Socrates and Jesus

Michael Hattersley argues that the uniquely dynamic and propulsive character of Western Civilization, for better and worse, has been generated by a creative argument between the Socratic Greek rationalist tradition and the Judeo-Christian tradition best personified by Jesus. Socrates and Jesus both promoted a disinterest in material things, attempted to define the moral life, and died martyrs. But this essay analyzes their opposing definitions of the ultimate or the divine, their radically conflicting views of love and reason, their understanding of civil society and the role of laws, their epistemology (how we know) and eschatology (the ultimate purpose of the universe), and their fundamental understanding of how humankind could progress.

In "Socrates and Jesus", he provides an overview of Western cultural development from the ancient Greeks to the current time. The book opens with chapters on the historical Socrates and Jesus, then discusses how their legends developed and went into competition for control of the ancient world. It examines subsequent Western history - the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Romantic era, and the modern period - and finds that the contrasting visions of Socrates and Jesus about how to pursue moral and scientific truth alternately clashed and compromised with each other, the apparent triumph of one always leading to the resurgence of the other. It identifies this dynamic as the engine of western history, distinguishing it in terms of energy, inquisitiveness, individuality, and a propensity towards mass democracy, from equally great but more static and hierarchical civilizations.

Thus the book offers a comprehensive but concise theory of Western history, grounded in scholarly examination of the West's greatest intellects but written in a lively narrative style accessible to a broad range of educated readers. Many books have been written comparing Socrates and Jesus, but virtually all of these have either stressed their similarities, used them in service of theological arguments or both. This book uniquely sticks to the historical evidence, emphasizes the creative conflict between the teachings of Socrates and Jesus, and maintains that their dialogue was the dynamic that drove the historical development of Western civilization.