Greek

The Greek world enters scripture as both a political power and a way of thinking. Alexander's conquest opens the era; the Hellenistic kingdoms that follow press hard on Israel; and by the apostolic period "the Greeks" stand as one of the two great categories — alongside the Jews — through which the gospel must move. The umbrella collects the political backdrop, the standing pair "Jews and Greeks," and the running critique of the wisdom Greek thought is famous for.

Alexander and the Greek kingdom

The Greek presence in scripture is dated from Alexander. "Now it came to pass that Alexander the [son] of Philip the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Kittim, overthrew Darius king of the Persians and Medes, and reigned in his place, first over Greece" (1 Mac 1:1). The opening of First Maccabees frames everything that follows: the Greek empire is the new world power, and Israel will live within it. Later in the same book, Judas's overture to Rome describes the situation candidly — that the Romans "might take off from them the yoke of the Greeks, for they saw that they oppressed the kingdom of Israel with servitude" (1 Mac 8:18). "The Greeks" here name a foreign rule that bears down on Israel.

Jews and Greeks together

In the apostolic writings, "Greeks" function less as a political category and more as the standing counterpart to "Jews." Together the two terms cover the whole human field the gospel addresses. Paul writes, "I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish" (Rom 1:14). The first term in his pairing is the cultured, schooled world — the people who shape language and learning.

The pair appears again in the Corinthian contrast: "Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom" (1 Cor 1:22). Each side approaches the message with its own demand, and both are answered by the same proclamation — "but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness" (1 Cor 1:23). The Greek expectation of wisdom is named and then met with what the wisdom-seekers will hear as foolishness.

The Gospels mark the same opening. "Now there were certain Greeks among those who went up to worship at the feast" (John 12:20). The arrival of these worshippers is registered as a sign of the wider movement.

The early Christian apology to Diognetus stands in the same world. The opening question takes for granted that there are Greeks, and Jews, and now this third group: "In what God do they trust, and in what way do they worship him, that they all scorn the world and despise death? Why do they neither esteem those gods regarded by the Greeks, nor keep the superstition of the Jews?" (Gr 1:1). The persecution that follows is also two-sided: "By the Jews they are warred against as aliens, and by the Greeks they are persecuted; and those who hate them can give no reason of their enmity" (Gr 5:17).

The vanity of Greek wisdom

A running thread in this material is the critique of the wisdom Greek thought is famous for. Paul cites Isaiah against it — "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the discernment of the discerning I will bring to nothing" (1 Cor 1:19) — and sets the apostolic word over against "a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing" (1 Cor 2:6). The Colossian warning is sharper still: "Take heed lest there will be anyone who makes spoil of you⁺ through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (Col 2:8). Philosophy here is a system that takes captive.

The Diognetus letter takes the same critique to specific philosophical doctrines about the divine: "Or do you approve the vain and foolish words of those credible philosophers? Some of them say God is fire (to which they themselves shall go — this they call God), and some say water, and some other elements created by God" (Gr 8:2). The proposals are catalogued and rejected. What the Greeks seek as wisdom — fire, water, the elements as God — is shown to fall short of the God the Christians worship.