Happiness and Jesus

In The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle defines happiness this way.

Let happiness, then, be virtuous welfare, or self-sufficiency in life or the pleasantest secure life or material and physical well-being accompanied by the capacity to safeguard or procure the same.

The elements of this happiness, Aristotle writes, are:

Gentle birth, a wide circle of friends, a virtuous circle of friends, wealth, creditable offspring, extensive offspring and a comfortable old age; also the physical virtues (e.g. health, beauty, strength, size, and competitive prowess), reputation, status, good luck, and virtue [or also its elements, prudence, courage, justice, and moderation.]

In the United States today, we might drop “gentle birth” from the list of requirements for happiness, such is our self-made man ethos, but few would disagree strongly with the list or even the definition of happiness. We call it “The American Dream.”

Jesus Christ and Aristotle do not have a lot in common.

On nearly every count in Aristotle’s definition of happiness and his list of the elements of happiness, Jesus Christ teaches against or by example contradicts each one. The only exceptions I see are the virtues, but even those in Paul are recast not as personal attributes but as fruit of the Holy Spirit.

The Roman culture that surrounded early Christianity was an offspring of the Greeks. So is our culture today.

The early church father Tertullian asked what Athens and Jerusalem have in common. It is a question the church should never cease to raise.