THE STRUGGLE AGAINST GREEK CULTURE IN PALESTINE
While Palestine was a Greco-Egyptian province, the influences at work
over the whole Levant had been as effectually operative there.
In the matter of government no change had been made that was at all
noticeable. The internal autonomy of Persian times had been maintained;
the claims of the tax-collector and recruiting sergeant were dealt with
by the whole community, not by the individual.
Socially and economically, relative peace had permitted considerable
progress. At the close of this period the work of Ben Sira is the best
of all possible evidence, both of the literary productivity out of which
the book arose and of the society which it implies. We are given
glimpses of settled and comfortable life, which could scarcely have been
attained unless the preceding century had been one of constantly
increasing well-being. It is a well-equipped table at which Ben Sira
bids us sit. The graces and little luxuries of life are present, and
equally the vices that went with these luxuries.[117]
Nor had the character of the whole spiritual culture essentially
changed. The language of daily intercourse was Aramaic, the _lingua
franca_ of the whole region. But the literary language was still Hebrew.
It must have been constantly spoken among educated men, for the changes
it continued to exhibit are not such as would occur if it had been quite
divorced from life. And the literary activity, which took its forms from
the established and already canonical literature, took its substance
from the life about it. That this life had been impregnated with Greek
elements, there can of course be no manner of doubt.
Not only the old Philistian and Phoenician cities of the coast had
acquired a Greek varnish, but Judea was being surrounded by a closer and
closer network of new Greek foundations. Ptolemais, Anthedon, Apollonia,
Arethusa, and the cities of the Decapolis across the Jordan, brought the
external forms of Greek culture so near that even the peasant who went
no great distance from his furrow must have encountered them.
What made up the fascination of Greece for the nations she dominated? In
the first place it must be insisted upon that there was a national
resistance, whether or not it took the form of insurrection. Indeed,
insurrection was a thing quite apart from resistance to Hellenism. As we
have seen in the case of Egypt, national resistance to the political
domination of Greeks did not by any means imply national resistance to
the spread of Greek culture. The latter resistance generally took the
form of a dull and obstinate clinging to ancestral ritual and language.
At Antioch in the fourth century C.E., some men and women still spoke
Aramaic, and knew no Greek.[118] It is only within the rather narrow
limits set by wealth and education that the Hellenization was really
effective. Unfortunately most of our available evidence is concerned
with this class.
Among these men, who were naturally open to cultural impressions, the
attraction of Hellenism was undoubted, and had been growing slowly for
years before Alexander, and it had meant for them all the charm of an
intellectual discovery. The mere fact that what the Greeks had was new
and different could have been of no real influence. There must have been
an actual and evident superiority in Greek life or culture to have drawn
to itself so quickly the desires and longings of alien peoples.
In one field that superiority was evident, in the field of art. Whatever
may have been the origins of Greek art, from the seventh century on no
one seriously questioned that Greek workmen could produce, in any
material, more beautiful objects than any other people. Artistic
appreciation is no doubt a plant of slow growth, but the pleasure in
gorgeous coloring, in lifelike modeling, in fine balances of light and
shade, in grouping of masses, is derived immediately from the visual
sensation. No peasant of Asia could fail to be impressed by his first
glimpse of such a city as the Ephesus and Miletus of even the sixth or
fifth century. After the extraordinary artistic progress of the fifth
century had vastly increased the beauty of Greek cities, every foreigner
who visited them must have found greater and greater delight, as his
knowledge grew broader and deeper.
In other branches of art, in music, poetry, dancing, the wealthier
Asiatic had a training of his own. But it is likely that even a slight
acquaintance with Greek taught him to depreciate the achievements of his
own people. Doubtless, in poetic capacity and imagination, Phrygian,
Lydian, or Lycian was the equal of Greek. Yet we have no choice but to
believe that in sheer sensuous beauty of sound, which made a direct
appeal to any partly cultivated ear, no one of the languages could
compare with Greek. Nor is it likely that any written literature existed
in Asia that could be ranked with Greek.
With the appeal to eye and ear there went an appeal to the intellect.
Greek mental capacity was not demonstrably greater than that of the
Asiatic peoples to whom the Greeks were perhaps akin, but both
imagination and reflection had framed their results in systematic form.
The rich narrative material found in every race was available in Greek
in dramatic and finished pieces. The philosophic meditation in which
others had long anticipated the Greeks was among the latter set forth in
clearer and simpler phrasing.
The allurement of all these things was intensified by a franker and
fuller exploitation of all physical instincts, and the absence of many
tabus and forms of asceticism that existed among non-Greek peoples. A
vastly increased freedom over one’s body seemed a characteristic of
Greek life, and a vastly greater freedom of political action was
characteristic of the Greek polis.
It is small wonder therefore that the upper classes of Asia and Syria
had for two or three centuries before the conquest succumbed to a
culture that possessed so visible a sorcery. Then, with the conquest,
came a new factor. To be a Greek was to be a _Herrenmensch_, a member of
the ruling caste, a blood-kinsman of the monarch. Syrians, Asiatics, and
Egyptians found themselves under the direct sway of a Greek dynasty,
supported by a Greek court and army. All the tendencies that had made
Greek cultural elements attractive for certain classes were intensified
by the eager desire of the Greeks to identify themselves with the
dominant race, and this identification seemed by no means impossible of
achievement.
What had to be given up? As far as language was concerned, a smattering
of Greek was the common possession of many men. Every trading-post had
for generations swarmed with Greek merchants. Greek mercenaries were to
be found in most armies. It was no especially difficult matter for those
classes which knew a little Greek to increase their familiarity with it,
to multiply the occasions for its use, to sink more and more the soon
despised vernacular. The latter, we must repeat, was not and could not
be suppressed, but it became the language of peasants. In the cities men
spoke Greek.
But there were other things—the ancestral god and the ancestral
ritual. These were not so readily discarded. However, the attitude of
the Greeks in this matter made it unnecessary to do so. The gods of
Greece were often transplanted, but rarely more than the name. In
Syria and Asia particularly it was only in wholly new foundations that
Greek gods and Greek forms were really established. Generally the
sense of local divine jurisdiction was keenly felt. Greeks had a
wholesome awe of the deity long in possession of a certain section,
and in many cases erected shrines to him, invoking him by the name of
some roughly corresponding Hellenic god. Frequently the old name was
retained as an epithet. Thus Greek and Syrian might approach the
ancient lord of the soil in the ancient manner and so perpetuate a
bond which it was ἀσέβεια, “impiety,” to break.
Since the essentials were maintained, the only step necessary to turn a
Syrian into a Greek was to purchase a himation, change his name of
Matanbal to Apollodorus, and the transformation was complete. He might
be known for several years as “ὁ καὶ _Matanbal_”—“_alias_
Matanbal”; he might suffer a little from the occasional snobbishness of
real Greeks, but, especially if he was wealthy, such matters would be of
short duration. The next generation would probably escape them
altogether, and their children, the young Nicanors, Alexanders,
Demetriuses, would talk glibly of the exploits of their ancestors at
Marathon or under the walls of Troy.
But there was also no inconsiderable group that combined adoption of the
new with loyalty or attempted loyalty to the old. Many Syrians,
Egyptians, Phoenicians, and others, conscious of a history not without
glory, desired to acquire the undeniably attractive Hellenic culture,
while maintaining their racial ties, of which they felt no real reason
to be ashamed. That was particularly true of the Seleucid dominions
where Alexander’s assimilative policy was consistently pursued. Persian
or Lydian or Phoenician descent was a thing many men boasted of. It was
with a sense of adding something to the culture of the world that
natives with Greek training prepared to transmit in Greek forms the
history of their people to Greeks and to interpret their institutions to
them. And they found a ready enough audience. On many points, especially
in religion and philosophy, the Greeks were willing enough to concede a
more profound acquaintance to barbarians than they themselves possessed;
and often the weariness of civilization made Greeks search among fresher
peoples for a sound social life, since that life was tainted, in Greek
communities, by many grave diseases.
But people of this class found themselves in a delicate situation, an
unstable equilibrium constantly disturbed. It was hard to remain a
Grecized Syrian. Generally the temptation to suppress the Syrian was
well-nigh irresistible. Now and then, the rise of national political
movements would claim some of the younger men, so that the fall was on
the native side. In general, the older conservative attitude expressed
itself naturally in avoidance of Greeks as far as possible, and
precisely in proportion to the value set upon the national and
indigenous culture.
The situation of the Jews was only in so far unique that there could be
no question among them of gradual steps in the acquisition of Greek
culture, but only of partial acceptance of it. The final step of
interchanging gods—of accepting the Greek name and maintaining the old
rite and of exercising that reciprocity of religious observance which
was a seeming necessity for those who lived in the same region—that, as
every Jew was aware, could never be taken. The religious development
among the Jews had been fuller than elsewhere, and had resulted in a
highly specialized form, which by that fact had none of the elasticity
of other cult-forms. It was easy to make any one of the Baalim of local
Syrian shrines into Zeus Heliopolitanus, Zeus Damascenus, etc. It was
not possible to turn the Lord Zebaoth of Zion, the awful and holy God of
psalm and prophecy, into an epithet of Zeus or of another.
Consequently Jews who felt the pull of Greek art and literature, who,
like other subjects of Greek sovereigns, were eager to gain the favor of
their masters, had to realize to themselves the qualifications of their
Hellenism, or determine to discard wholly their Judaism. And this latter
step, even to enthusiastic Philhellenes, was intensely difficult. For so
many generations “Thou shalt have no other gods” had been inculcated
into men’s hearts that it was no simple thing to undertake in cold blood
to bow before the abominations of the heathen.
He who could not do that—and there were many—might feel free to adopt
Greek language and dress and name; but, even more than Babylonian and
Egyptian, he was conscious of making a contribution of his own to the
civilization of the East. An inherited wisdom, which was in effect
closer communion with the Absolute, he believed he had, and, as we have
seen, he was generally credited with having. He felt no need therefore
of yielding unreservedly to the claims of Greeks, but might demand from
them the respect due to an independent and considerable culture.
Barriers to mutual comprehension were created by the Jewish dietary
regulations as well as by ritual intolerance. Courtesy and good breeding
however might soften and modify what they could not remove, and social
intercourse between Greek and Jew certainly existed. Nor need we
exaggerate the embarrassments these relations would suffer from the fact
that while a Greek might, and doubtless would, assist at the little
ceremonies of his Jewish neighbor’s household, the Jew might not without
sin reciprocate. By judicious absence on occasion—perhaps by little
compromises—the average easy-going Jewish citizen of an Asiatic or
Egyptian community need not have found himself in constant conflict.
As in the case of other nations, the first Greek-speaking Jews that
desired to emphasize their origin while accepting the all-pervading
Greek culture, wished primarily to convey to Greeks the facts of their
history and institutions. The Septuagint, at least the Pentateuch, was
probably written in the early part of the third century B.C.E., and
although primarily intended for Jews, no doubt came within the knowledge
of Greeks as well. But its purpose was utilitarian. The Greek-speaking
synagogues absolutely needed it. If others were to be acquainted with
the history of the Jews, some other means had to be devised.
About 225 B.C.E., an Egyptian Jew named Demetrius wrote the history of
his people in Greek. Unfortunately we have only such fragments of his
work as Eusebius, the church historian, and Josephus have chosen to
quote; but what we have, permits the conjecture that he wrote in a
concise and simple style, without oratorical embellishment, and
obviously without apologetic motives. It seems to have been a sober and
dignified narrative, the loss of which is a serious gap in our
records.[119]
The name of this man, Demetrius, is not without significance. It
contains the name of a Greek deity, Demeter, so that religious
precisians might find in it an honor—even if only a verbal one—to the
Abomination. But Alexandrian Jews were not likely to be religious
precisians, and we may readily suppose that these names, attrited by
constant use, did not immediately convey the suggestion of being
theophoric. In 238 B.C.E., an Arsinoite slave is named Apollonius or
Jonathas, and about the same time a Jewess is found with the name of
Heraclea.[120]
In the case of Demetrius it was rather the redoubtable Besieger than the
goddess that was honored, just as the very first Jew whom we know by a
Greek name, Antigonus of Socho, is probably named after Demetrius’
father, the one of Alexander’s officers who became so nearly a real
Successor. It is to be noted that Antigonus of Socho is one of the
earliest doctors of the law, whose fine saying is recorded in Abot
i.,[121] and, although we know no Hebrew name for him, there can be no
question here of Hellenizing or partly Hellenizing tendencies.
Otherwise Jews in adopting Greek names were prone to translate them
approximately. The common Jonathan and Nathaniel became Theodotus,
Dositheus, Theodorus, and the like. Phoenicians had long done the same,
but there would be of course no difficulty in the case of the latter if
they chose to turn Meherbal into Diodorus. That the Jews were scarcely
more scrupulous in this matter is a little surprising. It fits in well
however with the conclusion that friction in unessentials was rather
avoided than invited by the average Jew.[122]
The conflict that was preparing itself in Palestine was not one between
Greek and Jew, but between Hellenizing and reactionary elements among
the Jews themselves. And the term reactionary is chosen advisedly. In
the many centuries that had witnessed the slow spread of Hellenism, and
the hundred years or so in which that progress had been immensely
accelerated by the political domination of Greeks, a resistance was also
preparing itself. In the early years of the movement, before and after
Alexander, the numbers affected had been too few to justify active
opposition. But the number became constantly greater, and the imminence
of a real peril became vividly present to thinking men. The method of
opposition was at once indicated. It could be only a conscious
restoration of such national institutions as had lapsed into comparative
disuse, a recultivation of ancient national practices, and a more
intense and active occupation with the traditional sacred literature.
In just this way opposition to the orientalizing of the imperial
religion produced the reactionary reforms of Augustus, and much later
opposition to an excessive clerical interference with life expressed
itself in the very real paganism of the Italian Renaissance. In all
these instances the attempt was deliberately made to rebuild with
material still present, even if largely discarded, a structure that had
fallen into ruins. The success of such movements depends wholly on the
amount of material still present. If it has to be painfully gathered and
swept together from forgotten corners, success is more than problematic.
The Jewish reactionaries were fortunate in that the ancient institutions
still held their ground, and in having no huge gap of disuse to fill.
They were also fortunate that the actively Hellenizing party was limited
in numbers, and the line of demarcation was the easily noticeable one of
wealth and position. Not all men of wealth were in this class. Such a
man as Ben Sira, in whose book some have detected Greek elements,
betrays no Hellenizing tendencies.[123] He is Jew to the marrow, and he
can be no isolated phenomenon. But there had been a rapid growth of a
moneyed class, and this not so much composed of great landowners as of
the newer class of capitalists, who grew rich through the various forms
of financial speculation then open, particularly the tax-farmers, of
whom that magnificent vulture, the Tobiad Joseph, is a permanent
type.[124] The life of these men involved such an association with king
and court that marked discrepancies of social custom, such as dietary
regulations, or any form of abstinence, as well as differences in dress,
were not to be thought of.
It is unfortunate that any discussion of the nature and character of the
opposition involves a controversial question of the first magnitude,
that which concerns the Hasidim, or ʽAssidaei. It were idle to
enumerate, much less to examine critically, the theories that have been
advanced. Our evidence is so scanty that it can be made to fit into many
different schemes, all of which can be shown to be conceivable. The
simplest interpretation of the extant sources however is by far the
best, and it has further the merit of being the longest-established and
most widely current.
Now concerning the Hasidim we have only three passages that can be
considered even approximately contemporary, two in the First Book of
Maccabees and one in the Second.
The first passage, I Macc. ii. 41, states that after the martyrdom of
the loyal Jews who had taken refuge in the desert, there united with
Mattathias the συναγωγὴ Ἁσσιδαίων, “the congregation of
Hasidim, a body of great power and influence in Israel, containing all
those who were devoted to the Law.” In the second passage, I Macc. vii.
12, we read that when the renegade high priest Alcimus and the Greek
prefect Bacchides entered Judah with peaceful overtures, they were met
by the congregation of scribes, who brought their lawsuits to him, and
then recognized his authority. “And the ‘Asidaei were the first among
the children of Israel, and they also sought peace from them. For they
said, ‘A priest has come of the seed of Aaron with a powerful army, and
he will not injure us.’”
Taken together, these passages are best understood to mean that at the
beginning of the Hasmonean revolt an already existing and powerful
group, known as the “ʽAsidaei,” or “Hasidim,” gave their official
support to the Modin rebels, but that upon the arrival of the duly
ordained high priest they, or at any rate their officials, put
themselves under his authority, to their own undoing. The author of I
Maccabees speaks in terms of the highest respect of them, and applies to
the treacherous murder of their leaders the words of Psalm lxxix.
In II Macc. xiv. 6, Alcimus replies to the question of King Demetrius as
follows: “The so-called ʽAsidaei among the Jews, of whom Judas Maccabeus
is the leader, maintain the war and sedition, and will not permit the
realm to secure peace.” It will be seen that this passage is not
necessarily in contradiction with those of I Maccabees, since it is here
put into the mouth of Alcimus, and is meant to be a wilful
misrepresentation of the facts on his part. Like the other passage, it
implies that such a definite body with a distinct name existed before
the Hasmonean revolt.
To find in Psalms xii., lxxxix., cxlix., and others references to the
same group of men is quite gratuitous. The ordinary sense of “righteous”
or “saintly” amply satisfies every one of the occurrences of the word
Hasid in the Psalms. And the figurative קהל חסידים (Ps.
cxlix. 1) no more implies an organized body than קהל מרעים
of Psalm xxvi. 5 implies a formal association of evil-doers, a Camorra.
We shall be compelled to rely wholly on the passages in Maccabees for
any information about the ʽAssidaei, or Hasidim, in the sense of a
definite organization bearing that title.
Who were these ʽAssidaei? That admirable writer and sturdy patriot, the
author of I Maccabees, says they were a body of great power and
influence in Israel, ἰσχυρὰ δυνάμει, the leaders of the
Jews, and, as has been seen, organized before the revolt. Nothing is
clearer than that they are not identical with the “scribes,” with whom
they are grouped in I Macc. vii., among those who acknowledged Alcimus.
It is equally clear that they are not at all the same as the Hasmonean
partisans, for they join Mattathiah later, and abandon Judah, at least
temporarily, early in the struggle. They are characterized by their zeal
for the Law, a zeal which naturally manifested itself in strong
opposition to Hellenism.
In Palestine, accordingly, for at least a generation before the revolt,
the disintegrating tendencies of Hellenism, as evidenced in the apostasy
of many wealthy Jews and in the neglect of many traditional customs on
the part of others, provoked an organized opposition. Forming themselves
into a fraternity or groups of corporate bodies, to which they applied
the name of “saints,” the opponents of the Greeks directed their efforts
to the exact fulfilment of the Torah, and no doubt carried on a violent
polemic against Greek innovations, however harmless and valuable. At
about the same time an exactly similar movement among Egyptians had
brought the Ptolemies to terms. It was not of course to be expected that
a single province of the Syrian-Babylonian monarchy would accomplish the
same result. In the eyes of the Antiochene court their programme was no
doubt treasonable fanaticism. But it was not, as in the case of Egypt,
directly political in its scope, and it might never have led to armed
conflict.
According to Jewish tradition a pupil of Antigonus of Socho, José ben
Joëzer, was a member of this sect of “saints.”[125] And it is
significant that, although he is represented as especially rigorous in
all religious requirements that had a separatist tendency, he was
strikingly liberal in all matters of what might be called internal
religious practice. It is likely enough that the tradition is accurate
and the “saints” were not at all precisians or fanatics, but that their
cohering bond was simply opposition to Hellenism. As has been said, it
was against the Hellenizing Jews more than the Greeks that their attack
was directed. These latter had on their side the advantages of wealth
and social position, but they lacked just that which made their
opponents strong, a compact organization. There was no συναγωγὴ
Ἑλλήνων, no congregation or fraternity of Philhellenes. They
included all shades of Greek sympathizers, from out and out apostates to
parvenus, to whom speaking Greek was a mark of fashion. No doubt the
feeling between the two groups ran high, and neither side spared bitter
abuse and invective.
The conflict was finally precipitated by an act that was one of the
commonest occurrences of ancient political struggles. The party
defeated, or in danger of defeat, does not scruple to invite foreign
intervention. In this case the irreconcilable Hellenists, evidently
losing ground in face of the rapid growth of Hasidic conventicles,
appeal to the Greek king, whose policies their own efforts were
furthering, and of whose sympathy they were assured. That king happened
to be the bizarre Antiochus Epiphanes.
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