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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

HELLENISM*

That unique blend of Greek cultural, philosophical, and ethical ideals that had a profound effect on the development of culture throughout the Mediterranean world. While the antecedents of the movement occurred long before, the Hellenistic Age is seen by most to have begun in 323 BC, with the death of Alexander, and to have continued until either 30 BC, when Rome conquered Egypt, or (more likely) AD 300. Rome itself was culturally conquered by Hellenism.

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• Hellenistic Age

• Hellenism and Judaism

• Hellenism and Christianity

Hellenistic Age

Alexander the Great was more than a military conqueror. He made Hellenistic culture the norm throughout his realm. He taught conquered people the Greek language and customs, and he built new Greek cities (34 in all), like Alexandria in Egypt, which became bastions of Hellenism. His major accomplishment was not so much territorial as cultural; after him, Hellenism controlled the Western world for centuries. It was Alexander who spearheaded the triumph of the Attic koine (common) dialect over the other Greek dialects, and this became the primary force in the Hellenization of the East. The koine dialect was to be the basis for the acceptance of Hellenism by subject peoples. The first period after his death would be characterized by the dissolution of Alexander’s empire and an emerging balance of power among the forces of Ptolemy, who controlled Egypt and Palestine; Seleucus, who ruled Babylon and Asia Minor; and Antipater (followed by Antigonus), who reigned over Macedonia and the Hellespont.

In the East the next century was typified by intermittent skirmishes between the Ptolemies and Seleucids, with the result that Palestine became a buffer state between the two. An important difference is that the Ptolemies had a unified kingdom and so were not interested in change; under their rule, Palestine was autonomous both culturally and religiously. However, the Seleucids controlled many different groups and so tried to unite them by forcing Hellenization on them. This finally led to the successful revolt of the Jews under the Maccabees and the disintegration of both empires. In the West, Rome became progressively involved in Greek affairs and by 149 BC controlled the Greek lands politically, while they themselves were overtaken by Greek ideals culturally.

During this period, there was a growing middle class, which was brought about partly because Alexander’s conquests led to a vast dispersion of Greeks into the conquered lands. The redistribution of wealth this engendered was based upon a Greek education and an acceptance of Hellenistic ideals. The term “civilized” came to be identified with the Greek way of life. Education was controlled by the idea of sound rhetoric, so that style triumphed over truth. Greek drama turned to comedy, which stressed realism in human emotions, and Hellenistic art grew even more naturalistic than in the classical period.

Philosophy also developed, with at least three schools arising to dominate Greek thought for the next few centuries. Interestingly, all three centered on practical ethics rather than the classical quest for truth and knowledge. The Cynics, founded by Diogenes, stressed a total self-sufficiency that left the individual in a social vacuum but taught him how to deal with human misery. The two most influential schools were the Epicureans and the Stoics. Epicurus sought freedom from anxiety or fear and taught that peace of the soul could only be derived from a disciplined, moderate experience of pleasures. The result was a retreat from society into one’s own selfhood. Stoicism, founded by Zeno and named after the stoa (porch) in Athens where he taught, was similar to cynicism in its emphasis on self-sufficiency, but it combined this with a stress on the brotherhood of man. Every person was to strive after virtue and live above the vicissitudes of life. This last philosophy had become the center of Hellenism by the time of Christ.

Hellenism and Judaism

Judaism was virtually the only culture that resisted the encroachment of Hellenism. Therefore, the power of this movement can be seen in the degree to which it permeated Judaism.

The pull of Hellenism was always felt primarily by the upper-class nobility, and it was strongest in Jewish communities of the Dispersion. However, under the Seleucids, the temple priesthood was pro-Hellenist, so this added a religious dimension to the economic pressure upon the wealthy. From the beginning Palestine was split into two factions: the urban nobility, who tried to make Jerusalem another polis, or Hellenistic city-state, by adding such things as gymnasia and Greek drama; and the agricultural, poor peasants, who saw in Hellenism a threat to the very existence of the Mosaic system.

Jews had to learn koine Greek to make business transactions and participate in legal matters. Archaeology shows that almost all inscriptions in Palestine from the third century BC were in Greek, and the translation of the Torah into Greek in the Septuagint shows the permeation of the language in the Jewish communities outside of Palestine (diasporate communities). The gymnasium was the school in Hellenistic cities, and Greek education was the key to citizenship. Alexandria, Egypt, in this regard became the intellectual center of the Greek world, and its influence on the strong Jewish community in that city was considerable. Well-to-do Jews in lands of the Dispersion and in Jerusalem itself were expected to procure a gymnasium education. Many followed the Greek practice of participating naked in sports, as can be seen from the literature of the intertestamental period, which is strongly antagonistic a century later (due to Jewish aversion to such public display). Jewish synagogue schools, as a result of competition with the gymnasia, adopted Greek ways. In fact, the development of the scribal tradition is partly due to this interaction; the movement was away from the oligarchical system of the temple era and toward a democratic instruction of the whole people.

Jewish literature and philosophy became permeated by Hellenistic patterns. This is seen in 1 and 2 Maccabees, which reflect Greek historiography. And Hellenistic influence can be seen in virtually every Jewish work of this period. The major exponent, of course, was Philo of Alexandria, whose allegorical interpretation of the OT was designed to make Jewish teachings palatable to the Hellenistic world and vice versa. This attitude was quite common. The symbolism of Jewish apocalyptic writing was influenced by a combination of Hellenistic and Oriental (primarily Persian) themes, and even the hyperconservative Essene movement used thought forms that had been molded via Judaism’s penetration by Hellenistic and Persian ideas. The stress on “eternal knowledge” and “revealed mystery” and the dualistic combination of salvation history and anthropology are evidence of this. Of course, the influence was not all one way. The development of Greek philosophy was strongly influenced by Semitic forms, especially Phoenician; and the strong Jewish piety was very attractive to the Greek mind.

It is accurate to say that even the Judaism of Palestine in the first century BC was a Hellenistic Judaism. The universality of the koine Greek, the infiltration of Greek learning and thought patterns, the presence of Jewish literature in Greek, and the permeation of Hellenistic rhetorical devices, even into the very literature of the opposition movement, shows the power of Hellenism in Palestine.

Hellenism and Christianity

Some scholars have attempted to stratify early Christianity into periods typified by Palestinian, Hellenistic-Jewish, and Hellenistic outlooks. However, as the evidence above has shown, this is by no means an easy task, since even Judea was penetrated by Greek thought patterns. To be sure, the reactionary stance against Hellenism in Judaism is paralleled by the Hellenist-Hebrew conflict of Acts 6 and the gentile mission. However, from the very earliest stages, the influence of Hellenism on the church can be traced. Moreover, it becomes virtually impossible to know whether a phrase is drawn from Palestinian or from Hellenistic sources, due to the mutual penetration of both into Palestine itself, and to the bilingual nature of the church from the beginning.

This does not mean that there were no differences at all. The Hellenistic background of Stephen allowed him to see the logical implications of the land and the temple typifying Christ (cf. Acts 6–7), while the more conservative Jerusalem church did not. Also, a study of the speeches in Acts shows that the kerygma (preaching) developed differently for Jewish and gentile audiences. The first centered on OT fulfillment and the second on the active penetration of history by the one true God, who, unlike dead idols, involved himself in the affairs of man.

The fact that the NT was written in koine Greek makes the influence very direct. Strongly Jewish-oriented works, such as Hebrews or James, are written in polished Greek, and even the Gospels, which record the life of Jesus in a Jewish setting, reflect Hellenistic historiography (e.g., an interest in the theological meaning of the historical events). Most obviously Hellenistic, of course, are ideas found in the Epistles stemming from the gentile mission. Early hymns like Colossians 1:15-22 use terminology from the Hellenistic environs to describe the incomparable superiority of Jesus over pagan ideals. The stress on the universal mission, while based on the teachings of Jesus, developed during the gentile mission; the primitive church interpreted it in keeping with Jewish proselyte theology, which was that the Gentiles became Christians after becoming Jews.