Greek and Jewish Religion
For the Greeks, first there is a place. This makes sense, it corresponds with experience. For the Hebrews, first there is a being, an all-creator. This makes sense for hierarchy, it corresponds with rulership. In a culture of rulership, first there is the ruler. That is the first existence for the ruled. Most religions are like this, the Mayan religion for example, where the all-creator uses maze. The Hebrew religion is simply the greatest exponent of this type, and that is also why it attracted the attention of the Romans, who were very hierarchical. And so, for the Hebrews, first there is God. For the Greeks, first there is The Well. The Well is a place, from whence spring all places and beings. Or, rather, some beings, and some places, and then some places and beings spring from those places and beings. Even Plato and Aristotle begin with a place, the Topus Uranus, but being that what they concieve to be in this place can only exist in the imagination, and imagination can only be generated by a being, they were extremely well suited for a hierarchical religion like Christianity. Judaism, for all its hierarchy, is still not imaginary. It is a realistic religion, the reality of hierarchy. Thus, it had to be modified in the form of Christianity to allow for Plato and Aristotle’s universalism. Plato, of course, is the rulership thinker par excellence, giving even a philosophical necessity for a state government structure. In the way that the Uberman was Nietzsche’s gift to humanity, the Philosopher King (read: king) was Plato’s gift to humanity.
The final thing to understand about religions of rulership is that they are not religions of rulers, but of the ruled. Even kings, in rulership religions, must themselves be ruled by God. Judaism is the search for and attainment of nobility in being ruled. It understands that the ruler cannot be understood, cannot be studied by it. Only the ruled can. And it seeks nobility in the ruled. What makes a ruled man holy? Catholicism, greatly to its credit, seeks as much as Plato allows to follow this ethos. Other Christian sects seek to fulfill the absurdity of understanding nobility in a ruler through a religion of rulership. It is an absurdity because Plato was lying, his view of the philosopher who would be king was not religious. His study of “virtue” did not, as its claim to universalism ostensibly bound it to, apply to a philosopher, (need I say it?) to himself.