How Greek language, culture influenced Christianity

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu Opinion
A current, unique socio-cultural development in Zimbabwe is the mushrooming of Christian church groups, especially those of the Apostolic, Zionist and Pentecostal doctrinal persuasion. While it is true that many people find security in the membership of such religious groups, it is also a fact that such a phenomenon develops and grows by leaps and bounds during times of social instability, economic stress and want.

I am associated with and interested in the Pentecostal sects not only for spiritual reasons but also because of some leaders of those highly popular churches who explain some Bible words and verses by referring them to their original Greek versions and meanings.

When that happens, and it occurs fairly often, one cannot but wonder how many congregants know how Christianity is historically associated with the Greek language and culture. The purpose of this article is to explain how Christianity was highly influenced by elements of Greek language and culture.

The Greeks were rulers of what later became known as Asia Minor for quite a long time before the Greeks were defeated and replaced by the Romans. It was during the reign of the Romans over that region, including Palestine, that Jesus was born. The Romans had politically and militarily occupied the former Greek Empire, imposing what was later called by history scholar, “Pax Romana” (Roman Peace) over the entire area from Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea in North Africa, to Bethlehem in Palestine in the East, Aquilea in northern, Dalmatia in the north and to Aries in southern Gaul (France).

It was in that region that the Hebrews had settled by conquest on their return from Egypt. They called it Canaan but the Greeks referred to the region as Palestine. It is interesting to note that the name “Africa” was given to our continent by the Greeks referring to a part of what was later called Libya.

Back to the Hebrews and the Greeks we find that the former strongly believed in their one God, Jehovah, whose existence and laws comprised that sacred writings called Torah in Hebrew. The Hebrews had another set of religious literature known as Nebiim (Prophets).

The culturally dynamic Hebrews did not stop there. While they interacted with Greek (referred to in social studies as the Hellenes) political and military dominance, many (Jews) Hebrews became hellenised, and wrote their third religious work known as Kathuhim in Greek.

That was because the Greek language in that area was the most dominant, and many Jews, especially the Sadducees, had become hellenised, unlike the Pharisees who insisted upon practising the traditions of the Hebrews, language, customs and mores. The conflict between those two Jewish groups must be understood in that politico-cultural context.

We must also mention that the unity of the Jews had suffered earlier when they split into two state communities, Judah and Israel. Their language Aramaic, gradually lost ground and was sooner or later replaced by Greek, later briefly by Latin.

A question may be asked why the Jews seemed to have accepted Hellenic conquest lying down.
At the time of the original conquest of the ancient orient by Alexander the Great, the Hebrews did not think that hellenisation was a threat to their culture. In fact, they welcomed Greek customs except the numerous gods. Some Jews admired and accepted Hellenic intellectual superiority.

Meanwhile, the conquering Greeks used some, if not many, of the Jewish scribes to man their civil service. That remained the case even after the death of Alexander the Great when the empire was divided between the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Seleucia.

For some 2 000 years, the Hebrews had gone through thick and thin. They had endured various vicissitudes in their chequered history to maintain their cultural identity. They had never, however, faced anything like the challenge of ideas such as offered by the Greeks, very skillfully organised, presented or mediated. What actually posed a threat to Hebraic cultural and social self-confidence was an array of Hellenic intellectual disciplines such as logic, rhetoric, and dialectics and their systematic presentation of and argumentation about human experience given as mathematically and physically applied data.

That mentally overwhelming body of knowledge and ideas was offered by the tutored Greeks at institutions of learning ranging from gymnasiarch, ephebeia, and grammatikos to gymnasion.

It is important to appreciate that Greek thought was directed towards understanding of the absolute, hence the development of skills the normative and humanistic sciences as well aesthetics. They sought explanation through philosophic speculations.

Meanwhile, the Jews seemed to have been concerned more with self-preservation and they based their beliefs in and hopes on religious revelation.

They had experienced repeated oppression by external forces. They placed much faith in their deity, Yahweh (Jehovah).
In perhaps 1230BC they had returned to Canaan from bondage in Egypt. After settling in the Kingdom of Judah whose seat of power was Jerusalem, a faction calling itself “Israel” broke away and was administered from Samaria. It is estimated that all that happened between about 922 and 721 BC during which the Torah was written.

In 721 BC Israel was overrun by Assyria, and in 597BC Judah fell to Babylon. As if that was not enough, King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and its renowned temple in 586 BC, burning all the sacred literature he could find.

It was during their captivity in Babylon that the Jewish scribes, known as “soferim” in Aramaic reassembled that literature on leather scrolls. On their return to Judah, the literature was restored to the Minor Prophets Joel, Jonah, Malachi, Haggai and Zachariah.

It was in that period that the synagogue emerged as a place of assembly. They were also used for the instruction of adults. The Christianity struck roots in that region; synagogues became Christian churches years later.

The word church is derived from an old English term “circe” which means “the Lord’s house” and not from the Greek word “kurikon” or “kuriakon” as some scholars erroneously think.

When Moslem forces launched their first holy war (jihad) following Mohammed’s death in 632 AD, they seized the churches in such cities as Alexandria and converted them into mosques.

By that time, followers of Jesus Christ, the reformist Nazarene, had struck root as far as Yerevan in Armenia to the North East of Palestine, Carthage in North Africa (Tunisia), and Ethiopia on the horn of the African continent, throughout the former Roman and some parts of Western Europe.

Before Christianity emerged and asserted itself, several sects had been at one another’s throats in Palestine for the support of the Jews but had failed. Those were the Essenes, the Samarians the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Messianic Zealots. It has been, however, the message of Christ, the Anointed One, which has won the hearts of most humanity. “Christos” is Greek for “Anointed.”