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Jesus in Matthew teaches the Golden Rule, to treat others the way they want to be treated. Hierocles, a second-century Stoic philosopher, similarly teaches the Golden Rule, showing how it is found in many distinct cultures.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 7:12
New Testament
11 If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets. 13 “Enter through the narrow gate because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Hierocles On Fraternal Love
On Brotherly Love
Classical
The first advice, therefore, is very clear, easily obtained, and is common to all men. For it is a sane assertion, which every man will consider as evident. And it is this: Act by every one, in the same manner as if you supposed yourself to be him, and him to be you. For he will use a servant well who considers with himself, how he would think it proper to be used by him, if he indeed was the master, and himself the servant. The same thing also must be said of parents with respect to children, and of children with respect to parents; and, in short, of all men with respect to all. This advice, however, is transcendently adapted to the alliance of brothers to each other; since nothing else is necessary for him to admit previously, who considers how he ought to conduct himself towards his brother, than promptly to assume the natural sameness of the person of each of them. This, therefore, is the first advice, that a man should act towards his brother in the same way in which he would think it proper that his brother should act towards him. But, by Zeus, some one may say, I do not exceed propriety in my manners and am equitable, but my brother's manners are rough and without affability. Such a one, however, does not speak rightly.
Date: c. 120 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... This is also the principle enunciated in the Gospels that one should not do to others what we would not wish done to us and, vice versa, to do to them what we would wish done to us. This putting of oneself ‘in the shoes of the other’ is what is meant by sympatheia, and it is also an application of complete sociable oikeiôsis on the part of a person who thinks of and takes an interest in what concerns another as though it were his or her own, up to the point of being as concerned for the other as one is for oneself. This ‘other’ is not only someone near and dear, as Hierocles specifies; the principle is valid in respect to all people. For parallels between the New Testament and Hierocles and Hellenistic moral philosophy generally, taking account also of popular morality and the diatribe tradition, see van der Horst, ‘Hierocles the Stoic,’ 156–60; Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) ...
Ramelli, Ilaria
Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and Excerpts
(pp. 123-124) Society of Biblical Literature, 2009
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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