 You've got national heroes which, for instance, Philo is Moses, he really is interested in letting Greeks know about his national hero. Any of you viewers who have ever read Philo or Barossus or Josephus, that Greek is some serious, complex, sophisticated Greek and they are, you know, just shining that beacon in the saying, I can play with the big boys in the fast lane and so they are in a sense more Greek than Greek, but they claim the barbarian wisdom for that extra cultural cachet, just as today, yes, one might claim, you know, Hindu wisdom. Dr. Blatwell, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate the name of the show. Keep this on your show, we will be transformed, so I'm looking forward to it, fire away. I was thinking, my catchphrase would be, we don't have a catchphrase, but I'll think of something. Okay, so Dr. Litwa, thank you for coming on the show, I really appreciate it. So I wanted to talk really quickly with you about this concept of ancient barbarian wisdom that you find in a lot of philosophical systems and a lot of thought and antiquity, you know, you have figures like Zostrianos, you have Hermes Tris Megasus, who we're talking about tonight, you have Moses even. What was it about this concept that was so pertinent, what, tell us a little bit more about what exactly ancient barbarian wisdom entails, and who these figures were within that cosmos? Well, thanks so much, Jason. Basically, barbarian is anybody who's coded as non-Greek in antiquity, and they're sort of, when figures like Tation and Philo claim a kind of barbarian wisdom, they do so with a smirk, because they, although they are, yes, in the case of Philo, Jewish, or in the case of Kyrimon, probably some kind of Egyptian, or in the case of, you know, Borosis, Babylonian, they are so adapted to Greek culture and so well educated in Greek culture that they are in a sense more Greek than the Greeks themselves. So when they say, you know, when they try to assimilate barbarian wisdom and say, ah, yeah, I want that barbarian wisdom, they do so with a little bit of tongue and cheek, because obviously if any of you viewers have ever read Philo, or Borosis, or Josephus, that Greek is some seriously complex, sophisticated Greek, and they are, you know, just, you know, shining that beacon saying, I can play with the big boys in the fast lane, and so they are in a sense more Greek than Greek, but they claim the barbarian wisdom for that extracultural cachet, just as today, yes, one might claim, you know, Hindu wisdom in California for that extracultural cachet. So you could do that in antiquity, but as it turns out, yeah, I mean, even the gurus are, you know, Americanized. So as it works in America, it works in the ancient Mediterranean as well, at least by a kind of analogy. So yeah, they claim barbarian wisdom to out greek the Greeks, basically. Fascinating. Yeah, that brings up a good point. I was reading Garth Fowden's book, The Egyptian Hermes, preparing for this show tonight. And he pointed out something I thought was very prevalent. And I think you've pointed this out, I know Dylan Burns has pointed out in his book, Apocalypse of the Alien God, that although the Greeks typically were more than happy to appeal to these figures, you know, these exotic kind of traditions like, you know, in India, you have the gymnast's office, the naked philosophers and in Persia, you have the magi. You know, but like you said, what they're doing is they're doing it kind of tongue in cheek. And they're trying to, what they're kind of doing is they're less likely to engage them on their own terms. Like if you read somebody like Plutarch or Deodorus syculus, like what they're doing is they are kind of just looking at them through their own interpretatio gray guy for, you know, you know, that term, obviously. So like you said, even in Philo Moses, you know, with his bio bio way of Moses, he doesn't look like a hip break long, long divert at all. He looks like a middle platonic philosopher. He's more closer to, you know, Plato than he is to any of the Patriarchs. Well, yes and no, I mean, I think what I see as going on here, Jason is you've got, you've got national heroes, which, for instance, Philo is Moses, he really is interested in letting Greeks know about his national hero. And there is something ethnically distinct about about Moses. And that's, I think that's still important to Philo. But yes, he'll tend to emphasize the more, for lack of a better term, universalizing features of Moses, because Philo just considers the mosaic law like a copy of natural law. It's what the Stoics were always striving for to complete. But it doesn't mean that the ethnic features get erased or rubbed out. I mean, Philo is still a believer and a practitioner of circumcision. He's all for the Sabbath. I mean, he bends over backwards trying to justify it based on hebdomads and things like, you know, it's good to study once a week. But let's face it, it is really just an ethnic tradition, very particular to Israel and or Jewish tradition. So he tries to make it kind of a universal theme. But in the end, he's he's pushing that very distinct ethnic line. He's all for allegory, but he never says, you know, okay, let's stop following the Jewish festivals. And so when he gets to Moses, yes, Moses is still the person who is enforcing circumcision, who is establishing these Jewish festivals. And he's a prophet, priest, king and lawgiver. It is true that Roman emperors were also priests. So that, you know, being a king and a priest, no problem there. But prophet and lawgiver, though, I would argue are kind of have that distinctly Jewish nuance. When you combine all four offices, as he discusses in the life of Moses, that does have a Jewish flair to it. And of course, the Jews were well known as having their kings as high priests since the Hasmoneans. So there is, I mean, I think despite Philo's best efforts, there is definitely a local Jewish color to Moses. But he's definitely trying to advertise him as the best of all that one can find in the Greek tradition. Ironically, he's taught by Greeks. But how we solve that one, I don't know. But, you know, he is still the best of all Greek tradition. And I would say the same thing for some of these other heroes, like Zostrianus or Zoroaster. All of these figures, I wouldn't say it's like an orientalization or a self-orientalization. I would say it's the presentation of these figures to the broader world. And Philo considers himself to be sitting not in the land of the Orient or the East. Let's just use the kosher term. He considers himself to be in the center of the world. Egypt is the center. And this is exactly how Egyptian authors think as well. Egypt is the center. Rome is off center to the west. Persia is off center to the east. So they would never self-describe as self-orientalizing or bringing eastern wisdom into the empire. They view their their own thought as central. And they're trying to advertise it as central to that outside Grykoromon audience. At least that's how I'm reading Philo. Of course, Greeks were snobs. Yes, to get to your earlier point. They never bothered to learn language. They're like French people in the 18th century and like, you know, English-speaking people today. I mean, they just feel felt absolutely no need to learn any other language. So yes, to play on the elite cultural sphere, you had to have Greek absolutely. And Philo was more than happy to play that game. But it was also his native language. I mean, he did learn bits and pieces of Hebrew, but he never felt the need, even as a Jew, to learn that, because he considered the Septuagint in Greek to be just as sacred as the Hebrew. Right. That's what he was doing with the, he was in that tradition with the the letter of Aristaeus and Aristobulus, where they had to give that kind of stamp to the Greek, because in a sense, the way it was translated and how it happened was also, in a sense, ordained by God. Yeah, definitely. Yep. Fascinating. Well, David Litwa, thank you so much. Thank you, Jason. And it's so great to be on this channel. And I wish it the best of all. I think that this is exactly what we need on the internet. Something really just reserved for that deep learning, which you so well exemplify and not any clickbait. And so I really encourage you in your endeavors. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.