"Hellenization of Christianity" a bad thing?

[Solon]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

In any event, it's like imagining what you'd be if your parents never met.

I think Seattle has made an excellent point. I think one could make a very solid argument that Christianity, from its beginning, had many elements that were intrinsically Greek. Not just the philhellene Paul, but Jesus himself, living when and where he did, was heavily influenced by Greek language, culture, and philosophy. He probably understood Greek, if he didn’t speak it, and he is said to have visited the Hellenistic Decapolis cities during his ministry. While early Christians considered themselves to be the successors and heirs to Hebrew traditions, these Hebrew traditions had become largely Hellenized after the 3rd century BCE. Therefore, the Hebrew society that Jesus lived in was heavily permeated with Hellenic/Hellenistic culture. One need only look to Jewish worship in synagogues (a Greek word) or to the writings of Philo, a thoroughly Hellenized Alexandrian Jew, to understand the degree to which Greek ideas infiltrated the Hebrews of Jesus’ day.

Take, for instance, Jesus’ admonition to “turn the other cheek.” This is a concise, pithy summation of Socratic philosophy as found in Plato’s Crito (49 b-e). In this dialogue, Plato’s Socrates tells Crito that “one must not even return injustice when one is wronged, which most people regard as the natural course” (Tredennick and Tarrant’s translation in Penguin’s 1993 revised edition). It is unclear (and not terribly relevant) if Jesus ever heard Plato’s dialogues. Instead, it is important to note that this notion was not of Hebrew/Mesopotamian/Near Eastern source. All of the ancient law codes from the Near East stress strict punishment for offenses, as did many of the ancient Greek law codes (e.g. Draco). The New Testament’s portrayal of Jesus-as-philosopher is essentially Greek.

[Incidentally, this might illuminate some of the animosity between the philosopher Jesus and the anti-Hellenism Pharisees. Just a little idea that came to me. I have to think more on this.]

Paul’s Hellenism is well established, but it is obvious that the Gentiles he preached to were a Hellenized audience. He, for instance, uses Greek athletic imagery to drive home his points [e.g. at 1 Cor.9:24; Phil. 3:14; Heb.12:1; 2 Timothy 4:7]. This is indicative of the widespread Hellenistic influence that permeated the ancient near east at the time of Jesus and Paul.

The famous beginning to John’s gospel about the logos, quoted in AA’s signature line, is based on the philosophical ideas of Heraclitus – a Greek philosopher who lived in the late sixth/early fifth centuries BCE. Much of the terminology and, in this case, cosmology, of Christianity – as it was phrased, written, and transmitted by its original apostles and missionaries – is thoroughly Greek in origin.

The Hellenism of the New Testament is hardly an apostasy or a corruption of original Christianity. It IS original Christianity.

Granted, more overt philosophical Hellenization crept into Christianity during the second and third centuries, but certain original elements of Christianity were more Hellenic/Hellenistic than Hebraic from the very beginning. Hellenism was a continuous factor in this part of the world, both before and after Christianity’s emergence. So, while Hellenic thought may have influenced Christian beliefs in the centuries after Jesus, these beliefs, in some regards, originally contained elements of Hellenism.

IMO, to blame “A Great Apostasy” on the Greeks is a convenient way of distancing Christianity from humanism, a development from the Middle Ages that Christians, LDS included, continue to maintain to various degrees.

[All-American]

There is room for all true and uplifting principles in the gospel, irrespective of their source. Certainly one of the characteristics of Christ's ministry was challenging the close-minded view of the overly ethnocentric Jews of His day. Even today, there are changes that the church makes and is expected to make-- indeed, that it must make, if it is to survive and/or thrive.

I'm all for Hellenism, though I mourn the loss of those key aspects of the church that made it able to contain those true and uplifting principles. As I alluded to in my first post in this thread, it's not certain that the Hellenes are the ones to blame for that, anyway.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Solon

I think Seattle has made an excellent point. I think one could make a very solid argument that Christianity, from its beginning, had many elements that were intrinsically Greek. Not just the philhellene Paul, but Jesus himself, living when and where he did, was heavily influenced by Greek language, culture, and philosophy. He probably understood Greek, if he didn’t speak it, and he is said to have visited the Hellenistic Decapolis cities during his ministry. While early Christians considered themselves to be the successors and heirs to Hebrew traditions, these Hebrew traditions had become largely Hellenized after the 3rd century BCE. Therefore, the Hebrew society that Jesus lived in was heavily permeated with Hellenic/Hellenistic culture. One need only look to Jewish worship in synagogues (a Greek word) or to the writings of Philo, a thoroughly Hellenized Alexandrian Jew, to understand the degree to which Greek ideas infiltrated the Hebrews of Jesus’ day.

Take, for instance, Jesus’ admonition to “turn the other cheek.” This is a concise, pithy summation of Socratic philosophy as found in Plato’s Crito (49 b-e). In this dialogue, Plato’s Socrates tells Crito that “one must not even return injustice when one is wronged, which most people regard as the natural course” (Tredennick and Tarrant’s translation in Penguin’s 1993 revised edition). It is unclear (and not terribly relevant) if Jesus ever heard Plato’s dialogues. Instead, it is important to note that this notion was not of Hebrew/Mesopotamian/Near Eastern source. All of the ancient law codes from the Near East stress strict punishment for offenses, as did many of the ancient Greek law codes (e.g. Draco). The New Testament’s portrayal of Jesus-as-philosopher is essentially Greek.

[Incidentally, this might illuminate some of the animosity between the philosopher Jesus and the anti-Hellenism Pharisees. Just a little idea that came to me. I have to think more on this.]

Paul’s Hellenism is well established, but it is obvious that the Gentiles he preached to were a Hellenized audience. He, for instance, uses Greek athletic imagery to drive home his points [e.g. at 1 Cor.9:24; Phil. 3:14; Heb.12:1; 2 Timothy 4:7]. This is indicative of the widespread Hellenistic influence that permeated the ancient near east at the time of Jesus and Paul.

The famous beginning to John’s gospel about the logos, quoted in AA’s signature line, is based on the philosophical ideas of Heraclitus – a Greek philosopher who lived in the late sixth/early fifth centuries BCE. Much of the terminology and, in this case, cosmology, of Christianity – as it was phrased, written, and transmitted by its original apostles and missionaries – is thoroughly Greek in origin.

The Hellenism of the New Testament is hardly an apostasy or a corruption of original Christianity. It IS original Christianity.

Granted, more overt philosophical Hellenization crept into Christianity during the second and third centuries, but certain original elements of Christianity were more Hellenic/Hellenistic than Hebraic from the very beginning. Hellenism was a continuous factor in this part of the world, both before and after Christianity’s emergence. So, while Hellenic thought may have influenced Christian beliefs in the centuries after Jesus, these beliefs, in some regards, originally contained elements of Hellenism.

IMO, to blame “A Great Apostasy” on the Greeks is a convenient way of distancing Christianity from humanism, a development from the Middle Ages that Christians, LDS included, continue to maintain to various degrees.

Excellent, and lest we forget, the Gospels were written after 70 A.D., decades after Jesus' death, by men who likely never knew Jesus, and in Greek. These men were as imbued with Greek culture as early Australians were with English culture. So to the degree that the Jesus we know was a literary character he is a literary character conceived and created by writers educated in the Greeks' tradition and steeped in Greek culture. Hence, your superb example of the NT's portrayal of Jesus as a philospher being intrinsically Greek. To the degree that Jesus was not just a literary character there was about as much reason for him to be imbued in Greek culture as for Paul to have been.

[Solon]

Here's another one:

Matthew 8.20 (KJV): And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Plutarch, Life of T. Gracchus 9: "The wild beasts that roam over Italy . . . have their dens and holes to lurk in, but the men who fight and die for our country enjoy the common air and light and nothing else. It is their lot to wander with their wives and children, houseless and homeless, over the face of the earth." (Scott-Kilvert's translation in 1965 Penguin ed.)

Not to suggest that Jesus knew about Gracchus, or that Plutarch ever read Matthew, but this indicates the Hellenistic cultural lingua franca that permeated the lives of those who wrote the N.T.