20th Century Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs

Hellenism

Hellenislll David Satran A onstant feature of the Jewish intellectual tradition is the attempt to draw boundaries, to distinguish between that wisdom which is essential to the nation and that which remains "foreign." Already in the book of Deuteronomy (4:6) we find an attempt to define that knowledge which sets Israel apart from her neighbors -"Observe them [the statutes and ordinances] faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples." This recurrent attempt to distinguish between divine and human wisdom and to identify the former as the exclusive provenance of Israel was never more than partially successful. The Bible itself provides vivid witness to the inroads made by the wisdom literature and traditions of ancient Israel's neighbors. Indeed, the history of Jewish thought, from its biblical origins through its modern expressions, is an unceasing reflection of external influences on the developing cultural tradition of Israel. Even during those periods in which the spiritual life of the individual and community seemed most immune to the broader geographical and cultural contexts in which they existed, there was an element (perhaps unconscious, generally unacknowledged) of 332 HELLENISM response to these surroundings. The history of foreign influences on the Jewish intellectual tradition, then, parallels the history of Jewish thought itself. At certain junctures in the development of the tradition, however, one encounters a heightened sensitivity to this process. The influence of "foreign wisdom" is then perceived as a potent, often problematic, factor in the religious life of certain sectors of the community. It can become the essential criterion by which certain individuals, a group, or the majority define themselves vis-a-vis one another. This sensitized perception of "foreign wisdom" as a challenge to the cultural tradition can be, of course, the result of a significant increase in the degree or nature of such external influence. It is equally possible, though, that other, less clearly related factors have brought this issue to the fore. The threat of religious or cultural persecution, sectarian dissension within a community, a forceful challenge to established practices or beliefs-each of these circumstances can be perceived as a crisis whose roots lie in the threat posed by "foreign wisdom." The classic expression of this awareness arose from the confrontation between Judaism and Greek culture. In the wake of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, both Greece and the civilizations of the Near East were faced with a constellation of beliefs and practices, patterns of thought and action alien to their own. The lasting result of this sudden meeting, the gradual development of the intellectual and spiritual energies thus unleashed, is the phenomenon known as Hellenism. The Jewish communities of the area-whether in Egypt, Palestine, or Asia Minor-were exposed as well to this cultural upheaval. The first overtures would appear to have come from the Greeks themselves during an initial stage of fascination with the wisdom and piety of the Orient. Hecateus of Abdera, an intellectual at the court of Ptolemy I of Egypt (323-285 B.C.E.), described sympathetically the history of the Jews and their political constitution within the tradition of Greek historiography. Theophrastus and Clearchus (ca. 300 B.C.E.), both students of Aristotle, depicted the Jews as a race of philosophers; the latter described a (probably fictitiOUS) meeting between his master and a Jewish sage, who was "Greek not only in his language, but in his very soul" (Josephus, Against Apion 1, 177-81). These writings reflect an early attempt on the part of the Greeks to come to terms with the other, the foreigner, but almost completely within their own cultural frame of reference as a curiously exotic extension of themselves. Jewish experience within the Hellenistic world could be equally onesided . Popular tradition, as expressed, for example, in the Letter of Aristeas, HELLENISM 333 presented the translation of the Pentateuch into Greek, the Septuagint, as a genuine expression of cultural intercourse, namely the magnanimous response of the high priest in Jerusalem to a request from Ptolemy II (285248 B.C.E.) on behalf of the famed library of Alexandria. It is far more likely, however, that the translation, a generally faithful attempt to preserve the quality of the original Hebrew text, arose from the internal needs of the Greek-speaking Jewish community. Gradually, more daring attempts were made to understand the Bible and its injunctions in terms of the intellectual concepts and categories...