When Christianity left its Hebrew homeland and entered the Greco-Roman world, it fell under the influence of that world’s philosophical climate. The Greek cultural heritage is one of intellectual curiosity, and for that all of humanity (including the Church) should be grateful.

Christianity began in Israel and radiated outward to the rest of the Mediterranean world. Before ascending to his Father, Jesus instructed his followers that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his [the Messiah’s] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24: 47). The earliest Christians were Jews, who brought the good news of the Messiah Jesus to other Jews and to the surrounding gentile world. When Gentiles received the gospel, the worship of a God of reason, love, and mercy provided a relief from their burden of idolatry of capricious deities, a sense of meaning they lacked before, and hope of a better future in a kingdom that God had launched with Jesus’ resurrection—a kingdom that would bring restoration and healing between God and humanity and the eventual abolishment of death itself.

The Christian message came with a rich Hebrew or Judaic background with which Gentiles were unfamiliar at first. The question of whether Christian converts needed first to become Jews or observe the Mosaic law was hotly debated in the early Church. St. Paul answered in the negative: God’s grace trumps the rituals of the Law as far as gentile converts are concerned. While absorbing the fullness of Hebrew revelation, Christians from the Greek-speaking world began thinking about their faith in terms of the search for wisdom, or philosophy. An early Christian philosopher from Samaria, St. Justin Martyr, engaged in debate with a Jewish rabbi in his Dialogue with Trypho. The theologian St. Irenaeus of Lyons labored to keep Christian belief rooted in the biblical worldview, stemming the tide of Gnosticism. In Roman North Africa, Tertullian used satirical invective to argue for Christianity’s superiority over gentile beliefs and lifestyles. There was a lively interaction between Christianity and both Jewish and gentile culture.

The same Jesus who praised the faith of the Roman centurion (Mt 8:5–9) and accepted the visiting Greeks (Jn 12:20–26) doubtless fully expected that the gospel would find a home in all three cultures, and indeed in all the cultures of the world.

Here I would like to reflect a bit on what happened to Christianity when it expanded from its Judean homeland and entered the gentile world. Much conservative writing emphasizes the harmony and unity between the three ancient cultures (those of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome) that contributed to Western civilization. Such a celebratory stance is wonderful and necessary. But it is equally important to point out possible areas of tension. Tertullian put the question in stark terms: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” (a rhetorical question that is best understood in context).

The question of continuity in religious teaching is, of course, very important in the Catholic faith. As a Catholic, I believe that God protects, guides, and loves his Church, that he shields it from harmful error. I believe in the fundamental unity of the Church through history, and so I cannot accept the argument put forth by some critics that Christianity actually became a different religion in the fourth century when it achieved official status in the Roman Empire.

Likewise, to suggest that Christian teaching was corrupted by alien philosophical concepts is bound to be controversial. Yet our belief that the deposit of faith is whole and without blemish must be balanced against the reality that we receive religious truth through centuries of translation, commentary, and changes in culture and worldview. How can we sure that we are receiving the message with the same nuance and understanding that it was received by its original hearers?

While I can’t definitely answer this question, I do think that it is helpful to draw a distinction between orthodox and popular beliefs. Orthodox teachings sometimes mutate on their way down to the pews, and especially when it comes to finer theological points, reorientation and retrievals are always possible for us by dipping into the ancient sources of the faith. The Church, and we as its individual members, are “always being reformed” with reference to the age-old and unchanging sources of truth.

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When Christianity left its Hebrew homeland and entered the Greco-Roman world, it fell under the influence of that world’s philosophical climate. The Greek cultural heritage is one of intellectual curiosity, and for that all of humanity (including the Church) should be grateful. After all, it was only in philosophical Athens that St. Paul was at first given a willing hearing. There is a reason why the gospel was received so readily in the Greek-speaking world, for that culture had a strong openness to truth.

But Greek philosophical culture also tended toward rationalism and individualism. In its most extreme form, as seen in gnostic thought, these tendencies became the belief in salvation through the mastery of an elite form of knowledge (gnosis). But even outside of Gnosticism, the basic premise of philosophy was that of an individual’s search for truth according to the dictates of reason alone.

We sense that the earliest Church fathers (e.g., Clement of Rome, Irenaeus) were at home and well versed in all three cultures, Jewish, Greek, and Roman. But during the fourth and fifth centuries, Greek philosophical influences—Platonic, Neoplatonic, and even gnostic—became more prominent. To a certain extent, this was inevitable as gentile Christian converts strove to reconcile the gospel’s Hebrew roots with their established Greek culture and worldview. Two early Greek Fathers, St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen, are credited with turning Christian theology in a Platonic direction, and the latter was a notable influence on St. Augustine of Hippo. Although Augustine formally abandoned the gnostic philosophy known as Manichaeism in favor of Catholic orthodoxy, traces of the former system became absorbed into his thought, leaving “a permanent imprint on his theological imagination” * particularly in the areas of sin, the will, and predestination. The Israeli Christian convert and scholar Eitan Bar has this to say:

As Christianity moved westward, it absorbed the dualisms of Greek philosophy and Gnostic speculation. In these systems, the world is a battleground—spirit versus matter, light versus darkness, soul versus body. The material world is often viewed with suspicion, even contempt. The ultimate goal becomes escape—“going to heaven” and leaving the “evil” world behind to burst in flames. This dualism finds echoes in modern Christian debates, especially where salvation is framed as individual and intellectual, and the world is seen as disposable.

One area of tension between Christianity’s Hebraic origins and Greco-Latin culture appears in the question of philosophy vs. faith. As mentioned previously, philosophy was understood as an individual search for truth based on reason alone. St. Paul famously wrote, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified…” (1 Cor 1:22). Paul seemed to imply that Jesus’ life satisfied both demands: for a sign from God, and for wisdom—albeit a wisdom that seems like folly to many.

Two different understandings of knowledge are at work here: strictly rational knowledge versus knowledge that is personal and open to a transcendent revelation. Especially beginning with the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, theology became systematized as Christians sought to define what they believed in clearer and more precise terms, often using categories and vocabulary from Greek philosophy. This was all to the good. But at the same time, to make salvation dependent strictly on doctrinal formulas can look suspiciously like the gnostic claim of enlightenment through abstract knowledge. There is then the danger of intellectual hubris: the pride in intellectual mastery that is characteristic of the gnostic, in contrast to the Christian attitude that regards knowledge as a sacred gift.

Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17: 3). This is personal, rather than strictly intellectual/propositional, knowledge—a knowledge rooted in love. Christian faith is not simply an exam in points of doctrine. It is a matter of loving God, loving Jesus, desiring to belong to his family which is the Church. If we belong to God’s family, we will want to know the truth about God, who God is and who we are in relation to him. We will want to become lifelong students of divine mystery. It is this kind of knowledge that is, or should be, at the heart of theology. Eitan Bar helpfully comments:

In biblical times, belief wasn’t an abstract idea or formula you mentally signed off on. Belief was a living force—so potent, so embodied, that Jesus said it could move mountains […] Faith wasn’t mere assent; it was an active trust that reshaped how a person lived and loved, and what kind of path they walked. Following the right way of faith—Jesus’ way—meant living a blessed life that showed God’s will in action.

The Greek pisteuó (to believe or have faith) originally meant trust in a person or their word, rather than merely intellectual assent—the kind of “belief” we reflect when we say that we “believe in” someone. Here again we see the strongly personal, relational Hebrew view of knowledge and reality. All too often we define our faith in terms of a set of abstract doctrines; the story that scripture is telling becomes little more than a pretext for the doctrines. But as our best contemporary theologians have reminded us, this is to get things precisely backwards. The story of God acting in history is the reality. The doctrinal formulations are attempts to capture that mystery in intellectual terms.

The point of religious doctrine, then, is to attempt to define intellectually a reality that is personal in nature. The Hebrews had their own wisdom tradition, as seen in the Bible’s Books of Wisdom, that was not rooted in Greek rationalism but in a communal piety.

Other tensions between the Hebrew and the Greco-Roman worldview come to the surface in how we view the concepts of time and eternity. Some of the best biblical scholars affirm that the Old and New Testaments have no concept of “eternity” such as we conceive it in modern Western culture. Partly owing to our Greco-Latin heritage, we tend to think of eternity as endless duration. But this is not the way the Hebrews viewed it, nor does such a conception reflect what is meant by the Hebrew and Greek words commonly translated in English as “eternal” and “eternity” (and related terms like “everlasting” and “forever and ever”).

Rather, the Hebrews understood time as (at least partly) cyclical and articulated in different ages. Two important contrasting terms were olam hazeh (the present world or age) and olam habah (the world or age to come). Jesus referred to the concept of olam habah numerous times and in a number of variants. He called it “the age to come” (Mt 12:32; Lk 18:30); “the last day” (Jn 6:39–40); “the new world” or “the regeneration” (palingenesia) (Mt 19:28); or simply “that age” (Lk 18:30). When we profess our belief in “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come” in the Creed, this is nothing less than the olam habah. The Hebrew understanding of time was personal and relational, never merely abstract. Time was keyed to God’s redemptive plan and was articulated in various stages throughout a centuries-long history of salvation.

Accordingly, Jesus’ phrase zōē aiōnios, usually rendered “eternal life,” could alternatively be translated “life of the age.” The Greek word aiōn (from which we get “eon” or “aeon”) means literally “age” or “period of time,” and aiōnios is that word’s adjectival form, meaning “pertaining to an age.” Aiōn in the New Testament was meant to translate the Hebrew word olam, also meaning age or period of time.

Thus, when Jesus speaks of “eternal life,” he has in mind something richer than merely “life that lasts forever.” The biblical concept of “eternal life” refers primarily to quality or depth of life rather than duration. When we read scriptural passages about “eternal life,” we are corrupted by our modern scientific worldview that sees life in purely biological terms. We have lost the holistic biblical sense of what fullness of life means. Thus, we are apt to be confused when we hear Jesus saying “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Here we see life defined qualitatively, as a matter of one’s relationship to God.

The Hebrew language had two contrasting concepts of life, chayei olam (corresponding with “eternal life” or “life of the age”) and chayei sha’ah (superficial, fleeing, or perishing life). Jesus’ use of “eternal life” was meant, in the Hebrew framework, to contrast with the superficiality of chayei sha’ah: a life lived merely for survival or pleasure, without deep roots or commitments.

The Greek language was similarly nuanced, having three words for life: bios (biological or natural life, the fact of breathing and functioning as a living organism); psychē (the life of the mind or soul); and zōē (divine or spiritual life). The person who knows God in Jesus already has zōē, the divine or God-like life—the life of God’s future age when his spirit will fill all things. Jesus’ resurrection life is already at work in one who believes; as Jesus declares, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The biblical concept of life is closely related to the biblical concept of blood as a source of redemption. In the modern Western world (I am not here speaking of ancient Greco-Roman culture) we tend to associate blood with gore and violence, but for the Hebrews blood was primarily a sign of life (cf. Leviticus 17:11). The Jewish sacrificial system saw blood as a means of atoning for sin by reinfusing life into death-infected areas of creation. In this sense blood has been likened to a sort of holy “disinfectant.” Christ’s death, effected through shedding his blood, was a sort of blood transfusion, giving believers new life in his name. Yes, his death was violent, but it was not the violence and the gore that were the actual agent of redemption. Rather, the agent of redemption was his precious blood: the life coursing through the Son of God’s veins.

Some atonement theories devised by Christian theologians down the ages have been decried, with reason, as nothing but a revival of pagan-style divine wrath-appeasement. Seeing the connection between blood and life helps us avoid these pitfalls. And without a doubt, retrieving these cultural connections can enrich our appreciation of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Mass.

There is a famous verse in John’s gospel that ties together a number of these insights. In John 3:16 we read that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” In the original understanding, “perish” (apollymi) referred not to burning in hellfire but to a present state of being morally lost, ruined, and broken. It is the same word that Jesus used to refer in his parables to the “lost” sheep, the “lost” coin, and the “lost” (prodigal) son. This idea of spiritual ruin is closely related to the image of fire in scripture, symbolizing God’s corrective punishment. Here too there is a gap between the ancient Hebrew and modern Western understandings. We think of fire as primarily destructive, but to the Bible’s original audience fire was an agent of testing and refinement. Metallurgists used fire to remove impurities from metal; similarly, fire in the Bible is the agent God’s tough but loving correction.

Eitan Bar speaks to the clash of cultures and understandings of revelation in this way: “To understand eternal life is to stop thinking like a Greek philosopher or a modern engineer and start thinking more like a Hebrew prophet and a Jewish rabbi.” He elaborates:

“Eternal life,” “entering life,” “entering through the narrow gate,” “entering the kingdom,” “walking the narrow path,” and “inheriting the kingdom”—these are not metaphors for an afterlife destination, but for a kind of life—already available to us in the present. […] The gospel is not merely a promise deferred to the future; it is an invitation into wholeness now—to stand upright, to breathe again, to live as we were created to live.

We should be fostering the resurrection life, the eternal life, in our present lives—through our relationship to God in Jesus, in the Church and her sacraments. Such a view can have a newly liberating meaning for us in our historical moment, just as the abandonment of idolatry had for Gentiles in the first century—filled as we are with soul-numbing distractions and the go-getting lifestyle of modern times that tend to make us lose sight of God entirely. In this way, a deeper understanding of the cultural and linguistic context of revelation can have a concrete effect on our lives.

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The attempt to represent Hebrew thought in the Greek language began at least as early as the Septuagint Bible, about 300 years before Christ. This translation of the Old Testament was made for the benefit of dispersed Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt, who understood Greek better than Hebrew. Thus, when the New Testament writers took on the task of rendering Jesus’ Hebraic message in Greek terms, this was nothing new to them. A good example is their translation of Jesus’ presumed word qāhāl (assembly or congregation) to the equivalent Greek term ekklēsia (public assembly of citizens), which became our “Church” (“upon this rock I will build my Church”). Likewise, the concept of “apostle” (one who is sent) was derived from the Hebrew term shaliah (an authorized representative). And the very word “gospel” (euangelion, good news) was an adaptation of the Greco-Roman concept of a royal decree.

Another major linguistic and cultural shift came with the birth of Latin-speaking Christian intellectual culture. St. Augustine, a Latin speaker from North Africa, was at the forefront of this. Almost unique among the Church Fathers, Augustine had very limited knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, and his understanding of scriptural texts was filtered through Old Latin translations that lacked the nuance of the original Greek. This led to errors that are now widely admitted by modern scholars, notably in the biblical concept of “eternity”: Augustine’s insights reflected a Neoplatonic bias in which time was viewed as merely a “degraded form of eternity.” The bishop of Hippo’s ignorance of Greek reflected a more general eclipse of that language (let alone Hebrew) in the West, a loss not fully recovered until the Renaissance. When we remember the importance of the language we use in conveying nuances of thought, this becomes a serious issue for how we understand the contents of revelation.

One of the effects of Gnosticism in the early Church was to sever Jesus from his earthly environment, including his Jewish heritage. Gnostics and other heretical teachers like Marcion taught that the religion of the Old Testament, with its supposedly angry and vindictive God, was a false religion, from which Jesus came to liberate us. In this reading, Christ came not to fulfill the Old Testament, but to correct (and presumably also abolish) it. Although the Church’s tradition formally eradicated gnosticism, subtle traces of it have remained on a popular level among believers.

It became common in some strains of Christian thought to see the Old Testament and the Jewish people of biblical times as “carnal-minded,” as focused on material concerns, heredity, and land, and the New Testament as bringing a more “spiritual” emphasis on the soul, virtue, and heaven. This is manifested also in the widely held cliché that the Jews “were waiting for an earthly, political Messiah,” a notion that needs a lot of unpacking to say the least. But such views do injustice both to the Old Testament and to the New. The teachings of Jesus are in continuity with the great Old Testament themes, without a break or rupture. Never did Jesus announce that he was preaching a new religion, or that he had come to teach a philosophical system. His job description (if we can speak in those terms) was that of Messiah, God’s anointed one come to fulfill a holy mission, to bring the salvation and restoration promised in Israel’s scriptures. What he did makes sense only within the spiritual framework of Israel’s established faith, even if it expanded the boundaries of that faith.

Being cut off for a long time not only from the Greek but also the Hebrew language and culture put Western Christendom at a disadvantage. To be sure, the Jews were considered to be of value as living history, as an enduring proof of the truth of the Old Testament; but the idea that a Christian could actually learn something from a living Jew was not at the forefront of most people’s minds. At times this bred an attitude of arrogant self-sufficiency, as if the Christian somehow owned God’s truth instead of having it as a sacred trust.

Such attitudes have been corrected through scholarship, as more Western scholars learned the original languages of scripture and thus gained access to finer theological nuances and historical context. But not all of these insights have filtered down to the popular consciousness.

They are always available, however, for those who want to go deeper into their faith, to become lifelong students of divine mystery. The case of “eternal life,” the redemptive power of blood, and the corrective action of fire illustrate how words, and thus religious concepts, can change their nuance or meaning when we translate them into a different cultural context. Religious doctrine doesn’t drop ready made out of the sky but is closely intertwined with history, language, and culture. Not only does God tolerate these intermediaries, he actively uses them to communicate his message in a richer and fuller way. To deny this is to fall prey to the gnostic impulse to flee from the concrete and the embodied into a world of purely abstract and idealized thought. Acknowledging the messiness of history is not a concession to relativism; it is a mature and realistic attitude, and one that implies the responsibility to seek the truth ever more diligently.

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Sources:

Eitan Bar, The Gospel Before Christianity: A Jewish Perspective on Jesus’ Atonement, Sacrifice, and Redemption

Mike Aquilina, The Apostles and Their Times

*Johannes van Oort, Mani and Augustine: Collected Essays on Mani, Manichaeism and Augustine, quoted in Bar, p. 238.

The featured image is “Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria” (between 1504 and 1507), by Gentile Bellini, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.