Israel and Humanity - The role of the pagan philosophers
ROLE OF pagan philosophers.
We are in a book of ancient rabbinic literature that we have already quoted the following words: "Seven prophets arose among the Gentiles, and it is they who will bear witness to their conviction." And elsewhere: "I call to witness heaven and earth than the Holy Spirit will rest on each according to his good deeds, whether male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile [1] "
This belief in the preaching of God's law as well as among the pagans among the Israelites spent like so many other things of Judaism in Christianity. We know what Paul [2] told the Gentiles on this angel and what role he attributed to the pagan philosophers. Clement of Alexandria after he tells us in his Stromata : "Just as God willed the salvation of the Jews by giving them the Prophets, and he chose the most distinguished of Greeks and was separated from the vulgar, to the extent they were able to understand the divine beneficence. And Greeks and Jews were taught by various testaments of one and the same Lord. " What is curious in this approximation both Jewish and Christian traditions is that the rabbis have also given the qualification of the prophets pagan philosophers. They are for example on the same rank Eunomius of Gadara, the Stoic philosopher II <super> th </super> century and they called Balaam nabi and say wearing a mission to the Gentiles. "He has not emerged among the heathen philosophers comparable Eunomius of Gadara and the wicked Balaam. "
The cause of the confusion among doctors is obviously preaching the unity of the Gentiles, and therefore proof of the unity of law he acknowledged. The character sort of religious gave themselves the Stoics themselves, taking not only the language, but the habits and outside real apostles, as demonstrated by the history of philosophy, has contributed much to do allocate to the philosophers a role analogous to that of the prophets among the Hebrews, a providential mission. This explains many passages of rabbinic writings that speak of the pagan philosophers in the same terms as the seers of Israel.
We find similar ideas in Hellenism and this brings us to the testimony of Philo by which we began this chapter. "Philo, says a Catholic author, is convinced that the light of reason philosophy propagated by enough to bring all people to monotheism, without requiring that they pass by Judaism or, rather, the Monotheism is the true Judaism, all Jewish men will be true as soon as they arrived at the true knowledge of God [3] ". We have no difficulty to prove soon that this doctrine of Philo is inherently Jewish and that, far from being simply inspired, as was falsely claimed the critics, by [4] needs controversy with the Gentiles, on the contrary it occupies an important place in Jewish law itself. This is exemplified by the formal statement of the Rabbis that we have already quoted: "Whoever rejects polytheism deserves to be called Jewish. [5] "
We can not better finish what we have said about the connection between the prophets and philosophers as proof of the universality of the divine law, that relating the words of Mr. Remusat: "We want to put some tension between the science and faith. I would willingly believe that the first witness was the work of the first science. It is the reflection of someone who has illuminated the intellectual inertia of the masses. The revelations were the philosophers of the time [6] "[7]
