Question:
Is there any evidence that Jewish thought and philosophy had an influence on the Greeks?
Answer:
Contemplating your question, I thought that perhaps it would be best to begin by quoting Hermippus of Smyrna, where he accused Pythagoras of doing and saying “things imitating and transferring to himself the opinions of the Jews.”1
Or perhaps I would quote Clearchus of Soli, who related the following from an encounter between Aristotle and a certain Jew: “He conversed with us and with other philosophical persons, and made a trial of our skill in philosophy; and as he lived with many learned men, he communicated more information than he received from us.”2,3
1.
Josephus, Contra Apionem I:22; Origen, Contra Celsum I:15. See also Porphyry of Tyre, Life of Pythagoras 11.
The full paragraph in Josephus reads: “Then [Hermippus] adds after this the following as well: ‘And Pythagoras used to do and say these things imitating and transferring to himself the opinions of the Jews and the Thracians. For that man is in fact said to have transferred to many of the customs of the Jews to his own philosophy.’” While many scholars are very skeptical in attributing the last sentence (“For that man . . .”) to Hermippus, they see no reason to dispute the attribution of the previous sentence (“And Pythagoras used to . . .”) to him, as it matches the approach he takes toward Pythagoras in surviving passages of his biography (Bezalel Bar-Kochva, The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period, ch. V).
2.
Josephus, ibid.; Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, Book I, ch. 15. Regardless of whether this incident took place, the fact that a student of Aristotle would write this is an indication of what his impressions of the Jews were.
It is interesting to note that one of the aims of Clearchus’ work, On Sleep, of which only fragments have survived and from which the above quotation is taken, was to show that Aristotle himself believed in the immortality of the soul—i.e., that the body and soul are separable, and the soul lives on after death, as was the opinion of Aristotle’s teacher Plato—a view that the other students of his vehemently claim he abandoned. See Hans Lewy, “Aristotle and the Jewish Sage According to Clearchus of Soli,” The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1938), pp. 205–235.
3.
The meaning and ramifications of these quotes, as well as the degree of credence given to them, are matters of considerable debate between scholars. However, since the point of this article is about Jewish impact on Western thought in general (beyond the impact on any one specific person or philosophy), their purpose here is to draw attention to them and to the fact that these discussions do exist. It is for this reason that none of the other myths and legends of Greek philosophers having met, or learned from, Jewish sages are cited in this article.