by J. Eugenio Cotera E.
As a young kid growing up in the vast and sparse Chihuahuan Desert, I believed that fish simply materialized wherever there was sufficient water and nutrients. Like the ancient Greeks speculating about the nature of matter, I developed imaginative theories about the subject while remaining entirely ignorant of how things actually worked. Days were spent “fishing” in the most unlikely places: clay and lime pits transformed by a good rain into temporary ponds that seemed, to us, like ideal fishing grounds. We waited eagerly, hoping to catch some ichthys from heaven in the desert, much like manna. That childhood misconception has recently led me to one of the most striking realizations I have had about the faith in which I was raised. It finally dawned on me that Christianity is, in many respects, the result of the inevitable fusion of Greek and Judaic cultures.
This cultural confrontation begins with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who brought under Greek control territories that today include northern Egypt, Israel, parts of Jordan, Syria, most of Anatolia, Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, northern India, and much of Central Asia, including Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Prior to this period, the Jewish people had experimented with various forms of self-government, including theocracies and theocratic monarchies, with mixed results. At times they fared better as subjects within larger empires, such as under the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. Yet they had never encountered a culture quite as bewildering as that of the Greeks.
Greek and Jewish civilizations possessed the two largest bodies of written literature in the ancient world up to that point. Jewish literature was more extensive, but both traditions were ancient, sophisticated, and complex. As Paul Johnson observes in A History of the Jews:
“The Jews knew all about Greek militarism, for they served the Greeks as mercenaries, as they had served the Persians. Greek military training began in the gymnasium, the principal educational instrument of the polis. But that was not its only function. Its main purpose was to promote Greek culture, as were the other institutions with which each polis was equipped: the stadium, the theatre, the odeum, the lyceum, the agora. The Greeks were superb architects. They were sculptors, poets, musicians, playwrights, philosophers and debaters. They were excellent traders too. In their wake the economy boomed.”
Large numbers of Greek colonists settled in Syria and Palestine, bringing their culture with them. Many Jews found themselves deeply attracted to Greek individualism, personal freedom, and the sense of belonging to a universal culture that characterized Greek cities—particularly when contrasted with the more rigid, and at times tribal, collectivism of rigorist Jewish groups. From the outset, Jews recognized that Greek cultural influence posed a profound challenge. It was simultaneously a temptation, due to its liberal ideas; an opportunity, because of its thriving economy; and a threat, backed by overwhelming military power.
Responses to this civilizational pressure varied. Some withdrew into the desert in an effort to purify themselves and return to Mosaic roots, as seen among the Essenes and the Qumran community. Others adapted, learning Greek and adopting both Jewish and Greek names for commercial and social purposes. This was especially evident in the Jewish community of Alexandria, the largest outside Judea, and the site where the Septuagint—the first Greek translation of the Pentateuch—was produced.
The ancient and sophisticated monotheistic worldview of the Jewish people, with its rigorous moral structures and deeply humanistic vision, thus encountered the universalist, multicultural, multilingual, and radically inclusive outlook of the Greeks. This was the cultural landscape of the Middle East into which Christ—Ichthys—was born. In retrospect, all of these developments appear necessary for the emergence of a new religion that would confuse—in the sense of blending so thoroughly that later separation becomes impossible—the strongest elements of Jewish monotheism with those of Greek universalism.
Perhaps it is the rain that is making me reflective. In any case, I am going fishing in a small charquito I found just outside.
Several works served as inspiration for this essay, including Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews and A History of Christianity; Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Robert Graves’s I, Claudius; Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian; as well as the writings of C. S. Lewis, Josephus, Tacitus, Livy, and others.
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