CHAPTER IX

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.