Iran's (Khurasan's) influence on Greek Philosophy

Iran's (Khurasan's) influence on Greek Philosophy

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Greeks themselves do not hide the fact that they are heirs and successors to the Eastern sages, especially of Zoroaster. (Duchesne-Guillemin, Western Response to Zoroaster, p 70)

According to a very old tradition, Zoroaster was supposed to have instructed Pythagoras (while he visited Babylon) in philosophy, astrology, alchemy, and theurgy. (ibid., p. 4) But of course. this Zoroaster cannot be the same as the prophet of ancient Iran who, according to also very old Greek traditions, lived about 6,000 years before the death of Plato or 5,000 years before the War of Troy. (Plinius, Naturalis Historia, XXX, 21)

Plinius attributes the first tradition to Eudoxus and Aristotle and the second tradition to Hermipus (250 B.C.). He calls Zoroaster as the preacher of one of the most exalted and useful philosophies". (ibid.)We are told that the pre-Socratic thinker, Empedocles, was a pupil of the Mages. This can be corroborated by the resemblance between his dualism and the dualism inherent in the Iranian religion.

We are also told that Democritus from Abdere, the founder of the theory of atomism, and the sophist Protagoras had a Magi for their teachers, sent to their fathers expressly by King Xerxes, in order to reciprocate the excellent reception bestowed upon him in his war expedition. We are told that Democritus has taken his theory of the images and the telepathic phenomena from Iranian theosophy (Henry Charles Puech, L'Iran et la philosophie Grecque, La Civilization Iranienne). Aristotle also saw a connection between the dualism of the Magi and Plato's system.

Eisler exalts the Iranian influence and places it at the very origin of Greek philosophy and Orphism. (Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt, 1910) Reitzenstein, believes Plato to be heavily indebted to Zoroaster. He developed Eisler's views and expanded on them with the help of H. Schaeder. (Studien zum Antiken Synkretismus, 1926)

J. Bidez although more moderate in his views, still shows the historically attested contacts between the Magi and the Academy and in his book "Eos, ou Ploton et l'Orient", shows what the Greek thinkers might owe to Iranian doctrines. (Western Response, opt. cit. p. 70)

Plethon wrote a compendium on the Zoroastrian and Platonic systems. In this Magnus Opus, the Laws were placed under the double patronage of Zoroaster and Plato. (ibid. p.4)

The Greeks, attributed to Zoroaster and the Magi from an early date, the doctrine of Boundless time which had become so familiar to them. That, as Junker has rightly pointed out (Junker, Aion Vorstellung pp. 140-154), influenced their conception of the Aion. (Emile Benveniste, The Persian Religion, p. 114)

According to A. William Jackson:

"The Greeks, with their anthropomorphic idea of the Pantheon of Heaven, were struck by the ideal and spiritual nature of the Iranian conception of the God-head and divinity."

Abundant allusions in the classics prove the truth of his statement, which is also in concordance with the actual facts. It is the purity and the abstract character of the Persian celestial hierarchy that distinguishes its Pantheon so greatly from the divinities of other Aryan Nations. (A. V. William Jackson, Zoroastrian Studies, p. 37)

If we accept the statement of A. H. Mills that philosophy was introduced to Greece for the first time by Anaxagoras in 426 B.C. (A. H. Mills, Zarathustra, Philo, the Achaemenids and Israel, p. 108), then we should agree all the more about the indebtedness of Greeks to the Iranians for teaching them philosophy. Mills states that Heraclitus, who was born in Asia Minor, brought the Logos to Greece and used it for the first time in Greek philosophy.

According to Lingua Stella, quoted by Dr. Duchesne-Guillemin, Heraclitus while stressing the role of the struggle in the world, believed, nevertheless, in a Logos or a Nomos. The essence of this intelligible law was fire. This reminds us of the connection of Fire and Rta, the true order in the Indo-Iranian system. Heraclitus has been suspected for other reasons, of drawing from Iranian sources, such as scoffing at anthropomorphic images and at the bloodshed in the cult. (Western Response.)

Duchesne-Guillemin admits that undoubtedly there are striking similarities of doctrine between Iran and Greece:.

"Even leaving aside for the moment the Hellenistic period with the emergence of gnosticism, we can enumerate among these striking similarities dualism, the divinization of time, the division of world history into definite periods, the notion of a world soul, fire as a symbol of cosmic law, and the existence of ideal models of things." (ibid. p. 70)

F.M. Cornford remarks that:

Whether we accept or not, no student of Orphic and Pythagorean thought will fail to see the hypothesis of a direct influence of Persia on the Ionians in the VIth century. Between it and the Iranian religion there exists such close resemblances that we can regard both systems as expressions of the same concept of life, and use either one of them to interpret the other. (F. M. Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy, p. 176)

Henry Charles Puech states that:

Plato had, especially in his old age, many Iranian pupils. There are people who fix 6 thousand years as the interval separating Zoroaster from Plato. He says although this date seems fantastic, it is very significant. It answers one of the conceptions Iranians have about the cosmic duration. As this is 12,000 years, the advent of the Iranian prophet and the Greek philosopher marks the beginning and the end of the second half of this time. Zoroaster is considered as the precursor of Plato. Plato as the reincarnation of Zoroaster, the renovator of Zoroastrian religion, and perhaps the savior predicted by Mazdean eschatology. (H. C. Puech, opt. cit.)

Although this does not tally with Iranian tradition at all, still it shows how indebted the Academy felt towards Zoroaster and his philosophy.They must have felt great affinity between the Zoroastrian philosophy and that of Plato to consider him as a reincarnation of Zoroaster.

There is enough information about the appearance of Eudox of Cnidus in the Academy in the last part of Plato’s life, about 368 B.C. He was one of the most important elements in propagating Iranian ideas in the Academy. He was so imbued with Iranian philosophy that he could impregnate these ideas firmly in the mind of Plato and his disciples.

It was through his influence that the first generation of Platonists with firm Iranian ideas were formed. One finds this influence in two dialogues of Plato, the Epinomy and the First Alcibiad. The same kind of influence is also evident in Xenocrates, Heraclitus and Hermodores.

Aristotle, himself, at least in his youth, was under the same spell and the thinkers of his school, such as Eudemos of Rhodes who wrote about Zurvanite dualism, Cliarchus of Scles, Aristoxenes of Tarente and later bibliographer Hermippus, all of whom, were quite interested in Iran.

Plutarch also in his "Isis and Osiris" gives a very sympathetic exposition of the Iranian dualism.

Zoroaster, according to Greek tradition, patronized a series of sciences or pseudo-sciences in Greece, such as astrology, botany and alchemy. So it seems that these sciences were recognized to be originated or developed by Iranian scientists.

It is indeed very revealing that, after the conquest of the Orient by Alexander, and the permanent contact the Greeks made with Iranians, instead of making them boast about their knowledge and science, they became more and more subdued to the hegemony of the Iranians in these domains.

One can see from Diodores that with Hecateus of Abdere (320 B. C.) appears a school of thought, which believes that Pythagoras and all the first philosophers were pupils of the sages of the East. Here the Hellenists are at a loss. How could one explain the saying of Sotion (200 - 150 B.C.) who shows in his Diadoches (i.e. the line of succession of the first philosophers) quoted by Diogenes Laertes that the names of the first philosophers begin with Zoroaster and continues with such Persian names as Ostanes, Astrampsychos, Gobryas, and Pazatas. (Duchesne-Guillemin, La Religion d l' Iran Ancien, p 24-25)

To quote Dr. Duchesne-Guillemin:

Il devit notoire que Pythagore avait ete l'eleve de Zoroastre, que Platon avait visite-ou voulu visiter-les Mages de Perse etc... Ceux-ci, en autorite et en anciente, ne le cedaient pas aux sages d'Egypt, autres pretendus initiateurs de la philosophic. Sotion (200- 150) consacre a la Diodoche. c'est-a-dire a la succession ou lignee des philosophes un traite ou puisera Diogene Laerce et ou sont nommes apres Zoroastre. Ostanes, Astrampsvchos, Gobryas et Pazatas... (ibid.)

But then, under the spell of the Hellenistic School, he has to give an explanation for such a vault-face in the attitude of the Greeks. So he explains this strange phenomena thus:

La conquete de l'Orient par Alexandre et les contacts permanants qu'elle institua, modifierent les vues des Grecs sur leur passe. On voit apparaitre avec Hecate D'Abdere (320), que citera Diodore, opinion selon laquelle Pythagore et tous les premiers philosophes avaient ete a l'ecole des sages d'orient. Cette opinion etait elle-meme une invention des orientaux, un moyen pour eux de reagir contre invasion de l'hellenisme en sauvant leur superiorite. Les Grecs l'adopterent lorsque leur philosophie, delaissant la voie de la raisen, se tourna de plus en plus, a parlir du ler. Siecle avant notre ere, vers la mystique, ressucitant le pythagorisme comme une espece de religion. II devint notoire que Pythagore avait ete l'eleve de Zoroastre etc.. (ibid., p. 24)

In another place he mentions that:

Par ce contact prologe, les Grecs purent prendre plus intimement connaissance des doctrines Iraniennes. En tout cas le prestige de L'Iran s'accrut a leurs yeux. Toute une literature s'ecrivit en langue grecque pour exposer les pretendues doctrines de Zoroastre et de ses disciples, Hystaspe (vistaspa) et Ostanes (inconnu dans les source Iranians)... (Bidez-Cumont. Les Mages Hellenises)

Could not this be a sort of re-confirmation of Iranian Historians' view that Alexander translated all the Iranian books of religion and science into Greek and then destroyed the original Persian documents. Are we not justified in saying that the Greeks of post-Alexanderian age were more honest than the later historians, who for reasons of their own turned the table completely round

The Iranian influence was not only exercised through some Zoroastrian apocrypha, but it was also widely exercised through Mithraism.

According to Nelson who is an authority on Greek religion, it is indeed not so easy to clarify how this influence operated (Duchesne-Guillemin, opt. cit. p. 245-246)

The doctrines of Zarathustra brought very great and profound ideas that went to encounter the Greek thought; the unique God, elevated above everything and anything, the dualism and the combat between good and bad powers, the cult without any images or forms, the final catastrophic end of the world and finally Zurvanism.

The influence of the ideas of Iranians over Greeks were great but the way that it traversed was obscure and indirect; often it left its finger-prints not directly but through other people, who had themselves grasped the power of the Iranian thought. (ibid. p. 246)

This influence was felt even as late as the time of Khusrow I, Anushirvan, when by order of Justinian in 529 A.D. the School of Athens was closed and six of the last Platonic philosophers who resided in that school, came as refugees to Ctesiphon.

They considered Iran as their second home; because even at that very late time, the prestige of Iranian religion, wisdom and traditions had not ceased to have a great influence on the thought and imagination of the Greeks. (Henry Charles Puech, opt. cit 88)

Priscien and other Greek philosophers were interrogated by the King and it is through his demand that Priscien compiled an abridged treatise on psychology, physiology etc... for him. This was entitled: "Solution eorum de quilus dubitavi Chosroes Persarum rex". In the preface to this treatise Priscien writes these revealing words:

When I present to you this book, I have done nothing but to offer you a fruit that I have picked from your own garden. It is in the same fashion that people make sacrifice to Gods from among their own creatures. (Saeed Nafisi, Mehr Monthly Publication, first year, p. 41)