metaphysical and theological thought in the Ancient world after the decline of the influence of Athens as the cultural and intellectual center of the Ancient Mediterranean developed in a much more cross-cultural context than the tradition which preceded it where traditions developed in a much more insular and isolated fashion.  And Greek philosophic thought, more so than any other theo-cultural tradition, predominated in the centuries following Plato and Aristotle and took root not only in Ancient Greece, but also in Ancient Egypt and the Near East as well, albeit driven mostly by cultural assimilation forced by military conquest more so than anything else.

Running parallel to the maturation and evolution of Hellenic philosophy, to the East the Indo-Aryan civilization was going through a similar transformation from the prevalence of a polytheistic, priestly authoritarian and mythological based religious tradition based upon the ritualistic practices outlined in Hinduism complemented with the mythological traditions encapsulated in their two great epic poems the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana, to a more open and accessible philosophical movement which aimed to explain the universe and mankind’s place in it within the context of a more reasonable and rational framework.  This intellectual development was primarily driven by the analysis, commentary and interpretation of the more esoteric and philosophical aspects of the Vedas (or more specifically the Upanishads which according to most scholarship were transcribed in Sanskrit between the end of the 2^nd millennium BC down through the middle of the first millennium BC), complemented by the spread of Buddhism which took hold in the Indian subcontinent in the 4^th century BC.

Buddhism for example arose from the Ancient Indo-Aryan civilization as a reaction to the prevalent Hinduism and caste system of the day which Siddartha Gautama (c 563 – 483 BC) saw as exclusive and divergent from its true Hindu roots – at least as represented by the more esoteric aspects of Hinduism as laid out in the Upanishads – and lacking a true theo-ethical framework within which the all people of caste and creed may escape the world of suffering and endless chasing after worldly desire; the so-called Middle Way as laid out in his Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path, a path open to all seekers within which the bondage of suffering could be broken.

From Charlie’s perspective, no matter what dating of the Upanishads you wanted to ascribe to, either a tradition that went as far back as the early part of the second millennium BC or as late as the middle of the first, it was clear that the Upanishadic philosophical tradition of the Indo-Aryans preceded its Hellenistic counterpart by some centuries at least.  To what extent the Hellenistic philosophical systems that blossomed in the send half of the first millennium BC in Greece borrowed from their Indo-Aryan brethren, rather than arising independently and spontaneously as a result of the same rebellious forces to religious orthodoxy, was open to scholarly debate.  Nonetheless, it would very be hard to argue that both of these rich theo-philosophical systems did not spring from the same common quest for knowledge and understanding by use of reason and logic, rather than the predisposition to naïve faith and belief in mythology as had been predominant in the era before the advent of human urban civilization up until the turn of the first millennium BC[3].

The Indo-Aryan theo-philosophical tradition as reflected in the development of Vedanta in the first millennium BC is unique relative to its Hellenistic counterpart in that to a great extent Vedanta continues to flourish today thanks to its reincarnation with the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Order, whereas the Hellenistic philosophical tradition, as primarily reflected in the works of Plato and Aristotle, was effectively swallowed by Christianity (and Islam) in the second half of the first millennium CE.

Unique to the Hindu tradition from which Vedanta springs, there existed in the ancient texts not only the establishment of the authority of the Brahmins and their role as priests and the presider over religious ceremonies and rites, but also a firm belief in the divine nature of the spirit, or Atman and its underlying unity with the penultimate creative principle of the universe, or Brahman.  In Hinduism, metaphysics as it were was baked into its religious tradition from very early on, albeit developing in parallel but part of the same tradition nonetheless, whereas to the West the metaphysics developed independent of religion per se.

Christianity and Islam incorporated some of the metaphysical and philosophical traditions that came before them, namely Hellenistic philosophy, but for the most part operate independently of these metaphysical traditions, as they continue to do so today.  Not so in the Eastern tradition, or at least not as much.  As a reflection of this, India today, despite its conquest over the millennia by a long list of cultures and their representative religions, retains a well-established and long standing tradition of spiritual and theological freedom from within which many religious practices and theological traditions have flourished alongside each other for centuries, stemming no doubt from the richness and depth of the teachings of the Vedas and their respect for individual realization.

And yet throughout all of this synthesis and assimilation, the Greek philosophical tradition still dominated the metaphysical landscape, even if the religious or theological underpinnings remained different depending upon the cultural context.  And this markedly Hellenistic philosophy was built upon and refined over the centuries, even with respect to the integration and utilization of various religious developments following the decline of the Roman Empire – namely Christianity, Judaism and even Islam.

So how did this synthesis of the Hellenistic philosophical systems occur?  The Eastern traditions have an unbroken link to their underlying metaphysics for the most part, the metaphysics and theology developed alongside each other, even the mythical tradition as reflected in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita ran complimentary to the underlying theology and metaphysics of the Hindus, but the Judeo-Christian tradition, and in turn the Islamic tradition which sprung from the same roots, was different.  These monotheistic religions and their associated theologies were born from the melting pot of philosophical thought which dominated the Mediterranean and surrounding areas at the time of Jesus’s teaching to the few centuries thereafter, culminating in the adoption of Christianity as the de facto religion of the Roman Empire.

Middle Platonism is the term historians and scholars give to the time period marked by the advent of Antiochus of Ascalon (c 125 – 68 BC), a student of the Academy which Plato founded who diverged from the skepticism taught at the Academy for the few centuries following its founding and integrated Stoic and Peripatetic (school founded by Aristotle) principles into Platonic philosophy, arguing that truth and falsehood could in fact be discerned and that the intellect was capable of making the distinction.  Middle Platonism extends until the development of what modern historians and scholars call Neo-Platonism, as put forth by Plotinus (c 204 – 270 CE) and then transcribed by his pupil Porphyry (c 234 – 305 CE) in his seminal work Enneads, which laid out a comprehensive monotheistic doctrine that built off the original Platonic philosophy.  Middle Platonism then covered some four of five centuries of development, all occurring against a backdrop of cultural assimilation marked most notably by the rise of the Roman Empire as well as the development of early Christianity.[4]

Much of what we know about philosophical development during this time, even as far back as the pre-Socratics from the 6^th to the 4^th centuries BC down through the establishment of the Academy by Plato and the Peripatetic school founded by Aristotle toward the latter part of the 4^th century BC stems from the work of a Diogenes Laertius, a 3rd century CE biographer and historian who wrote Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, the primary extant source from which we understand the development of Greek philosophy in the ancient world and within which a summary of the doctrines of many ancient historic theo-philosophies are described in detail.

In this work, Diogenes divides ancient philosophy into Ionian and Italian schools, the former tradition represented not only by pre-Socratic philosophers such as Thales of Miletus and Solon, but also the Socratic tradition which of course included the works of Plato and Aristotle and others that followed them.  In the Italian school, he included the Eleatics, Atomists and Skeptics, expounding upon the life and works of such renowned philosophers as Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, and Democritus among others.

As Diogenes describes the tradition that evolved in and around the Academy after Plato, under the leadership of Arcesilaus in the middle of the 3^rd century BC the school started to emphasize skepticism, or the denial of the possibility of knowledge of absolute truth, following to a great extent the Platonic tradition that rested on the principle that one might know what the source of all Forms or Ideas are “like”, but the full and complete comprehension of their essence was beyond intellectual capability of the human mind.  This development can be seen to some extent in contrast to the popularity of Stoicism, the tradition founded by Zeno in the 3^rd century BC, which taught that destructive emotions came from ignorance, and the development of the intellect and a rigorous moral and ethical framework would lead an individual out of the suffering stemming from these unchecked emotions, i.e. the comprehension of truth and knowledge was possible and in fact was the way to the path of virtue and true happiness[5].

The Academy’s rich history ends with Philo of Larissa, the last undisputed head of the Academy from 110/109 BC until his death in 84/83 BC, whose student Antiochus breaks from the skeptical traditions that marked the Academy’s tradition in the prior few centuries and attempts to provide a broader metaphysical framework which rests more faith in the capacity of the intellect and the reality of the sensory and materialistic world than his Academic predecessors.

Middle Platonism and Stoicism, markedly Hellenic theo-philosophical systems set in motion by Socrates (c 469 – 399 BC) and Zeno of Citium (334 – 262 BC) respectively[6], had a broad influence on not only Hellenistic philosophy, but also extended into the period of Roman influence as well, challenging the prevailing polytheistic and mythological traditions of the respective cultures and providing for a rational framework of viewing the world which sat in contrast to mythological traditions and blind faith in the gods.  Each school not only attempted to open up religion[7] to the masses in their own way, but also applying its core metaphysical principles to subjective reasoning and logic.  Buddhism in turn sprung from the same forces in the East a century earlier.  Each of these belief systems at one level or another professed that a direct relationship to the divine was to be had by all, and could be understood, or known, and furthermore that the knowledge of the nature of the universe and man’s place in it was not the divine right of just a few selected, preordained priests or rulers.  Furthermore, none of these belief systems espoused an anthropomorphic deity per se, this was a later development stemming from Christianity (which had Judaic roots of course), and their genesis was a direct response to, a rebellion away from, the polytheistic and priestly religions which had dominated the ancient civilizations surrounding the Mediterranean for millennia[8].

These new systems of belief reflected by Stoicism, Middle Platonism and even Buddhism from further East weren’t just religions per se, they were holistic belief systems that attempted to not only explain the world around them in a rational and logical way (Aristotle’s natural philosophy), but also attempted to establish a rational, logical framework to describe the principles that sat behind the universe and what laws it was governed by (Aristotle’s first philosophy and principles of causality).  Furthermore, all of these theo-philosophical systems provided the synthesis of a way of living that prescribed a moral and ethical framework within which the goal of life was to be pursued, based upon principles such as virtue, excellence, reason, and compassion.  These were integrated systems open to all that attempted to provide a rational structure of the universe that was synthesized with a moral and ethical framework that ascribed to reason and logic as their foundations, divorcing themselves from the mythological belief systems that marked the pre-civilized era of human history.

With the fall of Athens as the socio-cultural epicenter of the Ancient Western world following the Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC), a new cultural and academic center developed in Alexandria in Northern Egypt a century or so later after Ptolemy (Ptolemy I Soter) consolidated his rule over Egypt in the decades following Alexander’s sudden demise.  The Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt and the surrounding Mediterranean areas for three centuries after the Macedonian empire collapsed until it was felled by the Romans in 30 BC.  During this time Alexandria served not only as its capital but also as a trading and intellectual hub of the Mediterranean and surrounding areas, reinforcing Hellenic influence in Egypt and the Middle East.

The Ptolemaic Dynasty and its associated Egyptian Kingdom/Empire was presided over by a Greek Macedonian family placed into power by Alexander toward the end of his reign in 323 BC.  Ptolemy I Soter, a former general in Alexander’s army, was the first ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty and took the title of Pharaoh in 305/304 BC.  At its height, the Ptolemaic Kingdom extended as far west as Cyrene in Northern Africa and as far East as Mesopotamia and Babylon and despite its Egyptian heritage, reflected a predominantly Greek culture given the heritage of its rulers.

One of the lasting marks of the Ptolemaic Dynasty on not only Egypt but on the Western world as a whole was the construction and development of an academic center in its capital Alexandria commonly called the Royal Library of Alexandria.  The Ptolemaic rulers established and funded the Library along with its academics and scholars liberally, carrying forward the Hellenic tradition of academic scholarship and thirst for knowledge with them into Egypt.  It is said for example that the Ptolemaic rulers not only paid for travel, lodging and stipends for the academics, but their families as well, establishing an epicenter of learning and study that was unmatched for centuries.  As an intellectual center, Alexandria flourished for the next three centuries.  During this time the Ptolemaic rulers leveraged legal, financial and political means to bring scholars together and it became a place where not only ancient manuscripts were archived and translated, but also where prolific commentaries and other original works of scholarship were authored.

One of the great influential ancient works that came out of this intellectual hub was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament called the Septuagint.  The work was commissioned by Ptolemy II (309 to 246 BC) in order to make the Old Testament more readily available to the general populace where Greek (Coptic Greek) was the lingua franca of the day.  This text had broad influence on not only the Judaic philosophical and theological development as this became one of the standard Old Testament texts, but it also influenced Christian development as well.[9]

One of the most notable philosophers and theologians that lived during the period of Alexandrian influence is the Jewish scholar and theologian Philo, or Philo of Alexandria (c 20 BC – 40 CE).  Philo is known primarily for his work in systematically synthesizing Greek philosophical traditions with Orthodox Judaism, particularly in his interpretations of the Books of Moses or the first five books of the Old Testament, sometimes referred to as the Pentateuch[10].  Although his most lasting contribution was his allegorical and classically Greek philosophical interpretation of the Pentateuch which was broadly adopted by the early Christian community, Philo also wrote on other topics such as the role of reason in the animal kingdom, the nature of God and Providence, and even a treatise called The Contemplative Life, or De Vita Contemplativa, which describes in detail the daily lives and rituals of members of a Jewish ascetic community living at the time in Egypt.  He also wrote extensively on Jewish law and custom, or Halakha.

Ironically, most of what we know about Philo comes from later Christian authors rather than the Jewish tradition, as Philo was looked upon by later philosophers and theologians as primarily Christian in belief and thought despite his clear Jewish heritage.  Jerome, the Roman Christian priest and theologian from the 4^th century CE (c 347 – 420 CE) best known for his Latin translation the Bible, i.e. the Vulgate, for example even lists Philo as a Church Father.[11]

Philo was very well schooled in the Greek philosophical tradition and it is clear that he held Greek philosophers in very high esteem (Plato most notably) but his overarching premise was that Moses and his doctrines as laid out in the Pentateuch were the highest philosophy and that Hellenic philosophy, as well Hellenic law and epic poetry, all stemmed from a set of principles that were handed down to them by Moses.  His commentaries on the Pentateuch and other philosophical works, his interpretation of the Book of Genesis in particular, looked at the myth of creation and the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt through a symbolic and allegorical lens rather than a more literal interpretation of actual events, in very much the same way as many of the Greek philosophic schools looked at the mythical tradition passed down by Homer and Hesiod.

Philo was not necessarily significantly diverging from the views of some of the other Jewish scholars of his time however, as there were several Jewish historians and theologians before him who had argued that Moses was the source of Hellenistic philosophy and law – scholars such as the historian Artapanus and the philosopher Aristobulus of Paneas both from the 3^rd and 2^nd centuries BC for example.  So in this sense, Philo was merely carrying on and expanding upon the Hellenistic-Judeo synthetic tradition that had come before him rather than innovating along these lines, no doubt providing for a more deep and profound framework than those who came before him but consistent in basic approach nonetheless.

The Hellenistic theo-philosophies that evolved in the second half of the first millennium BC not only rested on a firmer rational foundation than the mythological and faith based traditions that preceded them, but were also designed as open and freely available faiths comprehensible and accessible to any person that could think or read, or even simply listen and understand, in contrast to the prevailing polytheistic and priesthood based traditions that held that access to the divine was the right of the exclusive few who had some sort of special access to the underlying truths and secrets of the universe.

In both the Stoic, Platonic and other Hellenic theo-philosophical traditions as they evolved during the few centuries leading up to the time of Philo, there existed then robust and consistent logical and rational frameworks that underpinned their respective metaphysics, as well as systems of ethics and morality that were all strewn together as cohesive belief systems, religions in fact in the modern sense of the term, except that they lacked an anthropomorphic conception of God as put forth in the Pentateuch which was a later primarily Christian development.  These traditions kept somewhat true to their polytheistic roots, despite their rejection of the prevailing religious establishment.[12]

The notion of god(s) in the Greek philosophical tradition, as reflected in their use of the term theos, did not deny the reality or existence of the different gods such as Zeus, Athena or Apollo, but rather asserted that each theos, each god, was a reflection or manifestation of a different aspect of the one single creative principle that sat behind the universe.  This principle can be gleaned even from the mythology of the Ancient Greeks, although an allegorical interpretation of the myths must be used in order to see this, i.e. the method used by the Stoics in interpreting the works of Homer and Hesiod and then in turn by Philo in his interpretation of the Old Testament.

This allegorical interpretation of myth was almost an a priori assumption to the majority of the philosophical and metaphysical development that came out of ancient Hellenistic culture, be it implied or explicitly called out in the various philosophical traditions[13].  Furthermore this polytheistic metaphysical context blended nicely with the Roman and Egyptian cultures which both had their own deep polytheistic roots, in turn facilitating the assimilation and integration of Hellenistic philosophical systems into Roman and Egyptian culture.

Poetry and mythology then, in particular the Homeric epics which encapsulated much of the Hellenistic mythos, were looked at as an integral part of the Hellenic intellectual framework, not cast aside as mere fantasy or as myth in the sense that we use the term today.  These epic poems and their respective cosmologies were looked at in a fundamentally allegorical context by the Greek philosophers, particularly when it came to interpreting the morals and ethical implications of the stories contained therein.

This synthesis of poetry, mythology and philosophy is probably best encapsulated in the work of Parmenides (early 5^th century BC) in his poem On Nature, a work which had a profound influence on the Platonic and other Hellenic philosophical schools that came after him, even if only for its refutation as is the case in Plato’s dialogues, most notably the Parmenides which carries his name.  The poem narrates a mythical journey of the author to the halls of the Night led by the maiden daughters of the sun god Helios.  Passage through the gates is granted by the goddess Justice at the behest of the maiden gods which accompany Parmenides and the narrative that follows is a dialogue between him and the goddess Night about the nature of the universe and the paths of inquiry into truth[14].

On Nature proffers up two ways of inquiry for those seeking truth or knowledge; the first of which is called the Way of Conviction which describes “true reality” (alêtheia) or “what Is” (to aeon), and the second of which is described as the inferior way but a way nonetheless is the Way of Mortals or the way of myth and allegory.  The Way of Conviction is philosophical and metaphysical in content and it is this part of the work that influenced later Hellenic philosophical development, almost all of which is extant.  The second part of the work, the Way of Mortals, is only around 10% extant but it is clear that it outlined a mythical and cosmological narrative of the creation of the world, from its initial conception to the creation of the heavens and earth, all the way down to the creation of mankind and the animal kingdom, akin to the contents and approach of Moses’s Genesis or Hesiod’s Theogony from the Judeo-Christian and Greek mythological traditions respectively.[15]

On Nature then represents one of the earliest known attempts to bridge the gap between poetry & mythology and metaphysics & philosophy.  The form of the work itself, as presented as a classic Greek epic poem, reflects the core belief of the author in the power of the poetry and mythology as a means to communicating truth.  This cannot be denied.  So irrespective of contents, in much the same way that Plato (and Aristotle) held dialectic as the greatest and most powerful means for conveying truth, Parmenides held that poetry, and perhaps even mythology, was the most potent tool. 

Given that the poem does not exist in its source or complete form, particularly the latter part on the Way of Mortals, the interpretations of the work with respect to what Parmenides was actually trying to convey regarding the two seemingly contradictory means of inquiry is open to debate by later scholars and historians.  From Charlie’s perspective however, it was clear enough based upon what has survived, and the form of the medium itself, that Parmenides at least at some level intended to not only illustrate in toto what he thought was the true nature of the universe as juxtaposed against the backdrop of the prevalent mythos of the day (i.e. Way of Conviction), but also to state emphatically that a) the way of knowledge or reason is the higher and more clear path to knowledge and understanding, and b) that the way of myth and poetry, albeit leading to a lower form of understanding or realization, was also a relevant and alternate path, even complementary to a purely rational or philosophical approach.

The Way of Mortals portion of the work takes as its context and backdrop the prevailing Greek notions of mythos and theos, reflecting and interpreting the polytheistic and mythological traditions that had predominated Mediterranean civilizations for millennia, this much is clear. It draws from the same mythological traditions that Homer and Hesiod drew from, with an albeit distinct narrative.  Again from Charlie’s perspective, it would be very hard to argue that from Parmenides standpoint mythos did not have a significant role to play in the understanding of the world we lived in and the path of righteousness and virtue that people should follow, be it less true, or probably better put less accurate, than an intellectual framework based on the faculties of the mind and reason.

Outside of the relevance of the synthesis of myth and philosophy in On Nature, in the Way of Conviction Parmenides introduces the term logos to describe this rational foundation upon which knowledge and truth is to be known and understanding is to be gained.  Parmenides’s logos, as fleshed out even more in later Hellenistic philosophical development, particularly in the Stoic and Peripatetic schools, was looked at in juxtaposition to doxa, or “opinion”.  Although doxa is traditionally translated into the English word “opinion”, it more literally can be translated as “to expect” or “to seem”, in the Parmenides and Stoic context referring to the widely spread common mythological belief systems steeped as reflected in the poetic traditions of the time which had the appearance of truth.  Logos and in turn doxa as terms were picked up and expanded and expounded upon by later Hellenistic philosophic schools into broader metaphysical frameworks, but it is with Parmenides that the first lines, and terminology, with respect to logos and doxa are drawn[16].

For this view, that That Which Is Not exists, can never predominate. You must debar your thought from this way of search, nor let ordinary experience in its variety force you along this way, (namely, that of allowing) the eye, sightless as it is, and the ear, full of sound, and the tongue, to rule; but (you must) judge by means of the Reason (Logos) the much-contested proof which is expounded by me.[17]

In not only the Eleatic Philosophical school of which Parmenides was its founder, as well as the Platonic and Stoic philosophical traditions that arose somewhat after chronologically, detailed epistemological frameworks were developed that established the supremacy of reason and rational argument in the elucidation of truth and knowledge, moving well beyond even an allegorical interpretation of the Hellenic mythos as established by Parmenides.  They postulated, and even attempted to prove via the development of well-defined systems of logic and argument, that the one creative principle from which the pantheon of gods has and continues to emerge from was beyond the comprehension of the intellectual faculty of man, and that we must use reason, or logos, in order to begin to comprehend the nature of this all-pervading creative principle.

Plato’s Forms and his Allegory of the Cave in The Republic represent the most prolific and lasting metaphors and philosophical foundations for this notion, giving rise to the development of Neo-Platonism several centuries later after monotheism started to take root in the Mediterranean upon the broad adoption of Christianity.  In the Stoic tradition, there even developed a semantic and philosophical framework for perceiving and integrating mythology and poetry into its underlying metaphysics.  This integration rested on the underlying theory of language and poetry, where the term logos took on special significance to denote the underlying meaning implied by a word, in either spoken or written form.

Logos then, particularly in the work of Philo, takes on a crucial role in the evolution of philosophical development in the Ancient world, first in Ancient Greece and then spreading through the Mediterranean and into the Near East over the subsequent centuries as the Greeks and then the Romans established empires which provided the cultural foundations upon which these theo-philosophical developments could take place.

As the Stoics before him had looked to mythology and poetry not as truth in and of themselves but as allegories and stories from which truth, more specifically ethical and moral frameworks, could be gleaned, Philo latched onto this idea of logos, and wrapped his allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament books around it, developing an underlying, classically Hellenistic, metaphysics that underpinned the anthropomorphic concept of God that Moses laid out for the Jews in the Pentateuch.  Philo did espouse that the words of the Pentateuch were revelationary and of divine origin, but he also believed that the true understanding of the Books of Moses could only be had by looking past their literal interpretation and toward their allegorical meaning.  He even went so far as to debunk the anthropomorphic concept of God of the Jewish Old Testament, preferring instead a more Hellenistic theo-metaphysical framework where logos and theos, as put forth by the Eleatics, Stoics and Platonists before him, existed conceptually but the creator from which these principles originated was unknowable and indescribable[18].

For it is out of that essence that God created everything, without indeed touching it himself, for it was not lawful for the all-wise and all-blessed God to touch materials which were all misshapen and confused, but he created them by the agency of his incorporeal powers, of which the proper name is Ideas, which he so exerted that every genus received its proper form.[19]

In this way Philo attempted to try and put forth a Jewish philosophy that not only affirmed the place of the Books of Moses as the highest and first truth staying true to his Jewish heritage, but also to establish a richer metaphysical framework from within which the Jewish scriptures could be revealed, a conception of the world that was consistent with the scripture and was aligned with the rich Hellenistic philosophical tradition which was broadly accepted by the scholars and intellectuals of his time.  From Philo’s point of view, the Yahweh of the Old Testament was to be looked at in an allegorical context, and was beyond intellectual understanding.  But the stories, the mythology of the Old Testament, was true in the sense that it shed light on what Yahweh was like, how Yahweh wanted us to behave, and how mankind was to be viewed within the context of the universe as a whole.[20]

To Philo, the notion of logos represented the intellectual manifestation of the creative principle of the universe that emanated from the one and only God, the Yahweh who gave Moses the Ten Commandments.  But at the same time this creative principle was distinct from God in the sense that although knowledge of logos was possible to a certain degree, it did not necessarily imply that one comprehended, or had conceptually realized, God.  Logos in the sense that Philo used the term, had a clear ancient Greek philosophical heritage, particularly as reflected in the Stoic tradition, but Philo expanded and expounded upon its meaning within the context of his interpretations and commentaries of the Old Testament in order to connect its underlying mythology with the rational Hellenistic metaphysical frameworks that had taken root in the Mediterranean, providing for a rich framework that was then leveraged by the early Christian Church Fathers as one of the cornerstones of Christian theology[21].

Philo however went even further to try and synthesize directly Platonic ideas into his work and explicitly connected logos with Plato’s Forms, setting the stage for later Neo-Platonic and arguably even Gnostic development.  To Philo, logos represented the underlying Form of a thing in that it was from this Form that the mind or intellect could understand or know a thing.

It is manifest also, that that archetypal seal, which we call that world which is perceptible only to the intellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the Idea of Ideas, the Logos of God.[22]

Philo then established a metaphysical link between ancient Geek philosophy and Jewish monotheism, providing a sound metaphysical and philosophical foundation for Christianity in the centuries that followed, and setting the table for the broad adoption of Christianity that followed in the next few centuries.