Alexander to Actium (Hellenistic Culture and Society) by Peter Green

Author:Peter Green [Green, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Bibliography, History
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 1990-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

Fig. 153. Raphael’s Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple (1512–14): Heliodorus is attacked by three angels, who were traditionally supposed to have frustrated his attempt at raiding the treasury of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Vatican Museums.

This point is worth stressing, since it has been forcefully argued,90 and widely accepted, that what Jason asked for, and got, was the transformation of Jerusalem, by fiat, into a full-blown Greek polis, a thesis for which there is no compelling evidence. Indeed, it is hard to see how, in practical terms, so unprecedented a change could have been imposed, not least since Jerusalem remained under priestly rule throughout. There was not, as yet, any hint of interference with Jewish religious practices (except insofar as the sale of the high priesthood and the introduction of Greek fashions could be held, per se, to constitute offenses against the Jewish faith), and at the time of Antiochus IV’s famous letter rescinding his religious persecution91 the Jews were clearly still regarded as an autonomous, if tributary, ethnos.92 At the very most, it seems clear, what Jason envisaged was a privileged enclave, a Greek-style politeuma within the Jewish theocracy; and probably no more, in fact, than the creation of a specially favored cosmopolitan class dedicated to social and political self-advancement via the promotion of Hellenism.93

In this latter aim, however, he enjoyed, for a year or two, a certain succès de scandale. Antiochus cheerfully authorized the “Antiochenes” to “perform the rites of the heathen.”94 The gymnasium was built on the Temple hill, below the fortress, and crowds of young men, wearing the broad-brimmed hat (petasos) of the ephebe, among them some priests who had abandoned their more decorous Temple duties for the lure of naked athletics (in particular discus throwing), now began to exercise with the enthusiasm of converts.95 For many the urge to break away from the isolation imposed by strict Judaism had become very strong. However, these impassioned would-be Greeks had one embarrassing problem to overcome: the highly un-Greek fact of their circumcision. In one scholar’s delicate phrase, they “employed artificial means to efface it.”96 Just how they “concealed” or even “removed” evidence of the mohel’s knife is not at all clear.97 All we know is that a surprising number of people did so.98 Yet there were some aspects of Hellenization that still caused qualms to Jews, however liberal in their beliefs and practices. When Jason sent a delegation of “Antiochenes” to Tyre, with a cash offering to Heracles-Melkart on the occasion of the quinquennial games instituted by Alexander,99 the syncretistic gesture misfired: his emissaries, unable to stomach the idea of placating a heathen god against whom Elijah and Elisha had triumphed, arranged for the sum—three hundred silver drachmas—to be applied instead to the construction of triremes.100

Oddly enough, in all this there does not seem to have been any technical violation of the Mosaic Code.101 Athletic games and physical training might not be in the spirit of the Torah, but Moses had never specifically banned them: neither Egypt nor the wilderness had forewarned him of this eighth plague.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.