1. After the Eastern conquests of Alexander the Great, the Jew came into contact with the Greek, and that conflict began between the faith of Israel and the philosophy of Hellas which has been going on for more than two thousand years. “I will stir up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Javan” (Zec_9:13). It was not easy for Athens and Jerusalem to understand and appreciate one another, nor was it any longer possible to ignore one another. During the last three centuries which preceded the Christian era, Palestine lay between the Græco-Syrian monarchy in the North and the Græco-Egyptian monarchy in the South.
From the time of the first Ptolemy's occupation of Jerusalem (320), the Jews remained for nearly a century subject to Egyptian rule, and this was perhaps the happiest period enjoyed by Judea since the loss of her spiritual independence. With the exception of two brief intervals, each lasting about fourteen years, the rule of the Ptolemies was uninterrupted till the year 204. It was a point of policy with the Egyptian monarchs to promote free intercourse between their Hellenic and Asiatic subjects. Greek settlements were planted in Palestine, many of the newly-founded cities being called by Greek names (such as Paneas, Ptolemais, Scythopolis), and the practical result was that Greeks and Macedonians became a numerous and influential element in the population of Western Asia. Ptolemy ii. Philadelphus (285-247), a ruler of liberal and enlightened tastes, is specially worthy of mention in this connection. His interest being awakened in the history and literature of his Jewish subjects, he encouraged the work of the Seventy, whose famous version of the Old Testament scriptures was probably begun under his patronage, though it was not completed till the middle of the second century.1 [Note: R. L. Ottley, A Short History of the Hebrews, 253.]
2. In the beginning of the second century b.c. there was a strong Hellenizing party in Jerusalem, anxious to break down the barriers which separated Judaism from the Gentile world, and to introduce among the Jews the language, manners, and dress of the Greeks. The ancient empires had transplanted the nations of Palestine to Assyria and Babylonia. The Greeks did not need to remove them to Greece; for they brought Greece to Palestine. “The Orient,” says Wellhausen, “became their America.” They poured into Syria, infecting, exploiting, assimilating its peoples. With dismay the Jews must have seen themselves surrounded by new Greek colonies, and still more by the old Palestinian cities Hellenized in polity and religion. The Greek translator of Isa_9:12 renders “Philistines” by “Hellenes.” The Israelites were compassed and penetrated by influences as subtle as the atmosphere: not as of old uprooted from their fatherland, but with their fatherland itself infected and altered beyond all powers of resistance.
The accession of Antiochus iii. Epiphanes (175 b.c.) brought matters to a head. This brilliant madcap aimed at nothing less than the religious unification of his empire, which meant the imposition of the culture of Greece, in its hybrid Syrian forms, upon all his subjects. He adopted energetic measures for the complete eradication of Judaism. By royal decree in October 168 b.c. he ordered all that was distinctive in the religion of the Jews to be removed. It was his will and pleasure that “all should be one people, and that each should forsake his own law” (1Ma_1:43). Jerusalem and the Jewish people were to be completely Hellenized. At such a time it was the task of the patriot, and still more of the prophet, to exhort every true Jew to be loyal to the ancient and sacred institutions of his country.
The zeal of the prophets for Yahweh was expressed in this, that they kindled in the breasts of their countrymen the flame of patriotism and revolt. They were patriots in so far as the feeling had taken possession of them that Israel ought to be free. They had felt the bitterness of the foreign yoke, and had set themselves to stimulate resistance and prepare for a revolt. And this patriotism could not be other than religious, for it is especially true of Israel that the religious and the national were inseparably associated. The programme of the early prophets probably expressed two convictions, that Israel should be free, and that more zeal should be shown in the worship of Yahweh. Apparently the older seers attached themselves to the prophets. They would bring the light of cooler reason, and would catch the glow of enthusiasm and the patriotic interest in the fortunes of Israel, rather than in the more personal and professional subjects that had hitherto engaged their attention.1 [Note: A. S. Peake, The Religion of Israel, 42.]
3. In the first chapter of the Book of Daniel the story is told of four princely Jewish boys at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, who lived on a vegetable diet rather than defile themselves with king's dainties. The word translated “pulse” denotes vegetable food in general; there is no reason for restricting it to leguminous fruits, such as beans and peas, which is what the term “pulse” properly denotes. Since the institution of Levitism after the return from the Exile, the eating of heathen meats had come to be regarded as a deadly sin. To the Christian, who knows that the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, it seems a needless scruple to taboo any kind of wholesome food. Jesus taught, to the astonishment of the Pharisees and even of His disciples, that it is not what enters into a man that makes him unclean, but the unclean thoughts that come from the heart. So long, however, as the laws of ceremonial purity were an integral part of the religion of the Jews, they could not be treated with indifference. It was the part of a loyal Jew to prove his fidelity to his conscience by rigid adherence to the laws of Moses, which he believed to be the laws of God. Only by so doing could he walk in the light and assure himself of the favour of Heaven.
What is conscience? Have we misnamed it when we call it a Divine inward monitor and judge? Is there then, after all, no infallible guide for our life? The modern answer on these points represents a broader outlook than the older one; yet, properly considered, it is not one whit less spiritual or religious. Conscience in this view is the correspondence of our individual feeling with a common outside standard. But this standard is continually rising and its upward progress is nothing less than the growing revelation of God in and to our race. The Divine inspiration was assuredly in the patriarchs, though their manner of life if practised here would have consigned them to a gaol within a week. The explanation is that while the force working in them was from above, its uplift could, in the nature of things, carry them only as far as it was in their generation to go. There is an immutable standard of right and wrong, but it was not plumped into the world all at once. It is dawning upon us bit by bit in the ceaseless development of the human spirit. Conscience is the Divine in us, but like another incarnation, it was born a babe and comes to itself by degrees, “increasing in wisdom and stature.”1 [Note: J. Brierley.]
