“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 miracleworking
 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?
