Bart,
Who Communicated the Thought First? Cicero or Jesus?
Replace the country of Rome, the Roman Republic, with Jesus.
Cicero:
Love justice and devotion. This is owed to your country, your fellow citizens.
Such is the life that leads to heaven.
Scipio’s Dream, 5 by Cicero translated by Richard Hooker
Jesus:
Be devoted to me and when you are persecuted for my cause
The kingdom of heaven is yours.
Matthew 5:10
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Cicero:
For all fame or glory you win among mere human beings should simply be ignored.
“Strive on,” he answered, “secure in the knowledge that only your body is mortal and that your true self endures forever. The man you appear to be is not yourself at all, for your real self is not that corporeal, palpable, changing form you see, but the spirit inside.
Scipio’s Dream, 15 by Cicero translated by Richard Hooker
Jesus:
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Matthew 16:26
Bart DE
I believe you will find the thought expressed centuries before either of them. Similar ideas are expressed frequently by Greek philosophers and Romans before Cicero.
Steve Campbell (author of 3 first edition books on the historical accuracy of the bible)
Thank you for implying these sentiments are not original to Jesus.
Now, these statements were due to the education of Jesus or the education of Matthew?
Bart DE
I don’t think the author of Matthw studied pagan moral philosophy, at least I don’t see any evidence that he did.
Steve Campbell, author of Historical Accuracy (3 books in 1)
Probably because Matthew is unknown and we cannot say where he studied but Roman moral philosophy and Greek philosophy is spoken by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew.
Jesus: But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Matthew 5: 22
“The most remarkable feature of Cicero’s writing about anger is that he advocated complete abstention from anger. Although he was not a Stoic, for him, abstaining from anger was an attractive aspect of Stoicism. The orator must put on a show of anger, not feel the emotion itself. ”
Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity:
Part I, Chapter 6: “Philosophies of Retraining Rage,” ps 109-111.
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So, if you do not think the author of Matthew studied Roman moral philosophy and Greek philosophy despite the instances where it occurs in the gospel of Matthew, it is even less likely that the Jesus of the gospels did given your description of Jesus’ background and education.
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The ethos of perfectionism is the essence of Stoicism.
Ludwig Edelstein, The Meaning of Stoicism
Be perfect.
Matthew 5: 48
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert
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