Plato

Where the greatest influence of these Magi was exerted was in ancient Greece, where it contributed to the emergence of what is known as “philosophy”. The first Greek philosophers, known as the Pre-Socratics, all emerged in the region of Ionia, now north-Western Turkey, which was then under Persian occupation. And a Greek historian named Cherilus, who was a contemporary of Herodotus, maintained that the Jews had come to the assistance of Xerxes in his expedition against Greece. If they practised the secret arts of the early Kabbalah, they would have been known as Magi.

Perhaps one of the reasons these early Kabbalist Jews ventured to Greece was for the known reason that the territory had already been an important Jewish settlement. Early Greek civilization was the result of contact with the Phoenicians, who introduced them to the alphabet, which still resounds with the two first letters of the Hebrew alphabet, alef and bet. For the most part, the nation of Israel did not adhere to the Mosaic faith, but to the pagan cult of the Canaanites, and therefore were indistinguishable from them.

That is why, Herodotus, a Greek historian of the fifth century BC, discusses the “Phoenicians” and the “Syrians” of Palestine who practised circumcision.²¹ He further mentioned that, “these people have a tradition that in ancient times they lived on the Persian Gulf, but migrated to the Syrian coast, where they are found today. This part of Syria, together with the country which extends southward to Egypt, is all known as Palestine.”²² Greece was supposedly founded, according to Greek legend, by a Phoenician named Danaus. Heccataeus of Abdera, a Greek historian of the fourth century BC, set out his view that the traditions the Israelite Exodus and that of Danaus were parallel versions of the same story. Referring to the Egyptians he says:

The natives of the land surmised that unless they removed the foreigners their troubles would never be resolved. At once, therefore, the aliens were driven from the country and the most outstanding and active among them branded together and, as some say, were cast ashore in Greece and certain other regions; their teachers were notable men, among them being Danaus and Cadmus. But the greater number were driven into what is now called Judea, which is not far from Egypt and at that time was utterly uninhabited. The colony was headed by a man called Moses.²³

Continued Jewish and Kabbalistic influence was significant in the development of Greek philosophy. A prime example was the philosopher Pythagoras. It was commonly believed that Pythagoras had been a student of the Magi in Babylon. It was through him that the cult of Orpheus, known as Orphism, was transmitted to thinkers like Plato. Orphism was a cult of a Greek version of the dying-god, Dionysus. According to Heraclitus, who wrote in the sixth century BC, the rites of Dionysus were in imitation of those “Magi”.²⁴

Ancient Jewish historians had long recognised a Jewish origin for Orphism. Leading writers in this vein were Aristobulus, Artapanus, Eupolemus, and Cleodemus. Artapanus, a third century BC Jewish philosopher, declared of Moses that, “as a grown man he was called Musaeus by the Greeks. This Musaeus was the teacher of Orpheus.” Aristobulus, a third century BC Jewish philosopher, also claimed that Orpheus was a follower of Moses.

Similarly, Aristobulus maintained that Plato had come into contact with Jewish thought:

It is evident that Plato imitated our legislation and that he had investigated thoroughly each of the elements in it. For it had been translated by others before Demetrius Phalereus, before the conquests of Alexander and the Persians. The parts concerning the exodus of the Hebrews, our fellow countrymen, out of Egypt, the fame of all things that happened to them, the conquest of the land, and the detailed account of the entire legislation (were translated). So it is very clear that the philosopher mentioned above took many things (from it). For he was very learned, as was Pythagoras, who transferred many of our doctrines and integrated them into his own beliefs.²⁵

Evidence of Kabbalistic ideas is found particularly in the Timeaus, and the Republic of Plato. Essentially, Plato has long been regarded as the great godfather of the Kabbalah. The same has continued to be claimed by leading Kabbalists throughout the centuries. Leone Ebreo, the key representative of the Italian Kabbalists of the Renaissance, saw Plato as a disciple of the ancient Kabbalists. Other Kabbalists, such as Isaac Abravanel and Rabbi Yohanan Alemanno believed Plato to have been a disciple of Jeremiah in Egypt. On the similarity of the teachings of the Greek philosophers and the Kabbalah, Rabbi Abraham Yagel commented:

This is obvious to anyone who has read what is written on the philosophy and principles of Democritus, and especially on Plato, the master of Aristotle, whose views are almost those of the Sages of Israel, and who on some issues almost seems to speak from the very mouth of the Kabbalists and in their language, without any blemish on his lips. And why shall we not hold these views, since they are ours, inherited from our ancestors by the Greeks, and down to this day great sages hold the views of Plato and great groups of students follow him, as is well known to anyone who has served the sage of the Academy and entered their studies, which are found in every land. ²⁶

It is Plato’s Republic which has provided the basis for the modern new world order project. He foresaw the establishment of a dictatorship governed by an enlightened elite, which he called “philosopher-kings”. When asked in what these philosopher-kings will be instructed in, at the end of the Republic, Plato provides the “Myth of Er”. While there are numerous examples of Kabbalistic or Magian influence in Plato, it is in this myth that he describes a vision that is most replete with such examples.

Colotes, a philosopher of the third century BC, accused Plato of plagiarism, maintaining that he substituted Er’s name for that of Zoroaster. Clement of Alexandria and Proclus quote from a work entitled On Nature, attributed to Zoroaster, in which he is equated with Er. Quoting the opening of the work, Clement mentions:

Zoroaster, then, writes: “These things I wrote, I Zoroaster, the son of Armenius [or Armenian], a Pamphylian by birth: having died in battle, and been in Hades, I learned them of the gods.” This Zoroaster, Plato says, having been placed on the funeral pyre, rose again to life in twelve days. He alludes perchance to the resurrection, or perchance to the fact that the path for souls to ascension lies through the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he himself says, that the descending pathway to birth is the same. In the same way we are to understand the twelve labours of Hercules, after which the soul obtains release from this entire world. ²⁷

In Plato can be found many of the nefarious policies that have been pursued by the new world order elite, including the elimination of marriage and the family, compulsory education, the use of eugenics by the state, and the employment of deceptive propaganda methods. According to Plato, “all these women shall be wives in common to all the men, and not one of them shall live privately with any man; the children too should be held in common so that no parent shall know which is his own offspring, and no child shall know his parent”. ²⁸ This belief is associated with a need for eugenics, as “the best men must cohabit with the best women in as many cases as possible and the worst with the worst in the fewest, and that the offspring of the one must be reared and that of the other not, if the flock is to be as perfect as possible.”

More pernicious still is his prescription for infanticide: “The offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them. That is the condition of preserving the purity of the guardians’ breed.”

Compulsory schooling is to be implemented in order to separate children from their parents, to have them indoctrinated in the ideals of the state:

They [philosopher-kings] will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most.²⁹

As for propaganda, according to Plato, “Our rulers will find a considerable dose of falsehood and deceit necessary for the good of their subjects”. He further explains, “Rhetoric … is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong. And so the rhetorician’s business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe; since, I take it, he could not in a short while instruct such a mass of people in matters so important.”³⁰

Footnotes:

21 The Histories, II:104
22 The Histories, VII:89
23 Diodorus Siculus. XL: 3.2
24 Clement. Protreptic, 34.5, quoted fr. A Presocratics Reader, p. 39
25 Eusebius. 13.12.1f.
26 Mazref la-Hokhmah, chap. 25, quoted from Idel, “Jewish Kabbalah and Platonism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance”, Neoplatonism and Jewish though, p. 336.
27 Stromata, Book V, Chap 14. Timaeus, vi, 136.
28 Plato and Totalitarianism.
29 Plato’s Royal Lies.
30 Plato and Totalitarianism.