� 33. The Graeco-Jewish Literature

§ 33. THE GRAECO-JEWISH LITERATURE
Preliminary Remarks.
STILL more varied than the Palestinian-Jewish is the Graeco-Jewish literature. Scriptural and Rabbinic Judaism on the one hand Greek philosophers poets and historians on the other form the factors through whose co-operation a literature of the most motley and varied character sprang up upon the soil of the Jewish Dispersion; a literature many-sided with respect not only to its forms but also to the standpoints taken up by its authors and the objects they pursued.
Hellenistic Judaism and its literature partake of the general intellectual and literary character of the period viz. of that Alexandrino-Roman epoch of Greek literature during which the latter left the soil of Greek nationality and became a universal literature.[2412] For the nations of the Mediterranean region did not merely assimilate Greek culture but also contributed on their part to the literary productivity of the age. In all lands authors made their appearance whose Greek education prepared them to participate in every kind of literary effort and whose co-operation imparted to Greek literature a cosmopolitan character; cosmopolitan in the twofold respect of origin and effect. The tide of the mental acquisitions of the East now flowed in increasingly upon Greek literature. Religion and philosophy received thence fresh impulses poets and historians fresh material. And on the other hand the effect aimed at was also cosmopolitan for they who now took pen in hand wrote not only for the little nation of the Greeks but for the educated classes throughout the world.
[2412] On its characteristics comp. Dähne Geschichtliche Darstellung der jüdalexandr. Religionsphilosophie i. 1-15. Bernhardy Grundriss der griechischen Literatur vol. i. (4th edit. 1876) pp. 498-577. Volkmann art “Alexandriner” in Pauly’s Real-Enc. i. 1 (2nd edit.) pp. 743-753 (where other literature is also given). Nicolai Griech. Literaturgeschickte vol. ii. (1876) p. 80 sq.
In this literary productivity Hellenized Jews also took a part. And what has just been said applies to them above all others viz. that they introduced a new element into Greek literature. The religious knowledge of Israel which had hitherto been the possession of only a small circle now brought its influence to bear in the department of Greek literature. The religious faith of Israel its history and its great and sacred past were depicted in the forms and with the means furnished by the literary culture of the Greeks and thus made accessible to the whole world. Such Jews wrote not only for their compatriots and co-religionists but for the purpose of making known to all mankind the illustrious history of Israel and its pre-eminent religious enlightenment.
The connection between their own national culture and that of the Greeks was of course in the case of the Jews as well as of other Orientals no merely external one. Judaism and Hellenism now really entered upon a process of mutual internal amalgamation.[2413] Judaism which in its unyielding Pharisaic phase appears so rigidly exclusive proved itself uncommonly pliable and accommodating upon the soil of Hellenism and allowed a far-reaching influence to the ascendant Greek spirit. The Hellenistic Jews were as unwilling as others to let themselves be deprived of that common possession of the entire educated world the great poets philosophers and historians of Greece. They too derived from the living spring of the Greek classics that human culture which seemed to the ancient world the supreme good. Under its influence however Judaism imperceptibly underwent a change. It stripped itself of its particularistic character. It discovered that there were true and Divine thoughts in the literature of the heathen world and appropriated them it embraced all men as brethren and desired to lead all who were still walking in darkness to the knowledge of the truth.
[2413] On Hellenistic Judaism in general comp. Dähne Geschichtliche Darstellung i. 15 sqq. Lutterbeck Die neutestamentlichen Lehrbegriffe i. 99-120. Herzfeld Gesch. des Volkes Jisrael iii. 425-579. Ewald Gesch. des Volkes Israel iv. 303 sqq. Siegfried Philo etc. pp. 1-27. The same “Der jüdische Hellenismus” (Zeitschr. für wissensch. Theol. 1875 pp. 465-489).
But while the Jews were thus like other Orientals becoming Greeks it was at the same time seen that Judaism was something very different from the heathen religions. Its internal power of resistance was incomparably greater than theirs. While the other Oriental religions were merged in the general religious medley of the times Judaism maintained itself essentially inviolate. It adhered strictly and firmly to the unity of the Godhead and the repudiation of all images in worship and maintained the belief that God’s dealings with mankind tend to a blissful end. Judaism by thus firmly adhering in presence of the pressure exercised by Hellenism to that which formed its essence proved the pre-eminence of its religious strength.
The consciousness of this pre-eminence impresses its character upon the Graeco-Jewish literature. It pursues for the most part the practical aim of not only strengthening its co-religionists and making them acquainted with their great past but also of convincing its non-Jewish readers of the folly of heathenism and of persuading them of the greatness of Israel’s history and of the futility of all attacks upon that nation. Great part of it is therefore in the most comprehensive sense apologetic. In the predominance of the practical aim it is akin to the Palestinian. For as the latter has chiefly in view the strengthening and reviving of fidelity to the law the Graeco-Jewish literature at least for the most part pursues the object of inspiring the non-Jewish world with respect for the people and the religion of Israel nay if possible of bringing them to embrace the latter.
The chief seat of Hellenistic Judaism and consequently of Graeco-Jewish literature was Alexandria the capital of the Ptolemies which through their exertions had been raised to the first rank as a place of scholarship in the Hellenistic period. The means of culture afforded by the age were here at disposal in a profusion not to be found elsewhere; while at the same time Jews were nowhere else found living together in so great numbers out of Palestine. Hence there was an inward necessity that Hellenic Judaism should here reach its utmost prosperity and its literature be here chiefly cultivated. But it would be a mistake to suppose that such pursuits were cultivated only in Alexandria. They were indeed by no means specifically “Alexandrine” but the common possession of Hellenistic that is extra-Palestinian Judaism in general. Nay even in Palestine they found advocates although the Maccabean movement opposed a strong barrier to the encroachments of this tendency.[2414]
[2414] Camp. on Hellenistic Judaism in Palestine especially Freudenthal Alexander Polyhistor (1875) pp. 127-129.
The diversity both in literary form and theological standpoint of the works now to be discussed is chiefly dependent on their greater adherence now to scriptural types now to Greek models. Between the two extremes here mentioned however are found a great variety of productions which it is difficult to subject to definite classification. The following groups may perhaps be most fitly distinguished.