CHARACTERISTICS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence. The ancient Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was also the first system of salvation.

As such it regarded the human body as a prison house of the soul. Which could be liberated from its bodily impediments, through the disciplines of the Arts and Sciences, and advanced from the level of a mortal to that of a God. This was the notion of the summum bonum or greatest good, to which all men must aspire, and it also became the basis if all ethical concepts. The Egyptian Mystery System was also a Secret Order, and membership was gained by initiation and a pledge to secrecy. The teaching was graded and delivered orally to the Neophyte; and under these circumstances of secrecy, the Egyptians developed secret systems of writing and teaching, and forbade their Initiates from writing what they had learnt.

After nearly five thousand years of prohibition against the Greeks, they were permitted to enter Egypt for the purpose of their education. First through the Persian invasion and secondly through the invasion of Alexander the Great. From the sixth century B.C. therefore to the death of Aristotle (322 B.C.) the Greeks made the best of their chance to learn all they could about Egyptian culture; most students received instructions directly from the Egyptian Priests, but after the invasion by Alexander the Great, the Royal temples and libraries were plundered and pillage, and Aristotle's school converted the library at Alexandria into a research centre. There is no wonder then, that the production of the unusually large number of books ascribed to Aristotle has proved a physical impossibility, for any single man within a life time.

Outside of their own mysteries the Greeks stood altogether outside of the subject. They, as their writer's alleged, had inherited their mythology, and the names of their divinities, without knowing their origins or meaning. They supplied their own free versions to stories of which they never possessed the key. Whenever they met with anything they did not understand, they turned the more effectively to their own account. All that came to hand was matter for metaphysics, poetry, statue and picture. They sought to delight and charm the word with these old elements of instruction, and with happy audacity supplied the place of the lost nature of mystic meaning with the abounding grace and beauty of their art. Nothing, however, could be more fatal than to try to read the thoughts of the remoter past through their eyes, or to accept the embellishments of these beautifiers for interpretations of the ancient topology.

The human mind has long suffered an eclipse and been darkened and dwarfed in the shadow of ideas, the real meaning of which has been lost to the modern. Myths and allegories whose significance was once unfolded to initiates in the mysteries have been adopted in ignorance and reissued as real truths directly and divinely vouchsafed to mankind for the first and only time. The earlier religions had their myths interpreted. We have ours misinterpreted. … Another point of considerable interest to be accounted for was the attitude of the Athenian government towards this so-called Greek philosophy, which it regarded as foreign in origin and treated it accordingly. Only a brief study of history is necessary to show that Greek philosophers were undesirable citizens, who throughout the period of their investigations were victims of relentless persecution, at the hands of the Athenian government. Anaxagoras was imprisoned and exiled; Socrates was executed; Plato was sold into slavery and Aristotle was indicted and exiled; while the earliest of them all, Pythagoras, was expelled from Croton in Italy. Can we imagine the Greeks making such an about turn, as to claim the very teachings which they had at first persecuted and openly rejected? Certainly, they knew they were usurping what they had never produced, and as we enter step by step into our study the greater do we discover evidence which leads us to the conclusion that Greek philosophers were not the authors of Greek philosophy, but the Egyptian Priests and Hierophants.

Socrates: "(b. c. 470 BC, Athens -d. 399, Athens, ancient Athenian philosopher who directed philosophical thought toward analyses of the character and conduct of human life and who is remembered for his admonition to 'know thyself.'

Socrates wrote nothing. Information about his personality and doctrine is found chiefly in the Dialogues of Plato and the Memorabilia of Xenophon." The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 10, Micropaedia, 15th edition, p.929.

Plato: "(b. 428/427 BC, Athens, or Aegina, Greece-d. 348/347, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks - Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. He developed a wide-ranging system of philosophy that was strongly ethical, resting on, resting on a foundation of eternal Ideas or Forms that represented universals or absolutes. Platonism influenced currents of philosophy up to the 20th century." The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 9, Micropaedia, 15th edition, p.509

Aristotle: "Greek ARISTOTELES (b. 384 BC, Stagira, [or Stagirus, or Stageirus], Chalcidice, near Macedonia-d, 322, Chalcis, Euboea, Greece), ancient Greek philosopher, scientist and organizer of research, one of the two greatest intellectual figures produced by the Greeks (the other been Plato). He surveyed the whole field of human knowledge as it was known in the Mediterranean world in his day; and his writings long influenced Western and Muslim thought." The New Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 1, Micropaedia, 15th edition, p. 55

George James pointed out the absurdity of this stance. The Hebrew scriptures, called the Septuagint, the Gospels and the Epistles were also written in Greek, why are the Greek not claiming authorship of them? 'It is only the unwritten philosophy of the Egyptians translated into Greek that has met such an unhappy fate: a legacy stolen by the Greeks.' To leave no one in doubt about the cogency of his impressive arguments, chapter one (Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy) opens with an examination of the stories of the so- called 'Greek Philosophers. Pythagoras, after receiving his training in Egypt, went back to his native Samos and established an Order as was the custom in those days. Anaximander and Anaximenes, native, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus were all native of Ionia and they taught nothing but Egyptian mysteries. Ditto, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus. What we have to remember here is that Ionia was a colony of Egypt (readers are directed to Martin Bernal's, Black Athena, published by Vintage, especially vol. I, ISBN 0 09 988780 0). At the apex of its glory, Egypt held sway over much of the known world. The Ionians would later become Persian subjects after the fall of Egypt, before they even became Greek citizens.\

It was Herodotus who informed us that Pythagoras was allowed into Egypt only after Polycrates (king of his native Samos and a friend of Amasis) gave him a letter of introduction. Even after that, he had to undergo several trials including circumcision which was compulsory - "Apud Aegyptios nullus aut geometrica studebat, aut astonomiae secreta remabatur, nisi circumcisione suscepta,' (No one among the Egyptians, either studied geometry, or investigated the secrets of Astronomy, unless

circumcision had been undertaken.)" - p.44. It was to Pythagoras that the world is giving credit for a theorem that the Egyptians most certainly used in building their pyramids!

It must be borne in mind that the first lesson in the Humanities is to make a people aware of their contribution to civilization; and the second lesson is to teach them about other civilizations. By this dissemination of the truth about the civilization of individual peoples, a better understanding among them, and a proper appraisal of each other should follow. This notion is based upon the notion of the Great Master Mind: Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'