This is a short collection of essays that Strauss had been compiling when he passed away. Although published posthumously, most of these pieces had been previously published in other venues and Strauss had already selected the order for their presentation in this collection. As usual, these essays mostly deal with a deep reading of the pre-modern philosophers, often with an esoteric interpretation. Strauss begins by stating that “political philosophy was concerned with the best or just order of society which is by nature best or just everywhere or always. [It] presents the relatively most perfect solution of the riddles of life and the world.”
Looking at Plato’s “Apology of Socrates,” Strauss begins by discussing philosophy beyond politics and on how a man must live virtuously, in general. He makes the assertion that Socrates insisted that “one must not when suffering injustice do injustice in turn…. Inflicting evil on human beings, even if one has suffered evil from them, is unjust, for inflicting evil on human beings differs in nothing from acting unjustly…. The cleavage among men is no longer that between knowers and ignoramuses, or between the philosophers and the non-philosophers, i.e., between the few who hold and the many who do not hold that the unexamined life is not worth living, but that between those who hold that one may not requite evil with evil and those who hold that one may, or even ought to, do it.”
In Strauss’ essay “On the Euthydemus” he discusses Socrates’ views on wisdom. When talking to his friend and patron Kleinias, Strauss interprets Socrates as claiming, “in all cases wisdom makes human beings fortunate…. Wisdom is, humanly speaking, omnipotent…. The mere use of good things will not suffice for making a man happy; the use must be right use; while wrong use is bad, non-use is neither good nor bad; right use is brought about by knowledge…. No possession whatever is of any benefit if its use is not guided by prudence, wisdom, intelligence; a man possessing little but using it intelligently is more benefited than a man possessing much but using it without intelligence…. Wisdom—and of course not honor or glory—is not only the greatest good; it is the sole good; only through the presence of wisdom and the guidance by it are the other goods good…. Since our happiness depends altogether on our wisdom and if virtue can be acquired by learning, learning, striving for wisdom, philosophizing is the one thing needful.”
Finally, Strauss moves his discussion to political philosophy, specifically. He states that Socrates felt that “justice seems to be the only good, the only virtue that is beneficent (on the whole) even if not guided by intelligence, perhaps because the laws which the just man obeys supply the lack of intelligence in the man himself…. Justice in contradistinction to courage and moderation cannot be misused.” However, Strauss ends his essay “On the Euthydemus” by stating that Socrates might have been a better cheerleader than teacher. “Socrates’ effort to determine the science which makes human beings happy has ended in complete failure. He has confirmed by deed the view of some of his critics that he was most excellent in exhorting men to virtue but not able to guide men to it.” Strauss finishes with a tantalizing thought about majorities and the politics of democracy. He states, “According to Socrates, the greatest enemy of philosophy, the greatest sophist, is the political multitude, i.e. the enactor of the Athenian laws.” Given Socrates’ end, this seems apt, even if in tension with his previous thoughts on just laws.
Strauss’ essay, “Xenophon’s Anabasis,” deals further with the practicalities of politics. Strauss contends that Xenophon often puts words in different speakers mouths for effect and that the “character” of “Themoistogenes of Syracuse is a pseudonym for Xenophon of Athens”, himself. Strauss states that Xenophon reports the Athenian Theopompos as saying, “the only good things which they have are arms and virtue, but their virtue would not be of any avail without the arms.” The speaker, “Theopompos,” is making the point echoed by Aristotle, “virtue, and especially moral virtue, is in need of external equipment.” Especially in politics, it does not do to have the moral high ground if you cannot execute your virtue.
Elsewhere in "Xenophon’s Anabasis,” Strauss discusses the role and comportment proper to a gentleman, by way of Proxenos. He states that Proxnos “believed to acquire through his actions with Cyrus [the Persian usurper] a great name and great power and much money; but he was obviously concerned with acquiring those things only in just and noble ways. He was indeed able to rule gentlemen but he was unable to inspire the soldiers with awe and fear of himself…. Proxenos seems to be more attracted to the noble acquisition of fame, great power and great wealth anywhere on earth to than to his fatherland,” Greece, whom he betrays. Two points of interest here are that Proxenos, the gentleman, is far from patriotic to his country of birth, but views his allegiance to whatever cause would advance him, with honor. Secondly, Proxenos might have been a great leader of gentlemen, but not of a mob of soldiers. In politics, one must tailor one’s words and actions to the situation. There are no absolutes.
Later in this essay, Strauss describes the scene after Xenophon has taken effective control of the entire mercenary Greek army on Asia Minor. Strauss speaks of interactions between “barbarous men whom [the Greek soldiers] had met on their march, the most remote from the Greek laws, for they did in public what others would do only when they are alone.” There was the idea of the Laws as being above private virtue and discretion for the Greeks but not for barbarians.
Strauss spent much of his career teasing out the implications of natural law. In his essay, “On Natural Law,” he states “by natural law is meant a law which determines what is right and wrong and which has power or is valid by nature, inherently, hence everywhere and always.” However, he then continues, “the primary question concerns less natural law than natural right, i.e. what is by nature right or just: is all right conventional (of human origin) or is there some right which is natural (physei dikaion)?” Did rights and law come to man when he created a society by covenant or were there laws and rights even within a state of nature? Strauss begins with Plato. “While Plato cannot be said to have set forth a teaching of natural law, there can be no doubt that he opposed conventionalism; he asserts that there is a natural right, i.e. something which is by nature just. The naturally just or right is the “idea” of justice…. A man (or rather his soul) or a city is just if each of its parts does its work well…. Only the wise man or the philosopher can by truly just…. Natural right in Plato’s sense is in the first place the natural order of the virtues as the natural perfections of the human soul…. Such assigning requires that the men who know what is by nature good for each and all, the philosophers, be the absolute rulers and that absolute communism (communism regarding property, women and children) be established among those citizens who give the commonwealth its character…. This order is the political order according to nature, as distinguished from and opposed to the conventional order.”
Strauss next contrasts a few other philosophers’ views of natural law. In Aristotle’s “Rhetoric” he defines ““the law according to nature” as the unchangeable law common to all men.” In “Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle writes “natural right is that right which has everywhere the same power and does not owe its validity to human enactment.” As far as politics, Aristotle believed, “natural right is that right which must be recognized by any political society if it is to last and which for this reason is everywhere in force. Natural right thus understood delineates the minimum conditions of political life…. Natural right in this sense is indifferent to the difference of regimes whereas positive right is relative to the regime.”
The Stoics were the first Greek philosophers to make natural law an explicit theme of their works. For them, “the natural or divine or eternal law is identified with God or the highest god (fire, aether, or air) or his reason…. The virtuous life as choiceworthy for its own sake comes to be understood as compliance with natural law.” For the Stoics, all study of philosophy was a study in moral virtue. Positive laws that contradict the natural laws were invalid and must not be obeyed.
Finally, Strauss compares the ancient Greek conception with the Christian teachings of Thomas Aquinas. “In the Christian version, Stoic corporealism (“materialism”) is abandoned…. [However,] natural law retains its status as rational…. Natural law is clearly distinguished from the eternal law—God Himself or the principle of His governance of all creatures—on the one hand, and the divine law, i.e. the positive law contained in the Bible, on the other. The eternal law is the ground of the natural law…. As a rational being man is by nature inclined toward acting according to reason; acting according to reason is acting virtuously; natural law prescribes therefore the acts of virtue.” Just like for the Stoics, Aquinas, in the “Summa Theologica,” states that “a human law which disagrees with natural law does not have the force of law.”
Another one of Strauss’ recurring themes in his writings was the tension between Jerusalem and Athens. In this collection’s essay, “Jerusalem and Athens,” he comes about the conflict from a slightly different angle than his previous works. “According to the Bible, the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord; according to the Greek philosophers, the beginning of wisdom is wonder.” Strauss also contrasts the two viewpoints according to Nietzsche. “The peculiarity of the Greeks is the full dedication of the individual to the contest of excellence, distinction, supremacy. The peculiarity of the Hebrews is the utmost honoring of father and mother.” Strauss takes a close look at Genesis. He concludes, “man was not denied knowledge; without knowledge he could not have known the tree of knowledge nor the woman nor the brutes; nor could he have understood the prohibition. Man was denied knowledge of good and evil, i.e., the knowledge sufficient for guiding himself, his life. While not being a child he was to live in child-like simplicity and obedience to God.” Strauss contrasts Socrates with the Prophets. “The perfectly just man, the man who is as just as is humanly possible, is according to Socrates the philosopher and according to the prophets the faithful servant of the Lord. The philosopher is the man who dedicates his life to the quest for knowledge of the good, of the idea of the good; what we would call moral virtue is only the condition or by-product of that quest. According to the prophets, however, there is no need for the quest for knowledge of the good: God “hath shewed thee, o man, what is good.”” Finally, there is the question of their audience. “The prophets as a rule address the people and sometimes even all the peoples, whereas Socrates as a rule addresses one man.”
Strauss also included his essay, “Note on the Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil” in this collection. “For Nietzsche, as distinguished from the classics, politics belongs from the outset to a lower place than either philosophy or religion.” It is not a subset of philosophy, but below it. “Whereas according to Plato the pure mind grasps the truth, according to Nietzsche the impure mind, or a certain kind of impure mind, is the sole source of truth.” There is no natural law. “The world in itself, the “thing-in-itself,” “nature” is wholly chaotic and meaningless. Hence all meaning, all order originates in man, in man’s creative acts, in his will to power.” The world does not exist objectively, but must be interpreted. “The world of any concern to us is necessarily a fiction, for it is necessarily anthropocentric; man is necessarily in a manner the measure of all things.” Nietzsche contradicts Socrates about the nature, purpose, and goodness of knowledge. For Nietzsche, “knowledge cannot be, or cannot be good, for its own sake; it is justifiable only as self-knowledge: being oneself means being honest with oneself, going the way to one’s own ideal.” Nietzsche believed in different morals for different human beings. He despised “the morality stemming from timidity; that morality is the morality of the human herd, i.e. of the large majority of men.” He spoke of the “herd-instinct of obedience which is now almost universally innate and transmitted by inheritance.” Nietzsche denied that there is one true nature to man. “All values are human creations.” Passivity and amelioration will make man weak. “Suffering and inequality are the prerequisites of human greatness…. Hitherto suffering and inequality have been taken for granted, as “given,” as imposed on man. Henceforth, they must be willed.”
Strauss dives back into political philosophy proper with his essay, “Niccolo Machiavelli.” Strauss makes the case that Machiavelli’s ethics are a return to the ancients, to a pagan ethics. “That rediscovery which leads up to the demands that the virtue of the ancients be imitated by present-day men, runs counter to the present-day religion [Christianity]…. the virtues of the pagans are only resplendent vices.” For Machiavelli, Livy’s histories are his Bible. “Our religion has placed the highest good in humility, abjectness, and the disparagement of the human things, whereas the ancient religion has placed the highest good in greatness of mind, strength of body, and in all other things apt to make men most strong.” The Christian virtues might be fine for the individual, but not for politics and not for the ruler of men. “If one wishes that a sect or a republic live long, one must bring it back frequently to its beginning.” For Machiavelli, that beginning was ancient Rome. “Men were good at the beginning not because of innocence but because they were gripped by terror and fear.”
The final essay in this collection is Strauss’ introduction to a new edition of Hermann Cohen’s book, “Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism.” This neatly essay brings together Strauss’ passions for religion, reason, esoteric writing, deep reading, and the Jewish traditions. In Cohen’s discussion on the fellowship of man, Strauss brings out the point that “for the prophets and the psalms it is poverty and not death and pain that constitutes the great suffering of man or the true enigma of human life…. Poverty becomes the prime object of compassion.” On prayer, Strauss states, “the soul and inwardness of the Law is prayer. Prayer gives life to all actions prescribed by the Law…. Prayer is the language of the correlation of man with God. As such it must be a dialogue while being a monologue…. If all other purposes of prayer could be questioned, its necessity for veracity, for purity of the soul cannot.” Finally, Strauss ends, “truthfulness requires knowledge, and our knowledge is imperfect. Therefore truthfulness must be accompanied by modesty, which is the virtue of skepticism…. He who is humble before God is modest toward men.”
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