Galen on Jews and Christians
Richard Walzer
Number of quotes: 11
Book ID: 410 Page: 2
Section: 4A
Reference 4From the same work, Galen, De differentiis pulsuum (=On the pulse), ii, 4.13
Walzer’s translation:12
…in order that one should not at the very beginning , as if one had come into the school of Moses and Christ, hear talk of undemonstrated laws, and that where it is least appropriate.
Quote ID: 8561
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 3
Section: 4A
Reference 6from Galen’s lost summary of Plato’s Republic – Walzer, 15
Date uncertain, but before 192. – Walzer, 15
Arabic author: "Most people are unable to follow any demonstrative argument cosecutively; hence they need parables and benefit from them"—and he (Galen) understands by parables tales of rewards and punishments in a future life–—[I assume this part is from Galen] "just as we now see the people called Christians drawing their faith from parables [and miracles], and yet sometimes acting in the same way [as those who philosophize]. For their contempt of death [and of its sequel] is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation. For thery include not only men but also women who refrain from cohabiting all through their lives; and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-contrul in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of genuine philosophers."
Richard Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians, 15.
Richard Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians
Oxford University Press
London, Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1949
Quote ID: 8564
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 3
Section: 2C,2D3B,4A
Ibn al-Qifti, History of Learned men (published after 1227 AD) had a version of the passage. Unfortunately no English translation is available.….
Bar Hebraeus, Chronicum Syriacum, and the same material also in the abbreviated Arabic version, Historia Compendosia Dynastiarum. 25 Budge’s translation of the Chronicum Syriacum:24 And in his time Galen flourished. …And he saith also in his exposition of Plato’s Book of Pedon (Phaedo), ‘We have seen these men who are called “Nazraye” (Nazarenes), who found their Faith upon Divine indications (or, inspirations) and miracles, and they are in no wise inferior to those who are in truth philosophers. For they love purity (or, chastity), and they are constant in Fasting, and they are zealous in avoiding the committal of wrong, and there are among them some who during the whole course of their lives never indulge in carnal intercourse. I say that this is a sign of the monastic life which became famous after the Ascension of our Lord, during the period of one hundred years’. (Budge)
Quote ID: 8565
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 11
Section: 4B
Reference 1Me:
From a fragment from Galen’s lost work, On Hippocrates’s Anatomy, written between 162 and 166, Galen spoke of the opinions of certain physicians, saying,
“They compare those who practice medicine without scientific knowledge to Moses, who framed laws for the tribe of the Jews, since it is his method in his books to write without offering proofs, saying ‘God commanded, God spake.’”
Quote ID: 4556
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 410 Page: 12
Section: 4A
Reference 2Me:
from the lost work, De usu partium,
"discussing the various length of eyelashes." – Walzer, p. 11
composed "between the death of the emperor Lucius Verus and the return of Marcus Aurelius from the German wars, i.e., between 169 and 176 AD." – Walzer, p. 11
"It is precisely (καὶ) this point in which our own opinion and that of Plato and of the other Greeks who follow the right method in natural science differs from the position taken up by Moses. For the latter it seems enough to say that God simply willed the arrangement of matter and it was presently arranged in due order; for he believes everything to be possible with God, even should He wish to make a bull or a horse out of ashes. We however do not hold this; we say that certain things are impossible by nature and that God does not even attempt such things at all but that He chooses the best out of the possibilities of becoming."
Quote ID: 8560
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 14/15
Section: 4A
Reference 3 Me:from De differentiis pulsuum. Date: unknown, but later in life (176–180?). "One might more easily teach novelties to the followers of Moses and Christ than to the physicians and philosophers who cling fast to their schools." "... in order that one should not at the very beginning, as if one had come into the school of Moses and Christ, hear talk of undemonstrated laws, and that where it is least appropriate."Me:
from a lost work against Aristotle’s theology – Walzer, 14.
Date uncertain, but probably before AD 192, Walzer, 15.
….
"If I had in mind people who taught their pupils as the same way as the followers of Moses and Christ teach theirs—for they order them to accept everything on faith—I should not have given you a definition."
Quote ID: 8562
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 31
Section: 2A3
The passage in question is concerned with another paradox common to later Jewish religion{2} and to the Christian faith, the resurrection of the body. Celsus says, according to Origen’s report (Contra Celsum, v. 14 = ii, pp. 15. I ff. Koetschau),{3} that it is foolish of the Jews to assume that they alone will survive the final conflagration, and not only those of them who will be alive on this particular date; they believe even that those who have died long ago will then rise from the ground in fleshly form. ‘But what sort of human soul would still crave for a rotten body?’ It is obvious that this opinion, shared also by some Christians, is disgusting, detestable, and impossible.‘For what sort of body, having once been completely destroyed, can return to its previous nature and to that very structure from which it has been released? Having no reply to offer, they take refuge in the ridiculous position that everything is possible for God.{4} But God is not capable of anything ignoble nor does He will things contrary to nature; nor, if one in his wickedness desires what is disgusting, will God be able to produce it; and one ought not to believe that it will happen instantly. For God is the ruler [GREEK] neither of base appetition nor of irregularity and disorder but of the right and just nature. He might be capable of procuring eternal life to the soul. “But corpses”, says Heraclitus [B 96 Diels, p. 85 Bywater, p. 131 Walzer], “are more fit to be cast out than dung.” God will be neither willing or able to render the flesh eternal, contrary to reason, full as it is of things whose very mention is unseemly. For He is the Logos of all existing things, and thus cannot act against reason or against His own being.’{5}
Quote ID: 9783
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 43
Section: 4A
But Galen is, as far as I can see, the first pagan author who implicitly places Greek philosophy and the Christian religion on the same footing. Former references to the Christians are quite different. Pliny the Younger admitted their morality (Epist. x. 96. 7), but was, like Horace when he looked at the Jews, shocked by their superstitio prava immodica:{3} ‘I had no doubt that, whatever it was they admitted, their pertinacity and stubborn obstinacy ought to be punished.’{4}
Quote ID: 9784
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 410 Page: 43
Section: 4A
That Galen or his predecessors may have dealt with Jewish apologists is, as we have seen, not unlikely. That Roman Christians also could introduce themselves as philosophers to an eminent pagan author like Galen is quite obvious from the earliest remnants of Christian apologetic—which in its turn may be following some Jewish pattern, just as, almost at the same time, Clement of Alexandria and after him Origen established a highly developed type of real Christian philosophy while imitating the achievement of their Jewish compatriot Philo.
Quote ID: 9785
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 410 Page: 44/45
Section: 2B2
We note lastly that Galen’s dislike of Jews and Christians is apparently based neither on a particularly unfavourable appreciation of the content of their religion nor on detestation of the form in which they practised divine worship. He shows the same religious tolerance that we notice in so many authors of the early Imperial Age : there is one universal religion but many different forms of ritual and symbolic presentation and tradition as expressed in law and custom: ‘In the same way as sun and moon and heaven and earth and sea are common to all but called differently by different people, so, although one divine mind [GREEK] orders the universe and one providence governs it, there are different honours and different names according to law and custom, and men use religious symbols that are sometimes vague and sometimes more distinct.’ So speaks Plutarch dealing with the popular worship of Isis and Osiris.{1} Galen’s contemporary Celus speaks similarly of the Hebraic God; thee exists only one God for the philosophical mind, and it makes no difference whether the Greeks call him Zeus or the Jews Adonai or Zabaoth;{2} [GREEK] Hence Jews and Christians have no right to claim superiority over Greeks, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Indians.{3}
Quote ID: 9786
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 410 Page: 72
Section: 4A
…Alexander of Lycopolis, who writes about A.D. 300 against the Manicheans. He no longer contends, like Galen, that the Christians are no genuine philosophers, but describes their doctrines unreservedly as a philosophy.….
The philosophy of the Christians is described as simple. It cares primarily for the moral character of man [GREEK}, giving only enigmatic hints of a more exact pronouncement about God. But their main theological doctrine would probably be accepted by everybody, for they regard the efficient cause as the most esteemed and most important and as being the cause of the existing things; moreover, in matters of Ethics they neglect the more difficult matter, such as the definition of moral and intellectual virtue or the discussion of moral characters and affections; they busy themselves only with exhortation….
Quote ID: 9787
Time Periods: 34
End of quotes