We refer to the culture of the world Jesus lived in as Hellenism. This term denotes the particular form of Greek lifestyle and culture imposed by Alexander the Great upon the territories he conquered from Macedonia eastward to the Himalayas in the fourth century BCE. When the Romans took over Alexander's empire nearly three centuries later, they adopted the Hellenistic way of life almost lock, stock, and barrel. They even adopted the Greek gods, although they gave them new names.
The Jews of course were a part of this empire, and were invited, occasionally compelled, to participate in its culture. Most Jews joined in willingly. Greek, the language of commerce and scholarship of Alexander's time and of the Roman period, too (Latin being used mostly for official Roman affairs only), became an important language of Jewish philosophical and religious thought. Christianity was born, after Jesus' death, in this stew of Greek and Jewish thought. The New Testament was written in a dialect of Greek called koine.
The goal of Hellenism was what we today call "globalization," and its governing spirit was cooperation. Alexander had dreamed of a unified world in which all people would share in the mutual pursuit of survival and happiness. A glance at a map of the world after Alexander's army rolled through shows the extent to which he made this dream come true. Look at how many cities and regions bear Greek names. Alexander wanted the world to be quite literally one, big, family, a vast melting pot of races. To this end, he encouraged his soldiers to intermarry with women from conquered regions and gave them land to settle down on. Cooperation was further advanced through the institution of a universal coinage, and trade.
No one echoes the spirit of Hellenism better than the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled 161-180 CE):
"For we have come into being for cooperation, as have the feet, the hands, the eyelids, the rows of upper and lower teeth. Therefore, to thwart one another is against nature; and we do thwart one another by showing resentment and aversion. " {1}
Marcus also employs the familiar phrase, "That which is not in the interests of the hive cannot be in the interests of the bee," to make the same point. {2} Elsewhere, Marcus describes the empire as a "body," a metaphor the apostle Paul had earlier employed to describe the Christian church ("body of Christ" -- see I Corinthians 12).
In the same vein, the Greek philosopher and biographer Plutarch (46-120 CE) summed up Alexander's dream of a unified family of peoples with these words:
Brought together into one body . . . mixing all together in one loving cup. {3}
The main point is that Hellenism believed in the interconnectedness and interdependence of all reality, material and spiritual.
Central to the spirit of Hellenism was cooperation in economic life. The city was the hub of life in this world. Linking the cities of the empire in Roman times was a system of paved roads that rivaled our own today: a network spanning some 49,000 miles, compared with our own of 50,000 miles. At the center of the city, spiritually and geographically, was the marketplace (agora to the Greeks, forum to the Romans). Reflecting its pivotal role in the life of the empire, the marketplace was also the arena for political activity, and a chief place where philosophical and religious thoughts were bought and sold as well.
The marketplace and the city were so important that they easily leant themselves to spiritualization: the whole world came to be thought of as one, big city, and one, big marketplace. Marcus Aurelius echoes this theme:
"Man, thou hast been a citizen in this World-city, what matters it to thee if for five years or a hundred. " {4}
The Greek word used to describe this entity was oikoumene (from which our words "economy" and "ecumenical" derive). The word suggests cooperation and civilization among the different peoples of the empire. This word would never have been used to describe mountains, countryside, barren wastes and open spaces; always the market, the bazaar, the agora, always the mix of peoples coming and going. No wonder the Latin word paganus developed a negative connotation. Though the word meant simply "country-dweller," it was first used by residents of the cities who used it pejoratively to describe those whom they considered beneath them, people from "the other side of the tracks," as opposed to "civilized" individuals. Keep in mind that Christianity was born in the cities, not in the countryside, and, that its dream was one of fellowship among city dwellers.
In this dream of urban cooperation, Christianity shared much with other Hellenistic religions and with Hellenistic culture as a whole. Indeed, this dream was so powerful that visions of heaven were typically visions of a heavenly city, not a tropical garden paradise. A city constructed near Athens about 200 BCE was named Ouranopolis: "Heaven-city. " In this vein, the vision of heaven following the apocalypse in Revelation chapter 21 is of one of the best known and beloved of all cities: Jerusalem. {5} Much of the flavor of Hellenistic cities is reflected, though not always favorably, in the Book of Acts (see 12:20-23; 13: 4-12; 14: 11-12; 17: 16-34; 19).
Second only to Rome itself, but arguably the most important Hellenistic city, was the one in Egypt, named after the founder of Hellenism: Alexandria. And, the principal symbol of the achievements of Hellenistic culture was the vast library of Alexandria. Founded in 331 BCE, it grew to contain some 500,000 volumes from all over the world. This library burned twice: once in 47 BCE, and again in 391 CE when it was destroyed for good (by Christians not Muslims).
Hellenism was a literary culture. More people, proportionately, from every social class, slave to aristocrat, could read during this time than in any other period in the history of the world up to the beginning of the twentieth century. They were not backward, superstitious bumpkins. They comprised an audience in many ways more sophisticated in its sensibilities than that of our own time. The world's first encyclopedia was published during the Hellenistic period: an effort to collect, and centralize all human knowledge into a single reference work. In 170 CE Pausanius published a travel guide to Greece, Periegesis, ("Itinerary") that is still the best source on Hellenistic cults.
In the field of science, many new discoveries were made in Hellenistic times, and, Alexandria was where it happened. About the same time as Pausanius, Ptolemy, for propagandistic reasons, attacked the notion of a heliocentric solar system that his predecessor Aristarchus had proposed three hundred years earlier, also in Alexandria. Alexandrian scholars calculated the circumference of the earth to within fifty miles and the length of the solar year to within six minutes. The twelve-month-365-day calendar was born here, as were the pipe organ, the globe (flat earth believers take note), and the atlas among many other inventions and innovations.
Poetry and prose abounded in Alexandria. A vast literature sprang up around Alexander himself. Much of it was popular, written for the masses, and is comparable to comic books in crudeness and sensational appeal. But, it reflects nevertheless a chief Hellenistic preoccupation: celebrating the lives (bioi) of great persons (almost entirely men ).
Not long after his death, Alexander's fame began to take on romantic and legendary proportions. He came to be regarded as an incarnation of the Greek god, Dionysus. At least one Roman emperor, Caligula, also thought of himself as a reincarnation of the great conqueror (the propaganda appeal is readily apparent). Here are some lines from two stories that I have translated from a Latin version of the romances of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, dating to the third or fourth century CE. They are typical of the kinds of things people liked to read about Alexander. Alexander himself narrates:
"From there we came to the Red Sea. And a tall mountain was there. We climbed it and felt as if we were in heaven. Then, I consulted with my friends on how to build a clever device with which to ascend into heaven. I prepared a cart in which to sit, and captured griffins, tying them to the cart with chains. Before them, I positioned upon poles food bags which they began to chase propelling us toward heaven . . . So great a height did I climb that the earth beneath me seemed like a flat courtyard, and the sea appeared like a twisting dragon . . . When I returned, my army acclaimed me, praising me. "
"It then came into my heart that I might explore and measure the bottom of the sea. I summoned my astrologers and geometricians and I commanded them to construct for me a vessel in which I might be able to descend into the depths of the sea and search out the wondrous beasts which live there. They fashioned a glass jar to which long chains were attached. After entering my vessel I was lowered into the depths by several of my strongest soldiers who manned the chains. In this way I studied the deeps of the sea. I saw there different varieties and colors of fishes. I saw there also other beasts having the likenesses of beasts of the land, four-footed creatures who walked on the bottom of the sea. " {6}
Another Hellenistic "superstar" whose life was widely celebrated (even while he was still alive) was the Roman general, Octavian, whom the Senate acclaimed as "Caesar Augustus. " Historians argue about whether or not he actually was an emperor. Whatever the case, it is clear that he regarded himself as just a private citizen who was interested in contributing to the public good. But, there is no question that the hero of the battle of Actium was given wide ranging unofficial powers, and was looked up to as the father of the Roman Empire.
The adulation did not stop there. Rome went on to proclaim Augustus a living god, the savior of the world. Even the scholar Philo of Alexandria, a Jew, called him "our savior and benefactor. " Augustus himself in the following excerpt from his writings gives us a glimpse into how his fellow citizens regarded him:
"When in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and P. Quintilius I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul after settling the affairs of those provinces with success, the Senate, to commemorate my return, ordered an altar to Pax Augustus to be consecrated in the Campus Martius, at which it decreed that the magistrates, priests, and Vestal Virgins should celebrate an anniversary sacrifice. " {7}
Even more significant for our study of the New Testament are the following lines from Virgil's fourth Eclogue written in celebration of the life of Octavian who had brought peace (pax) to the Roman world:
Muses of Sicily, essay we now
A somewhat loftier task!
Not all men love Coppice or lowly tamarisk: sing we woods,
Woods worthy of a Consul let them be.
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling centuries begins anew: Justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden age arise,
Befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own Apollo reigns . . .
Begin to greet thy mother with a smile,
O baby-boy!
Ten months of weariness
For thee she bore:
O baby-boy, begin! . . . {8}
A final item celebrating Augustus is a Greek inscription from a calendar dated ca. 9 BCE found in Priene, Asia Minor, concerning his birth:
"The birthday of the god was for the world the beginning of tidings of joy (euangelion) which have been proclaimed for his sake. " {9}
The Greek word expressing the phrase "tidings of joy" is euangelion, which we also translate as "good-news," and as "gospel" (related words are "evangelist" and "evangelism"). Compare this inscription with these words from the Gospel of Luke (2:10-11, RSV):
"And the angel said to them, 'Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. "
"I bring you good news" is rendered in the Greek as euangelizomai.
Consider one more example of the bios cult of Hellenistic times. Along with conquerors and generals, the lives of philosophers, teachers, preachers, and healers were also celebrated. One of the most famous of these was Apollonius of Tyana (in Cappadocia), a follower of the philosopher Pythagoras (540 - 510 BCE) about whom Flavius Philostratus wrote a biography sometime after 217 CE. Apollonius himself lived in the first century CE. Much of what we know about him is probably legendary. Nevertheless, he is a good example of the mystical and magical turn that the followers of Pythagoras took five hundred years after the death of their mentor. Apollonius was well-known in the empire. He traveled widely trafficking in cures, levitations, dream therapy, exorcisms, and magic. Here is an episode from Philostratus' biography:
"Now while he was discussing the question of libations, there chanced to be present in his audience a young dandy who bore so evil a reputation for licentiousness that his conduct had once been the subject of coarse street-corner songs. His home was Corcyra, and he traced his pedigree to Alcinous, the Phaecian who entertained Odysseus. Apollonius, then, was talking about libations, and was urging them not to drink out of a particular cup, but to reserve it for the gods, without ever touching it or drinking out of it. But, when he also urged them to have handles on the cup, and to pour the libation over the handle, because that is the part of the cup at which men are least likely to drink, the youth burst out into loud and coarse laughter, and quite drowned his voice. Then, Apollonius looked up at him and said: 'It is not yourself that perpetrates this insult, but the demon, who drives you on without your knowing it. ' And, in fact, the youth was, without knowing it, possessed by a devil; for he would laugh at things that no one else laughed at, and then he would fall to weeping for no reason at all, and he would talk and sing to himself. Now, most people thought that it was the boisterous humor of youth which led him into such excesses; but he was really the mouthpiece of a devil, though it only seemed a drunken frolic in which on that occasion he was indulging. Now, when Apollonius gazed on him, the ghost in him began to utter cries of fear and rage, such as one hears from people who are being branded or racked; and the ghost swore that he would leave the young man alone and never take possession of any man again. But, Apollonius addressed him with anger, as a master might a shifty, rascally, and shameless slave and so on, and he ordered him to quit the young man and show by a visible sign that he had done so. 'I will throw down yonder statue,' said the devil, and pointed to one of the images which was in the king's portico, for there it was that the scene took place. But, when the statue began by moving gently, and then fell down, it would defy anyone to describe the hubbub which arose thereat and the way they clapped their hands with wonder. But the young man rubbed his eyes as though he had just woke up, and he looked upwards towards the rays of the sun, and won the consideration of all who now had turned their attention to him; for he no longer showed himself licentious, nor did he stare madly about, but he returned to his own self, as thoroughly as if he had been treated with drugs; and he gave up his dainty dress and summery garments and the rest of his sybaritic way of life, and he fell in love with the austerity of philosophers, and donned their cloak, and, stripping off his old self, modeled his life in future upon that of Apollonius. " {10}
Compare this story with the gospel accounts of Jesus' exorcisms: for example, Mark 1:21-28, and Luke 4:31-37. Apollonius also raised people from the dead (as did Jesus -- see the story of the son of Nain in Luke 7:11-17).
We turn our attention next to the environment inside Palestine, Jesus' homeland, and inside Judaism, his faith. Students of the Hebrew Bible will recall that Judaism took shape principally after the exile of the Jews in Babylon from 586 - 500 BCE carried out by King Nebuchadnezzar. This is the period when the Hebrew Bible (the only Bible Jesus and his disciples knew) was edited and canonized, either by the priest Ezra, whom some consider the traditional "father" of Judaism, or by a school of priests. The temple faith inaugurated by the Hebrew King Solomon (961 - 922 BCE) was restored.
But, in addition to the temple cult, sometime between 500 BCE and 300 BCE a second institution which we know by its Greek name, synagogue ("gathering") appeared, at least partly due to Jewish fears of ever again becoming dependent upon a temple which any earthly tyrant might one day march upon and burn down. Synagogues were conceived to be wholly independent of architecture and space. Any time ten willing Jewish males are present (the "minyan") a synagogue was thought to come into existence.
Of course, the Jews built buildings in which synagogues congregated. But, the important point is that never again was Judaism to be centralized in Jerusalem or any other single place. By Jesus’ time, Judaism had spread so widely that there were three other temples besides the one in Jerusalem: one in Samaria, and two sites in Egypt: Elephantine (Aswan), and Leontopolis (near Memphis).
The dispersion (diaspora) of the Jews throughout the world after the exile is further reflected in the population figures. By Jesus' time, there were about eight million Jews worldwide. One out of every ten living in the Roman Empire was a Jew. Six times as many Jews lived outside Palestine as inside. This is a major reason Christianity spread so rapidly throughout the empire.
Central to Jewish worship is the "Torah" (teaching), the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (also called by the Greek name, Pentateuch) which are believed to contain the essential elements of the covenant, or treaty, between the god YHWH and the Hebrews or Israelites (which is how we usually refer to Jews before the exile). See Deuteronomy 6, and Deuteronomy 26:5-19 for background on this covenant. It is believed that the covenant, while initially introduced by YHWH to the ancestral patriarch, Abraham, took substantive shape only after the Hebrews escaped from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses, an event marked by the most festive holiday in the Jewish calendar: Passover.
All religions are, by nature, sectarian, and Judaism is no exception. The Judaism of Jesus' time was anything but monochrome. There was tremendous variety in belief and observance. On the "right" wing were the aristocratic Jerusalem priests, the Sadducees, as they were called in Jesus' time. Conservative in belief and tradition, they accepted only the written Torah. They shunned oral torah, especially the idea of resurrection after death. Until the first Jewish revolt (66-70 CE) they collaborated with the Romans. But, after the revolt broke out, they joined the struggle against the Romans, a fatal decision on their part.
On the "left" wing were the Pharisees. Drawn from the middle classes and among the best educated of the leaders of Judaism, the Pharisees were the progressives. They were the non-ordained rabbis ("masters"). Their principal vocation was teaching and leading synagogue worship, although because of their typically comprehensive and scholarly knowledge of both written and oral torah they often served as judges in civil disputes. Some of them performed exorcisms and other healings. They allied themselves with the common people and resisted Roman rule. The Pharisees accepted the idea of resurrection from the dead, believed in angels and demons, the Last Judgment, and the coming of the Messiah (anointed). The "Jesus Movement" (which is how many scholars refer to the earliest Jewish Christians) fits best as a sub-sect of Pharisaic Judaism. If Jesus was not a Pharisee himself, he certainly had a great deal in common with them.
A great irony of Jewish history is that in the first revolt, the Pharisees betrayed their fellow Jews and went over to the Roman side (Rabbi Josephus, who wrote the most comprehensive history of these times, being the most famous example), while the Sadducees, on the other hand, joined with the Jewish rebels and fought heroically against their former allies, the Romans. Perhaps the Pharisees thought that joining with the Romans was the only way to assure the future of Judaism and their own role as its leaders.
Whatever the case, the smoke from the revolt had barely cleared before the Pharisees were appearing on their knees before the Romans petitioning them for the privilege of assuming the leadership of the Jewish faith, a leadership vacated by the Sadducees who, as the enemies of Rome, had all been done away with (many of them were crucified). The Romans granted this request, and, under Yohannon ben Zakkai, the Pharisees took over. This is perhaps why the Pharisees often come off looking so badly in the New Testament gospels. According to this picture, the gospels were written after the first revolt by Jewish followers of the deceased Jesus, individuals who had broken away from and had begun to compete with the Pharisees in the struggle to fill the power vacuum in Jewish leadership.
A third group was the Essenes. They are the best-known example of apocalyptic Judaism. They trace their origins to a period roughly 150 years before Jesus' birth when the high priesthood of the Jerusalem temple was controlled by Hellenistic Jews who were not of the traditional priestly family of Zadok, a family going back to David and Solomon's time. The Essenes took this to be a sign of the stupendous corruption and evil of the world and chose to abandon Jerusalem and live in the desert to await what they believed was the imminent end of the world. At their monastery, Qumran, on the shores of the Dead Sea the Essenes copied scrolls (many of which were discovered in 1947), and drilled with weapons, preparing to join the heavenly army of angels thought to be coming soon at the end of time for the final, victorious battle against the "children of darkness" (the Greeks first, then after them, the Romans). They awaited the coming of, not one but, two messiahs who would overthrow the evil empires of the world and begin a rigorous and above all orthodox reform of belief and ritual.
In their orthodoxy, the Essenes had much in common with another group, the Zealots. While we know that they were strict and orthodox in their observance of the Sabbath and ritual purity, and that they advocated the violent overthrow of Rome, their origins are obscure. The name "Zealot" does turn up during Jesus' lifetime (the names of some of his disciples echo this), but most scholars date their emergence to the period of the first revolt and no earlier. They may be related to the terrorist group known as the sicarii (dagger men), which specialized in the assassination of Roman sympathizers or suspected collaborators in large crowds (the daggers were easily concealed inside their tunics). They are famous for their last stand at Masada in 73 CE, when 900 - 1,000 of them perished in a mass suicide after enduring a Roman siege for a full year.
A less well known group is the "God Fearers" (hoi phoboumenoi ton Theon), sometimes described by scholars as "semi-Jews. " Members of their ranks were among the first converts to Christianity, as the story of the centurion Cornelius in Acts 10 suggests.
Finally, there were the Samaritans, Jews who lived in the region between Judea and Galilee and who built a temple on Mt.Gerizim, which is still in use today but which operated in direct competition with the temple in Jerusalem. They were ethnic, perhaps even racial, half breeds having intermingled with Assyrians imported to the area following the conquest of Samaria by Assyria in 722 BCE. During the Jewish exile, the Samaritans were allowed to remain in their homeland, and were encouraged to regard Judah (ancient Judea) as, to some extent anyhow, their territory. So, when the Jews returned to reclaim Judah in 538 BCE, there was trouble. By Jesus' time, the enmity between the Samaritans and everybody else in Palestine was fierce and deeply rooted. Jesus met with a hostile reception on the edge of one Samaritan town (Luke 9:51-56). Yet, he made a Samaritan the hero of one of his parables (Luke 10:25-37) as a famous lesson in the need to refrain from judging others (Matthew 7:1), not just the necessity of doing good deeds for those in trouble. Jesus and his fellow Galileans routinely went out of their way to avoid Samaria. When traveling to Jerusalem for festivals, they commonly followed a road that ran alongside the Jordan River to Jericho which from there turned west to climb the last twenty miles out of the Jordan Valley to the holy city.
A word or two needs to be said about other kinds of religious life in the Roman empire in Jesus' time. While the cults of the Olympian gods of Greece were still around (although the deities now had Roman names), they had largely been displaced by a flood of newer, more informal cults most of which placed a high value on secrecy and close communion among the members. We call these cults "mystery religions," and they could be found everywhere in the empire. Many of them had chapter houses (like modern fraternities and sororities) in the major cities so that members who traveled on business, as many did, might enjoy fellowship with other devotees wherever they went. This probably helped soothe the loneliness and alienation that came with a highly mobile life. There was a healthy, and until Christianity became the state religion in the fourth century, mutually tolerant sense of competition among these cults. As Joscelyn Godwin points out, "The subjects of the Roman empire enjoyed a freedom of choice in religious matters unparalleled until modern times. " {11} The Christian apostle Paul shows us that Christianity in the earliest stages was involved with these other cults in this process of competitive evangelizing when, for example, he praises the Athenians in Acts 17:22 by saying, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. "
Besides fellowship, these cults offered their clientele a more personal relationship with the deity, individual salvation after earthly life, and release from the bonds of "iron-fisted Fate," the legacy of centuries of Stoicism, the dominant philosophy of the time. The mystery religions offered a way out of Stoic determinism and its mechanistic belief in irreversible predestination within a cause-and-effect universe. Defying Stoicism, Lucius, an adherent of one of these sects, proclaims in Apuleis' novel Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass), "I conquer Fate and Fate obeys me! " {12} Perhaps these cults provided welcome relief from the tedious, mechanical sounds of Roman soldiers marching through the streets.
Endnotes:
{1} from Marcus Aurelius, "To Himself," ii: 1, in C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), 70.
{2} Marcus Aurelius, "To Himself," vi: 54, in Barrett, 71.
{3} Plutarch, "On the Fortunes of Alexander," Moralia, trans. by Frank Cole Babbitt (Loeb Classical Library).
{4} Marcus Aurelius, "To Himself," ii: 35f. , in Barrett, op. cit., 71.
{5} An interesting question for us to ask is whether or not the city is still at the center of the Christian dream today. Could we, for example, describe New York City as the "city of God?"
{6} Charles H. Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin (New York: Scott, Foresman, and Co. , 1925), 34-35.
{7} from "Res Gestae Divi Augusti," in Barrett, 2.
{8} Virgil, "Eclogue IV," in Barrett, 8.
{9} in Werner Georg Kummel, Introduction to the New Testament, 17th revised edition (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1973), 35.
{10} Flavius Philostratus, "Life of Apollonius," iv: 20, in Barrett, 77-78.
{11} Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981, 7
{12} Michael Grant, The World of Rome (New York: Mentor Books, 1960), 198.