SOLON SUGGESTS

The Real Ten Commandments (Richard Carrier, 12-Sep-2002, Infidels.org)

I keep hearing this chant, variously phrased: "The Ten Commandments are the foundation of Western morality and the American Constitution and government." In saying this, people are essentially crediting Moses with the invention of ethics, democracy and civil rights, a claim that is of course absurd. But its absurdity is eclipsed by its injustice, for there is another lawmaker who is far more important to us, whose ideas and actions lie far more at the foundation of American government, and whose own Ten Commandments were distributed at large and influencing the greatest civilizations of the West--Greece and Rome--for well over half a millennia before the laws of Moses were anything near a universal social influence. In fact, by the time the Ten Commandments of Moses had any real chance of being the foundation of anything in Western society, democracy and civil rights had all but died out, never to rise again until the ideals of our true hero, the real man to whom we owe all reverence, were rediscovered and implemented in what we now call "modern democratic principles."

The man I am talking about is Solon the Athenian. Solon was born, we believe, around 638 B.C.E., and lived until approximately 558, but the date in his life of greatest importance to us is the year he was elected to create a constitution for Athens, 594 B.C.E. How important is this man? Let's examine what we owe to him, in comparison with the legendary author (or at last, in legend, the transmitter) of the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments. Solon is the founder of Western democracy and the first man in history to articulate ideas of equal rights for all citizens, and though he did not go nearly as far in the latter as we have come today, Moses can claim no connection to either. Solon was the first man in Western history to publicly record a civil constitution in writing. No one in Hebrew history did anything of the kind, least of all Moses. Solon advocated not only the right but even the duty of every citizen to bear arms in the defense of the state--to him we owe the 2nd Amendment. Nothing about that is to be found in the Ten Commandments of Moses. Solon set up laws defending the principles and importance of private property, state encouragement of economic trades and crafts, and a strong middle class--the ideals which lie at the heart of American prosperity, yet which cannot be credited at all to Moses.

Solon is the first man in history to eliminate birth as a basis for government office, and to create democratic assemblies open to all male citizens, such that no law could be passed without the majority vote of all. The notion of letting women into full political rights would not arise in any culture until that of modern Europe, but democracy never gets a single word in the Bible. Solon invented the right of appeal and trial by jury, whereby an assembly of citizens chosen at random, without regard for office or wealth or birth, gave all legal verdicts. Moses can claim nothing as fundamental as these developments, which are absolutely essential to modern society. The concept of taking a government official to court for malfeasance we owe to Solon. We read nothing of the kind about Moses. The idea of allowing foreigners who have mastered a useful trade to immigrate and become citizens is also an original invention of Solon--indeed, the modern concept of citizenship itself is largely indebted to him. There is nothing like this in the Bible. And like our own George Washington, Solon declined the offer to become ruler in his country, giving it a Constitution instead--unlike Moses who gave laws yet continued to reign. And Solon's selfless creation of the Athenian constitution set the course which led to the rise of the first universal democracy in the United States, and it was to Solon's Athens, not the Bible, that our Founding Fathers looked for guidance in constructing a new State. Moses can claim no responsibility for this. If we had Solon and no Moses, we would very likely still be where we are today. But if we had Moses and no Solon, democracy might never have existed at all.

So much for being the impetus behind our Constitution. The Ten Commandments of Moses have no connection with that, while the Constitution of Solon has everything to do with it. [...]

Let us now turn to the Ten Commandments of Solon (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 1.60), which run as follows:

1. Trust good character more than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
3. Do good things.
4. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
5. Learn to obey before you command.
6. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
7. Make reason your supreme commander.
8. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
9. Honor the gods.
10. Have regard for your parents.

Unlike the Commandments of Moses, none of these is outdated or antithetical to modern moral or political thought. Every one could be taken up by anyone today, of any creed--except perhaps only one.

Solon, in fact, is honored, along with Moses, at the US Supreme Court. And the Founders were obviously aware of him, Federalist No. 37: The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed (James Madison, January 15, 1788, New York Packet)

IT IS not a little remarkable that in every case reported by ancient history, in which government has been established with deliberation and consent, the task of framing it has not been committed to an assembly of men, but has been performed by some individual citizen of preeminent wisdom and approved integrity.

Minos, we learn, was the primitive founder of the government of Crete, as Zaleucus was of that of the Locrians. Theseus first, and after him Draco and Solon, instituted the government of Athens. Lycurgus was the lawgiver of Sparta. The foundation of the original government of Rome was laid by Romulus, and the work completed by two of his elective successors, Numa and Tullius Hostilius. On the abolition of royalty the consular administration was substituted by Brutus, who stepped forward with a project for such a reform, which, he alleged, had been prepared by Tullius Hostilius, and to which his address obtained the assent and ratification of the senate and people. This remark is applicable to confederate governments also. Amphictyon, we are told, was the author of that which bore his name. The Achaean league received its first birth from Achaeus, and its second from Aratus.

What degree of agency these reputed lawgivers might have in their respective establishments, or how far they might be clothed with the legitimate authority of the people, cannot in every instance be ascertained. In some, however, the proceeding was strictly regular. Draco appears to have been intrusted by the people of Athens with indefinite powers to reform its government and laws. And Solon, according to Plutarch, was in a manner compelled, by the universal suffrage of his fellow-citizens, to take upon him the sole and absolute power of new-modeling the constitution. The proceedings under Lycurgus were less regular; but as far as the advocates for a regular reform could prevail, they all turned their eyes towards the single efforts of that celebrated patriot and sage, instead of seeking to bring about a revolution by the intervention of a deliberative body of citizens.

Whence could it have proceeded, that a people, jealous as the Greeks were of their liberty, should so far abandon the rules of caution as to place their destiny in the hands of a single citizen? Whence could it have proceeded, that the Athenians, a people who would not suffer an army to be commanded by fewer than ten generals, and who required no other proof of danger to their liberties than the illustrious merit of a fellow-citizen, should consider one illustrious citizen as a more eligible depositary of the fortunes of themselves and their posterity, than a select body of citizens, from whose common deliberations more wisdom, as well as more safety, might have been expected? These questions cannot be fully answered, without supposing that the fears of discord and disunion among a number of counsellors exceeded the apprehension of treachery or incapacity in a single individual. History informs us, likewise, of the difficulties with which these celebrated reformers had to contend, as well as the expedients which they were obliged to employ in order to carry their reforms into effect. Solon, who seems to have indulged a more temporizing policy, confessed that he had not given to his countrymen the government best suited to their happiness, but most tolerable to their prejudices. And Lycurgus, more true to his object, was under the necessity of mixing a portion of violence with the authority of superstition, and of securing his final success by a voluntary renunciation, first of his country, and then of his life. If these lessons teach us, on one hand, to admire the improvement made by America on the ancient mode of preparing and establishing regular plans of government, they serve not less, on the other, to admonish us of the hazards and difficulties incident to such experiments, and of the great imprudence of unnecessarily multiplying them.

But there's a fundamental point that eludes Mr. Carrier here, Religion and the Founding of the United States (Michael Novak, April 8, 2003, AEI)

Massachusetts and others among the founding thirteen states, while protecting the full religious liberty of citizens under their new constitutions after Independence, maintained an established church and entrusted important moral and educational tasks to church communities with state support, direct or indirect. Virginia, too, agreed that the protection of morals and education in republican habits was indispensable to the survival and well-being of republican government. However, abuses of religious freedom led three leading Virginians to draw an exceedingly bright line between the state and not only the church but even religion more generally. This line was defined by four major documents: George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779), James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), and again his Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1785).

Three features of this decade-long struggle deserve note. First, Virginia trod this path almost alone among the founding states. Second, the extraordinary passion of Jefferson and Madison on this point was bitterly resisted by many in Virginia, as well as in other states, and in practice it proved nearly impossible to observe completely. The dependence of the republic upon the concepts and habits inculcated by Jewish and Christian religions proved to be too conspicuous to ignore. As Presidents, for example, both Jefferson and Madison expended considerable effort to show their personal support for religious worship and to nurture religious activities. The actual practice of the early republic exhibited many accommodations between the state and religious citizens in multiple warm and friendly ways that sharply distinguished the American way from the rigorous hostility Maritain had known in France. While the American Republic had no established church, the American state took a positive and benign attitude toward the full, free, and quite visibly public exercise of religion, not least at major state functions and national celebrations. Moreover, the religion shown in such public exercises was not just "religion in general," but quite distinctively Protestant Christianity, albeit, typically, in a fairly nondenominational form. And this public choice was not a matter of mere reflex, without argument on its behalf. Public figures and public documents widely asserted that this particular stream of religion was of decisive importance in the history of liberty, and indispensable to its survival.

But the third feature of these founding documents is even more striking and profound. For it is quite stunning that the four documents in question depend for their intelligibility and their credibility upon a distinctively Jewish and Christian view of man's relation to God. The hinge of the argument in each document is a fact of Jewish and Christian faith: that each individual conscience stands in the presence of its Creator. Further, by virtue of having been created from nothing, each individual owes a primordial duty to her or his Creator. This duty is of so intimate a nature that no other person can perform it in that individual's place. It is an inalienable duty, which can be taken up by no other.

This particular religious view is held by only two religions. It is not found in Buddhism nor in Hinduism; not in animism nor in pantheism; not in the religions of the ancient Greeks or Romans; nor in the religions of the Incas or the Mayans; and not even in that one other religion which also recognized a Creator separate from the created world, Islam.

These other world religions are satisfied by outward obeisance. Do your duty, and no one inquires into what your secret thoughts may be. Since only outward ritual acts were demanded, not even the great Greek or Roman philosophers worried over the assent of conscience to the worship of the gods. By contrast, Jews and Christians trembled if asked to make outward obeisance to idols, for they recognized in that act a terrible sin of idolatry.

Only Judaism and Christianity among all world religions developed, and still nourish and celebrate, the three central concepts necessary to the American conception of rights. Only they hold to the doctrine that there is a Creator (and Governor of the universe); that each individual owes a personal accounting at the time of Judgment to this Creator, a Judgment that is prior to all claims of civil society or state; and that this inalienable relation between each individual and his Creator occurs in the depths of conscience and reason, and is not reached merely by external bows, bended knees, pilgrimages, or other ritual observances.

Looked at in this light the fatal weaknesses of Solon's "Commandments" are obvious. First, in the absence of a Creator they aren't actually Commands, but suggestions from a wise fellow. They can not bind anyone except by the force of their own reason, which means that it's ultimately up to each person to determine their own commandments. In the same vein, they don't for the most part command anything: "do good" and "don't do bad" are so abstract as to leave the determination of what is good and what is bad entirely up to the individual. Indeed, by invoking a multiplicity of gods, Solon offers the individual the opportunity to claim that virtually any behavior is divinely ordained.

It is precisely that which Mr. Carrier likes best about Solon's ethical scheme--its relativism--that makes it so unfit as the basis for freedom. For if morality is so relative that it is to be left to each individual to determine the good and the bad himself, then the State will have to set up myriad controls upon the individual, just to guarantee that peoples' behavior will be sufficiently predictable that they can live together. Mr. Carrier is correct that Solon deserves credit--or blame--for his contribution to the constructing of the modern State, but America was never intended to be statist. Because the Founders and those who came before--especially the Puritans--believed in absolute morality and virtue, they believed society to be more important than the State. Our history since the Founding would seem to suggest that the drift from Moses to Solon, from absolute morality to relativity, must be accompanied by the decline of Society and the rise of the State. Some confusion arises here because we have made a fetish of democracy, so believe that because America has become more democratic it has succeeded in its original purposes. But the bitter truth of the matter is that democracy is not only no guarantee of freedom but is to some degree its enemy. It is perhaps not too much to say that the ideal of American freedom has been lost to exactly the degree that Solon and statism are more important to modern America than Moses and morality. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 23, 2003 7:51 AM