A message for Hanukkah. Does the struggle with the Hellenists still go on in our day?
The Maccabees make their stand against the Greek armies
In the days of the Maccabees, God’s people were engaged in a life and death struggle with the Greeks and their ideas. Israel’s adversary in the second century B.C. was Antiochus Epiphanes, ruler of Syria, and one of the subsequent heirs of the Greek world-conqueror, Alexander the Great. The plan of Antiochus was to “Hellenize” the whole empire, including tiny and seemingly insignificant Israel. Hellenization meant complete conformity in Israel to Greek ideas, in all secular fields and especially in religion. Long before the Greeks came into prominence, the angel had warned Daniel that the “prince of Greece” would come (Dan. 10:20). The scripture was thus fulfilled.
The scholar D. S. Russell in his work, From Early Judaism to Early Church, tells us just how far the Greeks went in accomplishing their purposes: “Jewish youths (young priests among them) enrolled and took part in the games. Many wore the distinctive cap of Hermes, the patron of Greek sports, and athletes tried to remove the mark of circumcision so as to avoid the derision of the crowds…Some of the influences were insidious; others were quite open as in the case of the games in the gymnasiums which were normally accompanied by sacrifices to heathen gods.” It was against these influences that the Maccabees or Hasmoneans finally rose up in revolt.
This clash with Greek culture did not only affect the ancient world. It mightily affects us today, in the early years of the twenty-first century. We see in Daniel that the Greeks are part of the four world empires, which would continue to dominate humanity from Daniel’s time until our own day. We also see from Daniel that these empires all fall at the same time (Dan. 2:35). From Revelation 18:1-24, we learn that this does not happen until the end days. Until these kingdoms fall, their spiritual and insidious influences will continue to affect our world, including Israel and the church. It may be that of these four world empires and their systems, we have been most affected by the Greeks.
Let us look at a few things we have received from the Greeks.
EMPHASIS UPON PHILOSOPHY, WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE
Of all earth’s societies, the Greeks were the masters at philosophy, arguments, and the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. The scripture summarizes it well in saying, “… Greeks look for wisdom…” (1 Cor. 1:22). It is sobering to realize that four hundred years before Christ’s coming, the Greeks were already discussing such things as the atomic theory. The Greeks left us this legacy of knowledge, and the undue emphasis upon it has permeated society and the church. This Greek influence is today often reflected in the idea that education is the cure for all earth’s ills. Although some of the campus riots in recent years have undermined this theory somewhat, it is still widely accepted.
Early vase displaying the Greek alphabet
The Greeks also looked at knowledge and its acquisition much differently than the Hebrews. The great Jewish theologian, Abraham Joshua Heschel, says of this: “The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use. To Bacon we owe the formulation, ‘Knowledge is power.’ This is how people are urged to study: knowledge means success.”*
Unfortunately, the Greeks with all their wisdom and knowledge did not find the true God. He was “unknown” to them as we see in Acts 17:23. The knowledge of the true God only comes by revelation and not by the intellectual pursuit of man. When Simon Peter recognized Jesus as Messiah in Matthew 16:17, the Lord reminded him: “…Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”
When the Apostle Paul visited Athens he provoked a clash of the Hebrew and Greek concepts. Sometime after his visit Paul remarked, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). In another place Paul speaks these words on God’s behalf: “…I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Paul knew that God had turned the wisdom of this world into total foolishness (1 Cor. 1:19-20). He knew that man could never find God by wisdom, and that God, by the foolishness of preaching the Gospel, has determined to save those who would believe (1 Cor. 1:21-24).
Now, there is a biblical wisdom as is seen in Psalm 111:10 and many other places, but this wisdom is far different from that of the Greeks. It is a wisdom based upon respect for God and obedience to his commandments. This wisdom is centered in knowing Jesus, who is the source of all understanding. The Bible assures us that in Christ “…are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).
THE LEGACY OF HUMANISM
We have only to look in our encyclopedias to realize that Humanism, which so saturates our modern thought, had its origin with the Greeks, particularly with Protagoras and Socrates. The humanistic idea claimed that man is the center of focus in the world. Protagoras, a fifth century BC teacher is noted for his famous dictum, “Man is the measure of all things…”
Obviously, this doctrine neatly eliminates God. It also eliminates faith, miracles, and the whole realm of the spiritual and supernatural. It exalts man, his knowledge and his reason. The writer Lev Shestov in his book Athens and Jerusalem says, “Reason, I repeat, has ruined faith in our eyes…it has taken away from us the most precious of heaven’s gifts–the sovereign right to participate in the divine ‘let there be’- by flattening out our thought and reducing it to the plane of the petrified ‘it is.’”
THE HERITAGE OF GREEK THEOLOGY
Along with the Greek heritage has come the idea of an utterly transcendent god. The Greek idea of god was one detached from the world and from man. In diametrical opposition to this is the Hebrew idea of God, as one who is identified with the world and with man. Remnants of this Greek idea are seen today in many world religions, and even sometimes in Christianity, with the impersonal concept of “that man upstairs.”
Soon after Christianity was born, there was a centuries-long clash with this Greek idea of transcendence. It was reflected in the early Christian heresy of Gnosticism, and was later manifested in the church’s struggle to define the nature of Christ. The church creeds are evidence of this ancient struggle.
The Greeks bequeathed us other things in the field of theology. The concept of “dogma” is basically a Greek one and has come from the philosophers. But perhaps one of the most damaging things the Greeks gave us was the allegorical method of interpreting scripture. This method of interpretation, although used sparingly in the Bible, was introduced wholesale into the Judeo-Christian heritage by the Jewish writer, Philo, and later by the Church Father, Origen. Through the allegorical method, it was possible for early preachers to take an Old Testament scripture and preach whatever they wished from it. With this type teaching and preaching, the people of Israel and the land of Israel were soon allegorized and treated only as types with no continuing significance. The church soon displaced Israel almost entirely in its theological schemes. Other important Bible teachings, such as the literal millennium, were also allegorized.
OTHER GREEK CONTRIBUTIONS
The Greeks gave us many other things, but we have no space to deal with them all. They gave us the emphasis upon rhetoric rather than upon inspiration. This has resulted in centuries of flowery sermons instead of the former prophetic proclamations. They gave us the emphasis upon words rather than upon deeds, or a biblical lifestyle. All this clashed with the Hebraic concept of “doing” and not just “talking.” Still in the church today there often seems to be more emphasis upon having doctrine properly formulated than upon getting the doctrine into practice.
As the Greek philosophers once tended to withdraw from the world, certain Christians also began to go into retreat. These retirees became known as “solitaries” or “monachoi” in the Greek. The places of solitude where they retreated came to be known as “monasterion,” from whence we get “monastery.”
Thus, we can plainly see that after two thousand years, the Greeks are still touching and influencing Christendom. We know in time that the Lord will bring down this Greek image and its subtle influences on our lives. At that time he will establish the Messianic Kingdom forever. Until that time, as individuals we have an opportunity to stand valiantly like the Maccabees of old. We have our chance to oppose the Greek system of values and the humanism attached to it. We have an opportunity to return to the true and wholesome Hebrew root of Israel and the Bible, the root into which God has grafted us.
-Jim Gerrish
Resources: Edwin Hatch, “The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church,” Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Mass., 1995.
*Abraham J. Heschel, Between God and Man, An interpretation of Judaism, The Free Press, London, 1959
Picture credits Wikimedia Commons. Artwork from Poland, Wojciech Korneli Stattler (1842) and picture through Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0