There’s a notable similarity between some of the teachings ascribed to Jesus in the gospels and those of earlier Greek philosophers. A good example of this is Jesus’ most famous homily in the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of not retaliating, loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches,
‘Do not take revenge on an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn and offer them your left cheek too. If anyone wants to sue you for your shirt, let them have your coat as well.’ (Matthew 5.39-40)
The Gospel of Luke portrays the ministry as follows,
‘Love your enemies: do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If someone hits you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; if someone takes your coat, let them have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you; when a man takes what is yours, don’t ask for it back. Treat others as you would like them to treat you.’ (Luke 6.27-31)
Plato (428 – 348 BCE) taught a similar doctrine to Jesus over 400 years earlier, in a conversation between Socrates and Crito,
‘Socrates: Well then, is it right to do evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many, or is it wrong?
Crito: It’s wrong.
…Socrates: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil they may have done to us.’ (Crito 49c)
Later on in the discourse Socrates adds,
‘Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that it is never right to do wrong or requite wrong with wrong, or to defend ourselves by doing evil in return for evil.’ (Crito 49d)
The letters in the New Testament that predate the gospels also show the influence of Greek philosophy on early Christian thought. Paul wrote that one should ‘never pay back evil with evil, try to do what everyone regards as good’ (Romans 12.17). We similarly read in 1 Peter, ‘Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing’ (1 Peter 3.9). Philippians in particular uses much Stoic terminology, including finding joy even when suffering, being a good citizen, seeking contentment in one’s state, and trying to keep a right mind. 1 Clement is a non-canonical letter from the first century and it too is full of Stoic themes.
These teachings also have a root in Jewish tradition. In Leviticus we read, ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19.18). It’s worth noting that this teaching only applied to Jews, not to gentiles, whom religious Jews often viewed as ‘unclean’ and were prone to be less friendly towards.
This refusal to retaliate was a keystone of the ministry of several Greek philosophers. Epictectus (55 – 135 CE) wrote,
‘This is the philosopher’s way – to be flogged like an ass and to love those who beat him, to be father and brother to all of humanity.’
The legendary philosopher Pythagoras was said to have told the people of southern Italy that, if abused, they must never defend themselves or retaliate. A Pythagorean text called The Sentences of Sextus teaches the same doctrine, one of the sayings is ‘Wish that you may be able to benefit your enemies’ (Saying 55). Another is ‘Such as you wish your neighbour to be to you, such also be you to your neighbour’ (Saying 20).
The early pagan critics of Christianity noted that Jesus’ teachings mirrored those of Plato and other philosophers. Origen recorded Celsus as saying,
‘You Christians have a saying that goes something like this: “Don’t resist a man who insults you; even if he strikes you, offer him the other cheek as well”. This is nothing new, and it’s been better said by others, especially by Plato.’ (Origen – Against Celsus 7.58)
Celsus went on to quote the dialogue between Socrates and Crito just mentioned. Origen also wrote of Celsus, ‘He thinks to cast discredit upon our system of morals, alleging that it is common to us with other philosophers, and no venerable or new branch of instruction’ (Against Celsus 1.4).
Plotinus (205 – 270 CE) similarly wrote of Christians,
‘All their terminology is piled up to conceal their debt to ancient Greek philosophy.’
The satirist Lucian (c125 – 180 CE) described Jesus as ‘that crucified sophist’ (The Death of Peregrinus 13). Sophism was another important school of philosophy in the ancient world.
There are further similarities between the sermons of Jesus and earlier philosophical teachings. As well as promoting non retaliation, Plato also taught that the philosopher should eschew the pleasures of eating, drinking, love and material acquisition (Phaedo 64d-e). A good example of this ascetic stance in Plato’s writings is,
‘Most excellent man, why do you…care so much about the acquisition of wealth and honour and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the perfection of your soul?’ (Apology 29d-e)
The rejection of material wealth and bodily passions was central to the teachings of many Greek philosophers. Before Plato, the philosopher Heraclitus had written, ‘It is hard to fight against passion; for whatever it wants it buys at the expense of soul’ (Fragment 105). Similarly, two of the Sentences of Sextus are,
‘The wise man, and the despiser of wealth, resemble God’ (Saying 2)
and
‘Think that you suffer a great punishment when you obtain the object of corporeal desire; for the attainment of such objects never satisfies desire.’ (Saying 66)
The Corpus Hermeticum contains the same doctrine, in one passage Hermes Trismegistus informs his disciples,
‘Now all earthly things which a man holds in his possession to gratify his bodily desires are alien to all that part of his nature which is akin to God.’ (Asclepius I)
The Gospel of Matthew has Jesus following in good philosophical tradition when he says, ‘What will a man gain by winning the whole world, if he loses his own soul’ (Matthew 16.26), and, ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19.24).
The gospels often have Jesus using parables and allegory to put across his message, and once again this is following in the footsteps of the philosophers. Plato in particular was very fond of using myth and allegory to depict his philosophical and cosmological beliefs. The most famous of these are the Simile of the Cave, the Myth of Er and the Myth of Atlantis. One of the most famous parables from the gospels is the Parable of the Sower. The Gospel of Mark records the story as follows,
‘Listen! A farmer went out to scatter seed. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it. Some seed fell on stony ground, where the soil was shallow. The seed quickly sprouted because the soil wasn’t deep. But when the Sun rose it scorched the young plants, and they withered away because they had no proper roots. Some seed fell among the thorn bushes, but the thorn bushes grew and choked it, and it yielded no crop. And some of the seed fell onto good soil, where it sprouted and grew and bore fruit; and the yield was thirty fold sixty fold, even a hundred fold.’ (Mark 4.3-8)
Plato had used a very similar allegory centuries earlier when talking about promulgating his own philosophical message,
‘The philosopher selects a fitting soul, and in it he plants and sows words founded on knowledge…words which instead of remaining barren contain a seed from which new words grow up in other minds; whereby the seed is vouchsafed immortality, and its possessor the fullest measure of happiness that a man can attain to.’ (Phaedrus 276E-277A)
And,
‘Our ideal philosophic character, is like a plant, which if he is properly taught, must develop to perfection, but if it is sown and grows in unsuitable soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds.’ (Republic 491)
In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, the disciple Matthew plainly describes Jesus as being like a philosopher,
‘Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”
Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous angel.”
Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”’ (Gospel of Thomas 13)
Early Christian iconography often depicted Jesus as a philosopher, bearded and wearing a toga. The standard image of the bearded Jesus we have today derives from the archetype of the Greek philosopher.
Numerous early Christians also noticed the similarities between the teachings of Jesus and Greek philosophy. Augustine reluctantly admitted the likeness of Christianity to Platonism, ‘We prefer these to all other philosophers and confess they approach nearest to us’ (City of God 8.9). Clement of Alexandria wrote that, ‘Philosophy was given directly and primarily to the Greeks, until the Lord should call them…Philosophy was therefore a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ’ (Stromata 1.5). The third century Christian Minucius Felix wrote that, ‘Anyone might think that either Christians are now philosophers, or that philosophers then were already Christians’ (Octavius 20). Origen also noted the similarity,
‘If the doctrine is sound, and the effect of it good, the value of the truth communicated isn’t affected by who delivered it. Whether it was made known to the Greeks by Plato or any of the wise men of Greece, whether it was delivered to the Jews by Moses or any of the prophets, or whether it was given to the Christians in the recorded teachings of Jesus Christ or the instructions of his apostles.’ (Against Celsus 7.59)
The standard Christian explanation for the similarity of Jesus’ teachings to Greek philosophy was a bizarre claim that the philosophers had somehow plagiarised Moses and the prophets. This rather ignored the fact that the Old Testament spoke of a vengeful, jealous god, and taught an eye for an eye not turning the other cheek.
Ambrose (338 – 397 CE) came up with the ludicrous explanation that Plato had plagiarised Moses, whereas Augustine came to the equally stupid conclusion that Plato must have learned his philosophy from the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. Augustine wrote,
‘For, when the readers and admirers of Plato dared calumniously to assert that our Lord Jesus Christ learnt all those sayings of his, which they are compelled to admire and praise, from the books of Plato—because (they urged) it cannot be denied that Plato lived long before the coming of our Lord! Did not the illustrious bishop show that Plato made a journey into Egypt at the same time when Jeremiah the prophet was there, and show that it is much more likely that Plato was through Jeremiah’s means initiated into our literature. And thus, when we reflect on the dates, it becomes much more probable that those philosophers learnt whatever they said that was good and true from our literature, than that the lord Jesus Christ learnt from the writings of Plato – a thing which it is the height of folly to believe.’ (On Christian Doctrine II.28)
Augustine went so far as to try and claim that Christians were actually the true philosophers, superior to the Platonists and other schools of Greek philosophy, who he described as unlawfully holding their beliefs,
‘If those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have anything that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful use of it.’ (On Christian Doctrine II.40)
Tertullian (160 – 220 CE) similarly made the ridiculous claim that the similarities between Christianity and Greek philosophy were because the philosophers had copied the Jewish prophets,
‘What poet or sophist has not drunk at the fountain of the prophets? Thence, accordingly, the philosophers watered their arid minds, so that the things they have from us which bring us into comparison with them.’ (Apology 47)
Clement of Alexandria made the same baseless claim,
‘Then there is philosophy, though stolen as the fire by Prometheus. A slender spark capable of being fanned into a flame, a trace of wisdom and an impulse from God. Well, “the thieves and robbers” are the philosophers among the Greeks, who received fragments of the truth from the Hebrew prophets before the coming of the Lord. Without full knowledge, they claimed these as their own teachings.’ (Stromata 1.18)
And,
‘The philosophers of the Greeks are called thieves, inasmuch as they have taken their principal dogmas from Moses and the prophets without acknowledgement.’ (Stromata 5.1)
The Bible and Mythology 