[zeek]

Originally Posted by awareness

In his book Arnold speaks of a "Helleno-Syriac compost." The two he relates to that compost, that shouldn't be dismissed, is the Eastern Orthodox civilization, and Islam, since they came up in that compost. Now that's interesting. We know Hellenism was Greek, but the Syriac, a dialect that Toynbee speaks of -- first century -- originated in Mesopotamia. That's interesting too.

The compost metaphor points to the notion that the Hellenism and the Syriac civilizations were disintegrating but provided fertile soil for the growth of Christianity which synthesized the two.

God was obviously busy, arranging things all over the place, developing a compost, for his final solution, the "germ" Toynbee speaks of, the "Logos Religion." So Christianity was born during the Hellenistic Period.

Christianity wasn't merely born in the Hellenistic period, as shown in the Toynbee references below. The narrative and teachings of Jesus were received and interpreted in terms of Hellenistic language and philosophy.

Toynbee goes on to say:

"This device of preaching religion in the language of philosophy was one of the heirlooms which Christianity had inherited from Judaism. It was Philo the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria (circa 30 B.C.-A.D. 45) who sowed the seed from which Philo’s Christian fellow-citizens, Clement and Origen, were to reap so rich a harvest two centuries later; and it was perhaps from the same quarter that the author of the Fourth Gospel gained his vision of the Divine Logos with which he identifies his Incarnate God.

No doubt this Alexandrian Jewish forerunner of the Alexandrian Christian Fathers was led into the path of Hellenic philosophy through the gate of the Greek language; for it was assuredly no accident that Philo lived and philosophized in a city in which the Attic had become the vernacular language of a local Jewish community that had so utterly lost command of Hebrew, and even of Aramaic, that it had been driven to desecrate its Holy Scriptures by translating them into a Gentile language. Yet in the history of Judaism itself this Jewish father of a Christian philosophy is an isolated figure; and his ingenious effort to derive the Platonic philosophy from the Mosaic Law remained, for Judaism, a tour de force without consequences."

Toynbee, Arnold J.. A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI (Royal Institute of International Affairs) (p. 477). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Toynbee sees a connection, but only on the surface, so they could speak to the Hellenic peoples. But internally, so Toynbee seems to be saying, early Christianity was Syriac, or Aramaic. Since Jesus, and his bunch, spoke Aramaic, that makes sense.

Judaism was Syriac. Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. The church accepted the Hellenized Judaism that mainstream Judaism apparently rejected it at least after it flourished in Alexandria in the first century.

So was Hellenism bad from the get-go? Something early Christians were in, but not of? Something they just used as a tool, for communicating with, to reach others with their real good news : the Living Logos?

Witness Lee thought Christianity was bad. I imagine some on this website probably think so. My thesis is that, whatever its dark side, when Jesus' return was delayed, "Christianity"-- the Hellenization of Jesus-- and the Romanization of the church saved the Jesus movement from the dustbin of history.

Evidently, that was something brand new, brand new to history, and the world ; a "seed" planted in a compost.

A new vision of humanity that has influenced civilization ever since.