How Shall the Just Live
Brief Thoughts on Some Greek and Hebrew Concepts
Early in his exploration of human beings as political animals, Aristotle makes a claim about justice which might surprise many modern readers: “Justice is a thing belonging to the city. For adjudication is an arrangement of the political community, and justice is judgment as to what is just” (Politics 5). Aristotle seems to be suggesting that justice only occurs in a community, and he is not alone is this idea. Even Aeschylus, in Prometheus Bound, implies that when Zeus attempts to maintain justice on his own accord, that even the king of the gods will go wrong: “I know that he’s savage, his justice / a thing he keeps by his own standard” (lns. 186-187). Prometheus laments that Zeus behaves in accordance with his own standards, rather than in conformity with what the titans and Olympians know to be true justice. The individual cannot, then, be the source of such a concept in the Greek mind.
But it’s worth noting that the Hebrew concept echoes with this argument to a degree, as seen in the account of Job’s suffering and his subsequent quest for understanding. For Elihu, one of Job’s comforters, the very nature of God is intricately bound with his understanding of justice: “Of a truth, God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice” (34:12). And just prior to God’s response to Job, Elihu asserts that God, “is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate” (37:23). God is the source of justice according to Job, and His standard applies to everyone around the world, even when it is difficult to understand His justice. This confirms the idea presented by Aristotle and Aeschylus, but anchors in the personality of the perfect God, giving justice a foundation that rises above the community.
For even the Greeks understood how communities were not perfect institutions. In Prometheus Bound, the Chorus even laments the corruption of once good institutions, “For new are the steersmen that rule Olympus, / and new are the customs by which Zeus rules, / customs that have no justice to them, / but what was great before he brings to nothingness” (lns. 148-151). And for Aristotle, man is at his worst when isolated from the community (5). But taking it further, Aristotle reckons that justice is best expressed in a community of friends. “When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they do need friendship in addition” (Nicomachean Ethics 164). And this connection puts justice squarely in the context of the virtues, actions which yield good results for the actor, even if that good is nothing more than moving a step closer to the chief end of all mankind, namely happiness (221). Though a corrupt official declares otherwise, the ideal man will be the one who is good and also an excellent citizen, for justice should always work in the favor of the community (Politics 71).
So what then is justice? It is a course of action that draws its standard from God. It is a way of life which brings a person closer to the Divine, rather than pushing them farther away from it. It is a necessary outworking of a virtuous man when he is in community, for decisions require judgements to be enacted, and justice is the expression of right judgement. It is the measure of the community’s righteousness or corruptibility, and in the magistrate’s treatment of the just man, one may rightly judge any city. Justice then, is a way of life which embodies the virtues and is enacted in community as individuals seeks to execute righteousness and goodness through their relationships with one another. It is, in this sense, the expression in physical form of the best of mankind in the most trying of situations. As Aristotle explains, “the best way of life both separately for each individual and in common for cities” is the one where the virtues, particularly justice, as given free exercise and expression (189). In the end, the just man can say with Job: “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban” (29:14). Justice, as a virtue, is something which the righteous man or woman will find enveloping them, becoming more than an abstract concept in the mind, and finding itself manifested in every word and deed. The Hebrew conception thus provides the foundation of justice, and a picture of its implementation, while the Greeks bring this idea into the practicable and political, testing the case of justice and finding it something of infinite value.
Bibliography
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins. University of Chicago Press, 2011.
⸻. Politics. Translated by Carnes Lord. 2nd Edition. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Job. In The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 267-286. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.