This seems to me a worthwhile query, and I'd be curious as to any response. It occurred to me this might occasion a useful discussion if I start with a distinction that I read on another board from another writer:
"For humanity to know about its creation, its reality as spiritual beings ("image of God") and the afterlife, there had to be mediaries between God and man to plant that seed of knowledge in us. I use "Messenger" rather than the word prophet because, while there have been hundreds (thousands?) of prophets, there have been a limited number of Messengers -- those who brought specific teachings and laws to mankind (ie., Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, et al.). The prophets were under the umbrella of those respective teachings/laws. We can never know how many Messengers there were before the written word introduced these few to history."
Well, this has gotten me to thinking. The distinction between Messenger and prophet raises an intriguing question.
I have to provide the framework/context for my query first here in order for my query -- a fairly straightforward one -- to be clear.
Framework/Context:
Now, scholars have recently taken to carefully scrutinizing the earliest texts relating to the most conspicuous pioneers who launched a new creed by introducing an altogether new spin on deity in tandem with an equally new ethics/morals angle as well. While many Messengers may agree on the Golden Rule, the practical lens through which they present it is, in each case, altogether novel and unprecedented. It's as if they're independent of any "school" and have instead brought their own spin -- on both deity and ethics -- out of their deepest inner experience, emerging with something startlingly and genuinely new.
In some cases, even those very earliest texts seem to already impart something distinctive and related to a deeply personal and direct encounter with deity. For instance, in the very earliest stratum of the Pali/Theravada texts for Buddha, even the earliest collection of all, the sermons in the Digha-Nikaya, we see Gautama/Buddha already saying "(from time to time) a Tath¤gata is born into the world, an Arahat, a fully awakened one, abounding, in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher of gods and men, a Blessed One, a Buddha. He, by himself, thoroughly understands, and sees, as it were, face to face this universe -- including the worlds above with the gods, the M¤ras, and the Brahm¤s; and the world below with its Sama¼as and Brahmans, its princes and peoples; -- and he then makes his knowledge known to others." Gautama is assumedly presenting himself as a Buddha, so he is claiming, although not in a vainglorious way, this kind of direct encounter with ultimate reality for himself by passively describing what happens with others like him.
Similarly, in the most recent scholarship on the Gospels, the parallel Jesus sayings in Matthew and Luke have been taken as probably the earliest stratum in the Gospels, possibly taken from a common lost source for Jesus' original sayings, termed "Quelle" (German for "source"), or Q, for short. In Luke 10:22, generally taken as a Q passage, a similarly direct encounter with the source of all being seems implied: "All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." Again, this passage also seems to imply, as in the above Buddha passage, some kind of direct, deeply personal, encounter with the metaphysical.
One could undoubtedly amplify all this with similar additional passages from the earliest strata of the earliest texts for a few other Messengers as well. But what intrigues me chiefly in this context is Socrates, and this is where the Messenger/prophet distinction comes in.
If we take it that a hallmark of the Messenger is her/his direct encounter with the metaphysical, and if we keep in mind the two passages I already cited, then a similar vetting of the earliest texts for Socrates entails a general scholarly consensus that seems to emerge with the conclusion that Plato's earliest dialogues are sharp and concentrated recollections of the single individual for whom Plato reserved his deepest respect, Socrates, while Plato's later texts may instead be extrapolations where Plato puts into the mouth of his teacher additional philosophical trains of thought that Socrates himself may not have explicitly presented but merely implied.
So, the earliest and most directly biographical texts for Socrates are generally judged to be the three works directly surrounding the Socrates trial: Euthyphro/Apology/Crito. (The text depicting his final execution, Phaedo, is assumed to be much later.) So the Euthyphro/Apology/Crito trio are what most modern scholars concentrate on as the closest to being historical. Now, the Apology apparently recalls what Socrates actually said at his trial, and some even suspect that it may have been the very first dialogue Plato ever wrote. In that dialogue, Socrates says, "Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician."
Query:
So finally, here's the question that intrigues me -- and I freely confess I don't know how I'd answer this myself. Applying the distinction between Messenger and prophet, and keeping in mind all three passages cited above, any thoughts on this board as to whether or not one takes Socrates to be a Messenger or a prophet? A rather roundabout way, on my part, to ask a reasonably direct question, but I figured I should place it in a clear context, and these three passages seemed one way of doing so.
Thanks,
Operacast
"For humanity to know about its creation, its reality as spiritual beings ("image of God") and the afterlife, there had to be mediaries between God and man to plant that seed of knowledge in us. I use "Messenger" rather than the word prophet because, while there have been hundreds (thousands?) of prophets, there have been a limited number of Messengers -- those who brought specific teachings and laws to mankind (ie., Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, et al.). The prophets were under the umbrella of those respective teachings/laws. We can never know how many Messengers there were before the written word introduced these few to history."
Well, this has gotten me to thinking. The distinction between Messenger and prophet raises an intriguing question.
I have to provide the framework/context for my query first here in order for my query -- a fairly straightforward one -- to be clear.
Framework/Context:
Now, scholars have recently taken to carefully scrutinizing the earliest texts relating to the most conspicuous pioneers who launched a new creed by introducing an altogether new spin on deity in tandem with an equally new ethics/morals angle as well. While many Messengers may agree on the Golden Rule, the practical lens through which they present it is, in each case, altogether novel and unprecedented. It's as if they're independent of any "school" and have instead brought their own spin -- on both deity and ethics -- out of their deepest inner experience, emerging with something startlingly and genuinely new.
In some cases, even those very earliest texts seem to already impart something distinctive and related to a deeply personal and direct encounter with deity. For instance, in the very earliest stratum of the Pali/Theravada texts for Buddha, even the earliest collection of all, the sermons in the Digha-Nikaya, we see Gautama/Buddha already saying "(from time to time) a Tath¤gata is born into the world, an Arahat, a fully awakened one, abounding, in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher of gods and men, a Blessed One, a Buddha. He, by himself, thoroughly understands, and sees, as it were, face to face this universe -- including the worlds above with the gods, the M¤ras, and the Brahm¤s; and the world below with its Sama¼as and Brahmans, its princes and peoples; -- and he then makes his knowledge known to others." Gautama is assumedly presenting himself as a Buddha, so he is claiming, although not in a vainglorious way, this kind of direct encounter with ultimate reality for himself by passively describing what happens with others like him.
Similarly, in the most recent scholarship on the Gospels, the parallel Jesus sayings in Matthew and Luke have been taken as probably the earliest stratum in the Gospels, possibly taken from a common lost source for Jesus' original sayings, termed "Quelle" (German for "source"), or Q, for short. In Luke 10:22, generally taken as a Q passage, a similarly direct encounter with the source of all being seems implied: "All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." Again, this passage also seems to imply, as in the above Buddha passage, some kind of direct, deeply personal, encounter with the metaphysical.
One could undoubtedly amplify all this with similar additional passages from the earliest strata of the earliest texts for a few other Messengers as well. But what intrigues me chiefly in this context is Socrates, and this is where the Messenger/prophet distinction comes in.
If we take it that a hallmark of the Messenger is her/his direct encounter with the metaphysical, and if we keep in mind the two passages I already cited, then a similar vetting of the earliest texts for Socrates entails a general scholarly consensus that seems to emerge with the conclusion that Plato's earliest dialogues are sharp and concentrated recollections of the single individual for whom Plato reserved his deepest respect, Socrates, while Plato's later texts may instead be extrapolations where Plato puts into the mouth of his teacher additional philosophical trains of thought that Socrates himself may not have explicitly presented but merely implied.
So, the earliest and most directly biographical texts for Socrates are generally judged to be the three works directly surrounding the Socrates trial: Euthyphro/Apology/Crito. (The text depicting his final execution, Phaedo, is assumed to be much later.) So the Euthyphro/Apology/Crito trio are what most modern scholars concentrate on as the closest to being historical. Now, the Apology apparently recalls what Socrates actually said at his trial, and some even suspect that it may have been the very first dialogue Plato ever wrote. In that dialogue, Socrates says, "Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician."
Query:
So finally, here's the question that intrigues me -- and I freely confess I don't know how I'd answer this myself. Applying the distinction between Messenger and prophet, and keeping in mind all three passages cited above, any thoughts on this board as to whether or not one takes Socrates to be a Messenger or a prophet? A rather roundabout way, on my part, to ask a reasonably direct question, but I figured I should place it in a clear context, and these three passages seemed one way of doing so.
Thanks,
Operacast
