08.03. The Greek Background of Christianity

The Greek Background of Christianity The purpose of the present lesson is to make the student feel that the gospel was from the beginning a real gospel in a real world. If we isolate the early preaching from its environment, we make it seem like an unreal thing. Study of New Testament times makes the New Testament itself become a more living, a more interesting book. In the Student’s Text Book an outline of the Hellenistic age has been provided. It has been supplemented below by illustrative material. But in the class the lesson can probably be best approached from the side of the New Testament itself. In what languages is the Bible written? How did the New Testament come to be written in Greek? What other languages are mentioned in the New Testament? What light do these passages shed upon the linguistic conditions of the time? What is the attitude of the apostles toward Greek thought? Is that attitude altogether unfavorable, or did the early missionaries ever lay hold upon the higher aspirations of their Gentile hearers (Athens)? Where did the missionaries come into contact with heathen superstition? (Several fine examples in The Acts). What was the moral condition of the Greco-Roman world? How was the Hellenistic age like our own? Why did God send our Lord just in the first century? What was the social condition of the early Christians? Do you think that was an advantage or a disadvantage? What men of higher position are mentioned in the New Testament? Questions like these will serve to relate the general expositions in the lesson helps to the New Testament itself. The lesson helps are intended to provide merely the presuppositions necessary for intelligent study. God working for real men in a real world — that is the subject of the lesson.

1. The Hellenistic AgeThe Greek world culture which prevailed after the conquest of Alexander was widely different from the Greek life of the classical period. The earlier period is called the “Hellenic” period, the later period is designated as “Hellenistic.” When Greek thought made itself master of the world, it became mingled with numberless foreign elements. The mixture appears most clearly, perhaps, in the sphere of religion. Polytheism was capable of indefinite expansion. New gods could easily be identified with the old, or else be received along with them without a conflict. The religion of the Greco-Roman world is therefore different from that of ancient Greece. It is a curious mixture of the most diverse beliefs. Nevertheless, the whole deserves to be called Hellenistic, because even the most strikingly non-Grecian elements were usually subjected more or less to the subtle molding of the Greek spirit. The Hellenistic age used to be despised, but among modern scholars it is coming into its own. Its literary products are admittedly inferior to the glories of the earlier age, but even in literature its achievements are not to be despised, and in other spheres it is supreme. Notably in mathematics and in natural science it was the golden age. Euclid, the geometrician, lived three centuries before Christ. The learning of the Hellenistic age was centered in Alexandria in Egypt, a city which had been founded by Alexander the Great. Athens had, perhaps, ceased to possess the primacy. That fact is typical of the time. Greek culture had ceased to belong to Greece in the narrower sense. It had become a possession of the world. The great library of Alexandria was a sign of the times. The Hellenistic age was an age of widespread learning. When Rome became master of the eastern world, conditions were not fundamentally changed. Rome merely hastened a process that was already at work. Already the nations had been brought together by the spread of Greek culture; Roman law merely added the additional bond of political unity. The Roman legions were missionaries of an all-pervading Hellenism. The Greco-Roman world was astonishingly modern. It was modern in its cosmopolitanism. In our own time the nations have again been brought together. The external agencies for their welding are far more perfect to-day than they were under the empire. Even the Roman roads would be but a poor substitute for the railroad and the telegraph and the steamship. But on the other hand we lack the bond of a common language. In some ways the civilized world was even more of a unit in the first century than it is to-day. The cosmopolitanism of the Roman Empire was a God-given opportunity for the Church. In a cosmopolitan age, if a man has something to say, he will not lack for an audience. His message will be understood in one place as well as in another. The lesson is obvious for the Church of to-day. Again God has opened the world before us. If we have a message, in God’s name let us proclaim it while yet there is time.

2. The Greek Bible The Church originated in Palestine. The first missionaries were native Jews. Yet even they had been affected by the cosmopolitanism of the time. Even they could use Greek, in addition to their native language. And Paul, the greatest of the missionaries, though a Jew, was a citizen of a Greek city. The Church from the beginning was able to speak to the larger world.

One difficulty might possibly have arisen. The Christian mission was not carried on merely by the oral word. From the beginning Christianity was a religion with a Book. And that Book was not Greek. On the contrary it was intensely un-Grecian. The Old Testament is intolerant of heathen ideas. It is deeply rooted in the life of the chosen people. How could a Hebrew book be used in the Greek world?The difficulty might have been serious. But in the providence of God it had been overcome. The Old Testament was a Hebrew book, but before the Christian era it had been translated into Greek. From the beginning Christianity was provided with a Greek Bible. It is always difficult to make a new translation of the Bible. Every missionary knows that. The introduction of a new translation takes time. It was fortunate, then, that a Greek-speaking Church had a Greek Bible ready to hand.

Everything was prepared for the gospel. God’s time had come. Roman rule had brought peace. Greek culture had produced unity of speech. There was a Greek world, there were Greek-speaking missionaries, and there was a Greek Bible. In the first century, the salvation that was of the Jews could become a salvation for the whole world. 

3. The PapyriThe world in which the gospel was proclaimed is deserving of careful study. How shall it be investigated? The most obvious way is to study the literature of the period. Until recent years that was almost the only way. But that method is partial at best. For literature is after all but an imperfect measure of any age. The society that is found in books is an idealized society, or at any rate it is the society of the great. The plain man is unrecorded. His deeds are not deemed worthy of a place in history.

Within the last thirty years, however, the plain people of the ancient world have come remarkably into view. They are revealed to us in the “non-literary papyri.”

“Papyri” are pieces of papyrus. Papyrus was the common writing material of antiquity up to about A. D. 300, when vellum, or parchment, came into general use. Unfortunately papyrus, which was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, is not a very durable substance, so that ancient papyri have been preserved until modern times only under exceptionally favorable conditions. These conditions are found in Egypt, where the dry climate has kept the papyrus from disintegration. In Egypt, within the last thirty years, have been discovered large numbers of papyrus sheets with Greek writing. Of these the “literary papyri” contain simply parts of books. They differ from other copies of the works in question only in that they are usually older than the vellum manuscripts. The “non-literary papyri,” on the other hand, are unique. They are private documents of all sorts — receipts, petitions, wills, contracts, census returns, and most interesting of all, private letters. It was usually not intended that these documents should be preserved. They were simply thrown away upon rubbish heaps or used as wrappings of mummies. They have been preserved only by chance. The non-literary papyri are important first of all in the study of language. They exhibit the language of everyday life, as distinguished from the language of literature. The language of literature always differs more or less from the language used on the street, and the difference was particularly wide in the Greek of the Hellenistic period. The books of the time were modeled to a considerable extent upon the ancient classics, but the actual spoken language had been changing. Hence the literary language had become exceedingly artificial.

Up to within the last few years, the literary language alone could be studied. The books of the period were preserved, but the language of daily life was gone. Now, however, the papyri supply what was lacking. In them there is no attempt at style. They are composed in the language which was employed in the ordinary affairs of life and preserve the actual spoken language of every day. At this point a remarkable fact must be noticed. The language of the New Testament is more like the language of the non-literary papyri than it is like the language of contemporary literature. The papyri indicate, therefore, that the New Testament is composed in the natural living language of the time rather than according to the canons of an artificial rhetoric. The artlessness of the New Testament has sometimes been regarded as a reproach. Instead, it is a cause for rejoicing. The simplicity of the gospel would only be concealed by niceties of style. The greatness of the New Testament is independent of literary art. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the New Testament, because it is composed in the language of the people, is characterized by anything like cheapness or vulgarity. On the contrary its simplicity is the noble simplicity of truth. In the New Testament the spoken language of the Greco-Roman world, in all its living freshness, becomes a worthy vehicle for the sublimest thoughts. The non-literary papyri, then, reproduce for us the spoken language of the time as distinguished from the artificial language of literature. But that does not exhaust their importance. They afford a knowledge not only of language, but also of life. Through them ordinary people are revealed in the ordinary relations of every day. In them, the ancient world has been made to live again. A few examples (see the book of Professor Milligan mentioned at the end of the lesson) will serve to indicate the character of the papyrus letters. The following boy’s letter (of the second or the third century alter Christ) is written in very bad grammar, but is for that reason all the more lifelike. (The translation is taken from Grenfell and Hunt, “Oxyrhynchus Papyri,” Part i., p. 186.)

“Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city! If you won’t take me with you to Alexandria I won’t write you a letter or speak to you or say good-by to you; and if you go to Alexandria I won’t take your hand nor ever greet you again. That is what will happen if you won’t take me. Mother said to Archalaus, ‘It quite upsets him to be left behind (?).’ It was good of you to send me presents . . . on the 12th, the day you sailed. Send me a lyre, I implore you. If you don’t, I won’t eat, I won’t drink; there now!” The following invitation to dinner, of the second century after Christ, throws light upon I Corinthians (the translation taken from Professor Milligan): “Antonius, son of Ptolemaeus, invites you to dine with him at the table of the lord Serapis in the house of Claudius Serapion on the 16th at 9 o’clock.”

“The lord Serapis” is a god. Even an ordinary dinner party seems thus to be regarded as the table of Serapis. Under such conditions the Christian life must have been hard to lead. No wonder the Corinthian Christians had to ask Paul questions. Even the ordinary affairs of life were intimately connected with a false religion. What should the attitude of the Christians be? Where should they draw the line in associating with their heathen friends? 

4. A Real Gospel in a Real World The people that are introduced to us so intimately in the papyri are probably very fair representatives of the people among whom the gospel was first proclaimed. In that cosmopolitan age the society of Egyptian towns was probably not so very different from that of Corinth. The people of the papyri are not the great men of the time; they are just plain folk. But the early Christians were also usually not of exalted social position, though there were exceptions. “Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” were called. 1 Corinthians 1:26. Many of the early Christians were slaves, many were humble tradesmen. The same classes appear in the papyri. In the papyri we are introduced into the private lives of the men to whom the gospel was proclaimed. Seeing, but unseen, hidden as by a magic cap, we watch them in their most intimate affairs. And we come away with a new feeling of the reality of early Christian history. These men were not so very different from ourselves. They were real men and women, living in a real world. And they needed a real gospel.

         In the Library. — Hastings, “Dictionary of the Bible,” extra volume: Ramsay, article on “Religion of Greece,” pp. 109-156, especially PP- 135-156. Milligan, “Selections from the Greek Papyri,” (with translations). Deissmann, “The Philology of the Greek Bible,” pp. 1-63, 144-147. Ramsay, “The Cities of St. Paul,” pp. 1-47. Browning, “Cleon,” (vol. iv, pp. 115-122 of the Riverside Edition.)