In part two, we explored the concept of Logos Spermatikos and the way in which God planted seeds of light across the cultural landscape of the world so that well-meaning men and women of all nations may recognize the Gospels when they arrived. Of all the cultures gifted with indirect rays of celestial light, Ancient Greece was one of the most favored, chiefly due to her efforts to seek the truth, an art that became a monument to classical history, as well as a pivotal point in the long story of man. In order to fly, an eagle needs to forge a nest atop the high mountain peaks. Likewise, in order to hatch, the truth needs a base at the heights of the human intellect, the peak of which is called philosophy, a craft almost synonymous with Ancient Greece.
The Art of Truth in Ancient Greece
Words are symbols, and symbols are the summary of an idea. Moreover, words illustrate the essence of a language, and a language is the reflection of the essence of those who people the culture that produced it. That being said, the ancient Greeks had a word that illustrated their approach to truth, known as Alethia. Alethia is a word that refers to the slow-paced, melodic uncovering of the truth. It is a dance that leads to a long honeymoon with the unveiling of the primary cause of something. In essence, the core of philosophy is the love of wisdom for the sake of truth. Ancient Greece was philosophy itself. A fertile ground for seeds of gold, where God could write notes of light for a future symphony of truth, sung by a small group of sages that intuited the All.
Parmenides
Parmenides (540 to 535 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Elea, what is now Velia, Southern Italy. He was an aristocrat, reputed to have been a brilliant lawmaker, as well as a skilled healer. Parmenides challenged the world by affirming that reality is one and immutable. He argued that the senses are deceiving and that change and motion do not exist. Additionally, he affirmed that being is and not being is impossible because nothing cannot give rise to nothing; therefore, the nothing could not be, because, in the strict sense of the word, nothing is something. In his assertion, Parmenides challenged his students into trying to think about nothing—a task which they always failed, because even a blank mind is something in itself, an established entity that sought to disestablish itself, and therefore a fully functioning something.
At heart, what Parmenides saw in the depths of his intellect was a reflection of the eternal, perfect, and immutable mind of God the Father, where everything that was, and will be, is. Nonetheless, Parmenides wrongly mistook the realities of the Eternal Mind for the overall human and cosmic experience—a reality in which there is change, transformation, distance, and movement, as is revealed by the senses of every living creature.
Heraclitus
Heraclitus (535-475 BC) was born in Ephesus, on the very same island where St. John would write the Apocalypse almost half a millennia later. Like Parmenides, Heraclitus was also an aristocrat; however, unlike him, he quit society for a solitary life in the mountains, due to his love of contemplation and a rather sharp disdain for humanity.
Heraclitus proposed, amongst many things, two bold statements. The first was that everything came from fire, and the second was that nothing is ever the same because the material world is always changing and in flux constantly. He said things like, “Sea water is the purest and most polluted water: for fish drinkable and healthy, for men undrinkable and harmful” and “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.”
In the mirrors of his intellect, what Heraclitus unknowingly perceived was the action of the Holy Spirit upon coming in contact with a fertile will, resulting in a healing and edifying process known as Metanoia. When fire comes in contact with something, that something can never remain the same. It either loses its shape and perishes, or is cleaned, refined, and receives a higher form. In a like manner, when the fire of the Holy Spirit touches a soul, the latter will either burn and lose its intended shape or be elevated above the world. There is no middle ground. This is what Heraclitus saw in fish, people, and salt water. The fish can drink from it and live, while man can only be poisoned if he does the same, because the former lives in it, while the latter lives out of it. By the same token, he who lives in the Holy Spirit can breathe His light, whereas he who is out of Him will die in His proximity.
Be that as it may, Heraclitus seems to have believed in the unity of opposites, which means that the two sides of a spectrum are interdependent, including good and evil, which is a capital mistake. Evil is a corrupted good, but good is pure in itself.
Plato
Plato (428-348 BC) was born in Athens into an aristocratic family of great prestige and wealth, which meant that he was brought up a gentleman accustomed to reflect and appreciate the seen and unseen beauties of life. Ancient tradition holds that he studied under Socrates whose execution marked his life and work as a philosopher.
In writings such as “The Allegory of the Cave,” Plato mentions the existence of a perfect dimension of being, accessible only to the intellect, where there is a perfect version of everything in existence, known as “The World of Forms.” As a result, he thought that due to the constant river of change and transformation, the material world cannot be a source of truth. In essence, what Plato saw in the depths of his intellect, was the Trinitarian Will, where everything in existence has its perfect origin.
Nevertheless, Plato wrongly thought that the body is a prison, and that the liberation from it is freedom, a thesis that would later be corrected by Aristotle, in something that came to be known as “hylomorphism,” which is a union between the intellect and the body. Yet, he too had a flawed understanding of reality, in the sense that he thought that the intellect disappears after death. In contrast, St. Thomas heals the philosophic gap with what is called “hylomorphic dualism,” which states, in essence, that both body and spirit are incomplete without each other.
The Echo of Greece
Blessings never come alone, and having been blessed with the grace of philosophy, Ancient Greece was also favored with a voice that would trespass the walls of centuries.
In part four, we will explore the prophetic graces that God bestowed on Rome, the arms of which overran Greece. Yet, whereas Rome conquered Greece militarily, Greece conquered Rome culturally, an act that in its own way would set the conditions for God to come into the world.
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a CE original series on the Beauty of the Holy Trinity. Click here for more.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
