Golden Rule
GOLDEN RULE. The expression Golden Rule has come into use in various modern European languages over the past few centuries as a popular reference to the dictum, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," best known in Western culture from its formulation in the New Testament (Matt. 7:12, Luke 6:31). Identical or similar axioms of moral behavior are nearly universal, however, appearing in a wide variety of cultural contexts from oral folk wisdom to ancient scriptural and philosophical writings. The written canonic versions most frequently cited as examples of golden-rule thinking include those found in early Jewish sources, both in the Mishnaic and Talmudic corpus (Pirḳe-Avot 2:10, Babylonian Talmud: Shabbat 31a) and in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature (e.g., Ben Sira 31:15, Tobit 4:15, Jubilees 36:8); additional passages in the New Testament (Rom. 13:8-10, Gal. 5:14, Acts 15:20 [Western recension, codex D]); Qurʾanic and post-Qurʾanic Islamic teachings (sūrah 83: "The Deceivers" [At-Taṭfīf, or Al-Muṭaffifīn]; Al-Nawawi, Forty Ḥadith 13; Ibn Al-ʿArabi, "Instructions to a Postulant" [Risāla … lʾil murīd]); classical Greek and Latin texts (e.g., Plato, Republic 443d; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 9:8; Isocrates, "To Nicocles" 61b, "To Demonicus" 14, 17); sacred precepts imparted in the Udyoga and Anuṣasana sections of the Sanskrit epic Mahābharata (5:39:57, 13:114:8); and comparable pronouncements in the Zoroastrian Avesta (Dadestan-i denig 94:5, Shayest Na-shayest 37:51), the Buddhist Dhammapada (10:129–130), the Jain Āgamas: Sūtrakṛtānga (1:10:13, 1:11:33) and other sūtras, and the Bahā'ī scriptures (Kitāb-i Aqdas 148).
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