The Greek Seeds of Christian Ethics

Christians often hold the belief that Jesus is a moral and ethical genius whose original teachings revolutionized how we think about right and wrong. However, if we read the works of ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others, many of Jesus’s famous lines seem less like brand new ideas and more like echoes of wisdom that had already been circulating for centuries. Below are ten examples of Jesus’s statements, alongside similar concepts found in pre-Christian Greek thought.

The “Golden Rule”

• Jesus: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

• Isocrates (4th century BCE): “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”

  
  

Not Retaliating With Evil

• Jesus: “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” (Matthew 5:39)

• Socrates (as portrayed by Plato in Crito): “Neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right.”

  
  

The Lure of Wealth

• Jesus: “You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)

• Plato (The Republic): Emphasizes that the pursuit of virtue and the pursuit of wealth rarely align, because a just soul cannot be fixated on accumulating riches.

The True Treasure

• Jesus: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

• Socrates (in Plato’s Apology): “Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state.”

Humility and Meekness

• Jesus: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

• Aristotle: Though he advocates the golden mean (moderation in all things), he especially praises virtues like gentleness and reason over arrogance and pride.

Non-Hypocrisy

• Jesus: “First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5)

• Plato (Republic and Gorgias): Repeatedly stresses self-examination before critiquing others, insisting that understanding one’s own flaws is fundamental to a just life.

Inner Purity

• Jesus: “Nothing outside a person can defile them… it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” (Mark 7:15)

• Socrates (as portrayed by Plato): Argues that wrongdoing corrupts the soul far more than any external circumstance can harm the body.

Peace over Violence

• Jesus: “All who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)

• Aeschylus (5th century BCE dramatist, reflecting Greek thought): In a famous story, an eagle struck by an arrow notices its own feathers on the shaft. This shows how violence often turns back on its source.

Focus on the Eternal

• Jesus: “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)

• Plato (Phaedo, Republic): Speaks of an invisible realm of higher forms, insisting that the greatest realities lie beyond the material world.

Loving One’s Neighbor

• Jesus: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)

• Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics): Emphasizes friendship (philia) as a cornerstone of the good life, treating another’s well-being as tightly bound to one’s own.

One may debate whether Jesus arrived at these teachings independently or whether they draw on a universal body of wisdom reiterated by philosophers over the centuries. Either way, many of the moral and ethical ideas we attribute to Jesus were already present among ancient Greek thinkers long before the first century. From the “Golden Rule” to the emphasis on inner virtue over external success, the Greeks had already charted much of this moral landscape.

Although Christians view Jesus as the ultimate authority on ethical living, human wisdom clearly spans multiple traditions. It may be that we did not strictly need Jesus to articulate these principles, yet his teachings in the Bible sure did revitalize them and offered a compelling personal example that continues to resonate even today.