Platonism for the People
What did Nietzsche mean when he called Christianity "Platonism for
the People"? The early church author Tertullian wrote,
"Writing to the Colossians, he [Paul] says, “See that no
one beguile you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, and contrary to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost.” He
had been at Athens, and had in his interviews (with its
philosophers) become acquainted with that human wisdom which
pretends to know the truth, whilst it only corrupts it, and is
itself divided into its own manifold heresies, by the variety of its
mutually repugnant sects. What indeed has Athens to do with
Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church?
what between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from
“the porch of Solomon,” who had himself taught that “the Lord should
be sought in simplicity of heart.” Away with all attempts to produce
a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic
composition!" (Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics,
Chapter 7, pp. 442-443 ECF)
Others amongst these writers, however, were professed Platonists, who
seemed willing to let this heathen in to the feast, although not wearing
a wedding garment. Or did Nietzsche simply resent that Plato was a
theist? He accuses Plato of taking "good" for the highest concept:
"In the end, my mistrust of Plato goes deep: he
represents such an aberration from all the basic instincts of
the Hellene, is so moralistic, so pre-existently Christian — he
already takes the concept 'good' for the highest concept — that
for the whole phenomenon of Plato I would sooner use the harsh
phrase 'higher swindle,' or, if it sounds better, 'idealism,'
than any other. We have paid dearly for the fact that this
Athenian got his schooling from the Egyptians (or from the Jews
in Egypt?). In that great calamity, Christianity, Palato
represents that ambiguity and fascination, called an 'ideal,'
which made it possible for the nobler spirits of antiquity to
misunderstand themselves and to set foot on the bridge leading
to the cross." (Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche, The
Portable Nietzsche, p. 557).
Plato does talk about 'the good,' but if this is the accusation,
it seems a bit vague. Plato was a theist, not yet quite a monotheist
but trending somewhat in that direction. However it is not credible
that the Christians borrowed this conviction from Plato, realizing
that the Jews were monotheists long before the fourth century Plato,
who was not an entirely convinced monotheist in any case. Plato did
believe in immortality and sought to point mankind in this
direction, but his paradigm revolved around reincarnation, quite
different from the one-way trip of Christianity. While there is a
certain synergy between the two thought-systems, and many Christian thinkers
have believed in Plato's theory of ideas in a modified form, one is
entitled to expect more than is given to confirm an accusation of
unoriginality.
The ancient Romans had a civilized saying, 'quot homines, tot
sententiae:' as many men, so many opinions. But the mis-named
'Enlightenment' did not so read the authors of antiquity, nor their
own contemporaries They did not expect to encounter individual
opinions, even though that is all you ever will get and ever did get
even in the Stone Age. They looked for the spirit of the race or the
spirit of the age. Impossibly sweeping generalizations about what 'the
Greeks' believed were the normal product of this scholarly workshop. Far from being scientific as they thought, this
approach must falsify everything, stretching every Greek to fit a
bed of Procrustes. The Greeks were important to Nietzsche, but
naturally he wants them to believe what he believes and to value
what he values, and so inevitably Plato, whom he does not like, must
become an outlier. And so he was, in actual fact. In Athens Plato
was a Pythagorean where that was not the indigenous religion, and an
anti-democrat in a place that revered democracy. So Plato was indeed
atypical of his time and place. But so what? Reading him off the
roll does not necessarily make 'the Greeks' usable for Nietzsche;
his 'Greeks' are a phantasm shouted out by his inner voices, not
necessarily the ancient nationality of that same name.
Many of the early Christians found Platonism compatible in a way
that, say, Epicureanism never could be. But some of the time when
they reference this school of thought, it is to make a very limited
point. During World War II, America interned its Japanese immigrant
community in the belief they might otherwise resort to espionage or
sabotage. It later came to be understood that this was wrong. Athens
applied the death penalty to Socrates on grounds he was corrupting
the young. They later came to realize they had erred in so doing.
Plato's posthumous rehabilitation of Socrates' reputation was
successful beyond all expectation. When the early Christians
mentioned Socrates, it was to suggest a parallel, 'you erred in
killing him because you did not agree with his views, and you admit
this; you also err in killing us.'
The accusation that Christianity is Platonism for the people is
a double-edged sword. It seeks to insult both Plato and the
Christians, the latter on grounds they are not very original. Although
if, as Nietzsche darkly hints, Plato got it all from the Alexandrian
Jews, then he is the one who is not original. Like most atheists, Nietzsche was not overly consistent.
Having accused Christianity of filching it all from a pagan Greek
philosopher, this lover of paradox also accuses Christianity of being
"un-Greek:"
"Christianity, on the other hand, oppressed and degraded
humanity completely and sank it into deepest mire: into the feeling
of utter abasement it suddenly flashed the gleam of divine
compassion, so that the amazed and grace-dazzled stupefied one gave a
cry of delight and for a moment believed that the whole of heaven
was within him. . .It [Christianity] wants to annihilate, debase,
stupefy, amaze, bedazzle. There is but one thing that it does not
want: measure, standard and therefore it is in the worst sense
barbarous, asiatic, vulgar, un-Greek." (Friedrich Nietzsche, Human,
All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, The Religious Life, Section
114).
Whatever. Some Greeks are not very Greek. Or maybe just learn to
say, 'quot homines, tot sententiae.'
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