The Religious Development of the Jews

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Book Two Catholic Philosophy

Introduction

The Middle Ages was dominated by the Church and thus intellectual thought was also dominated by churchmen.

There is a dualism present in the Middle Ages, the dualism of clergy and laity, of Latin & Teuton, of the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God, of spirit of flesh and of Pope and Emperor.

The early part of the Middle Ages is dominated by Augustine and Plato. The latter part is dominated with St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle.

The misery of the Middle Ages "heightened the intensity of religious feeling". Nothing in the world which was full of death and war and strife was of value except for virtue because that steadfast virtue would lead to eternal bliss.

Part I. The Fathers

Ch. I The Religious Development of the Jews

"The Christian religion, as it was handed over by the late Roman Empire to the barbarians,
consisted of three elements: first, certain philosophical beliefs, derived mainly from Plato and
the Neoplatonists, but also in part from the Stoics; second, a conception of morals and history
derived from the Jews; and thirdly, certain theories, more especially as to salvation, which were
on the whole new in Christianity, though in part traceable to Orphism, and to kindred cults of
the Near East" (Russell, 308).

The most important Jewish elements in Christianity according to Russell:
1. A sacred history that justifies the ways of God to man
2. The existence of a select few whom God especially loves, i.e. The Chosen People or the elect
3. A new concept of what is righteousness. Practical philanthropy as part of the Christian concept of virtue comes from the Jews.
4. The Law
5. The Messiah, the Christians simply moved the prosperity from a temporal plane to a heavenly one
6. The Kingdom of Heaven

Judaism became different from other contemporary religions when it became exclusive and monotheistic. "Jeremiah and Ezekiel, especially, seem to have invented the idea that all religions except one are false, and that the Lord punishes idolatry" (Russell, 310).

The captivity periods in Jewish history were understood to be a justification of the nationalistic and doomsday prophets of earlier times.

The Jews looked to God as a parental relationship and the Jews could be purified through God's punishment.

Judaism also moved from a sacrificial religion to a non-sacrificial one when the Temple was destroyed.

Isaiah greatly increased the belief in a Messiah, possibly as a result of Persian influence.

The Hellenization of Jews was difficult. Jerusalem fell in between the Seleucid and the Ptolemies. When in 175 B.C. the Seleucid king Antiochus IV sought to fully hellenize the Jews he was met with resistance. In 170 B.C. the Jews revolted. This is the history told in the First Book of Maccabees.

It was during this time that the Jews started to believe in an immortality in order to account for the good suffering and the belief that God would reward the good.

Some Jews living in the diaspora were hellenized, but the survival of Judaism is the result of brave Jews in Jerusalem who fought to preserve the original and uniqueness of their monotheistic faith.

The Jewish focus on the Law made them an intensely conservative group.

Both Jews and Christians think a lot about sin, but Christians thought of themselves as sinners while Jews mainly did not.

After the Roman destruction of the Temple in AD 70 the Jews of the Diaspora became increasingly important, especially the very Hellenized Jews of Alexandria.

Philo, a contemporary of Christ, is the perfect illustration of Greek influence on Jews. Philo was orthodox in his religion and a Platonist in his philosophy. He was very important to the early Christian Fathers.