Plato, the Phoenicians and the Jews

The Greek philosopher Plato is best known for his Spartanophile ideas that he expressed chiefly in his work 'Republic', but it is also well-known that he often held forth in his many works about peoples that he had heard of around the world.

In this vein of thought Plato has several things to say about the Phoenicians: who - as I have discussed elsewhere - (1) may be roughly equated to the jews given that at the time Plato and many classical Greek thinkers wrote. Since the jews were probably all but indistinguishable from the Canaanites/Phoenicians among whom they dwelt at this point in the history of the near east.

Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that when Plato talks about the Phoenicians then his comments also have a general applicability to the jews who would have been seen by Plato as being a part of the Phoenician civilization.

Plato describes the Phoenicians thus:

'But if he cannot, he will unintentionally create in them, instead of wisdom, the habit of craft, which evil tendency may be observed in the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and many other races, through the general vulgarity of their pursuits and acquisitions, whether some unworthy legislator of theirs has been the cause, or some impediment of chance or nature.' (2)

In this excerpt we can see that Plato is describing the nature of the Phoenicians, and therefore also the jews, as being a state of extreme acquisitiveness: a kind of proto-capitalism if you will. This chimes nicely with Strabo's slightly later description of the jews explicitly this time in much the same way. (3)

It is also worth noting that Plato here implies that the Egyptians and Phoenicians - and therefore also the jews - are inherently superstitious since he describes them as having little wisdom or intellectual interest in the learned science (i.e., since they aren't interested in learning then they must be interested in rituals and custom for its own sake which is de facto superstition) and suggests that their obsession with material things ('the habit of craft') may well be due to their religion or laws ('some unworthy legislator of theirs has been the cause') although he does explicitly leave open the possibility that there could be a biological cause of this ('some impediment of chance or nature').

The fact that Plato attributes a superstitious nature to the Phoenicians is seen in his 'Republic' when he states:

'“What kind of a fiction do you mean?” said he. “Nothing unprecedented,” said I, “but a sort of Phoenician tale, something that has happened before now in many parts of the world, as the poets tell us and have induced men to believe, but that has not happened and perhaps would not be likely to happen in our day and demanding no little persuasion to make it believable.”' (4)

In the above excerpt - dealing with the concept of the 'Phoenician Tale' or the 'Noble Lie' as it is better known - Plato describes by implication how the Phoenicians had been made to believe in all sorts of superstitious nonsense, which serves to explain the extant social order, economic inequality and induces a kind of national pride viz a national myth (or myths).

In other words, just like the jews with the various myths concocted by the priestly class (5) (who don't forget are the ones who wrote, compiled and then edited the text of the Torah and Tanakh), (6) the Phoenicians are a people unknowingly enslaved to their priests and rulers who make up myths and nonsensical tales in order to justify the extent order of things in the lands that are under their sway. These then become accepted over time and create religious prohibitions and social taboos which in turn prevent the proper investigation of the contours of philosophy and science until said prohibitions and taboos are challenged.

This then means that to Plato: the Phoenicians (and thus the jews) were essentially superstitious and materialistic barbarians who had no appreciation of the finer qualities of intellect and wisdom that philosophic investigation and debate could ultimately provide.

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/homer-the-phoenicians-and-the-jews

(2) Plat., Leg. 747C

(3) Strab. 16.2.28

(4) Plat., Rep. 3:414c

(5) For example see David Kraemer, 2009, 'Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages', 2nd Edition, Routledge: New York, pp. 14-24; Robert Davidson, A. Leaney, 1970, 'Biblical Criticism', 1st Edition, Penguin: Baltimore, pp. 121-133

(6) David Freidenreich, 2011, 'Foreigners and their Food: Constructing Otherness in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Law', 1st Edition, University of California Press: Berkeley, pp. 5-10