The Literature and History of New Testament Times. J. Gresham Machen
is invading the earth's remotest bounds. China, at last, is within our ken. Realms long closed have at last been opened. Another great opportunity! An opportunity for greed and selfishness! An opportunity for a dismal skepticism! And an opportunity for the Church of God!
In the Library.—Hastings, "Dictionary of the Bible": Adeney, article on "Cæsar"; Gwatkin, articles on "Roman Empire," and "Rome." Hastings, "Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics": Iverach, article on "Cæsarism." Westcott, "The Two Empires," in "The Epistles of St. John," pp. 250–282. Ramsay, "The Cities of St. Paul," pp. 48–81.
LESSON III
THE GREEK BACKGROUND OF CHRISTIANITY
The purpose of the present lesson is to make the student feel that the gospel was from the beginning a real gospel in a real world. If we isolate the early preaching from its environment, we make it seem like an unreal thing. Study of New Testament times makes the New Testament itself become a more living, a more interesting book.
In the Student's Text Book an outline of the Hellenistic age has been provided. It has been supplemented below by illustrative material. But in the class the lesson can probably be best approached from the side of the New Testament itself. In what languages is the Bible written? How did the New Testament come to be written in Greek? What other languages are mentioned in the New Testament? What light do these passages shed upon the linguistic conditions of the time? What is the attitude of the apostles toward Greek thought? Is that attitude altogether unfavorable, or did the early missionaries ever lay hold upon the higher aspirations of their Gentile hearers (Athens)? Where did the missionaries come into contact with heathen superstition? (Several fine examples in The Acts). What was the moral condition of the Greco-Roman world? How was the Hellenistic age like our own? Why did God send our Lord just in the first century? What was the social condition of the early Christians? Do you think that was an advantage or a disadvantage? What men of higher position are mentioned in the New Testament? Questions like these will serve to relate the general expositions in the lesson helps to the New Testament itself. The lesson helps are intended to provide merely the presuppositions necessary for intelligent study. God working for real men in a real world—that is the subject of the lesson.
1. THE HELLENISTIC AGE
The Greek world culture which prevailed after the conquest of Alexander was widely different from the Greek life of the classical period. The earlier period is called the "Hellenic" period, the later period is designated as "Hellenistic." When Greek thought made itself master of the world, it became mingled with numberless foreign elements. The mixture appears most clearly, perhaps, in the sphere of religion. Polytheism was capable of indefinite expansion. New gods could easily be identified with the old, or else be received along with them without a conflict. The religion of the Greco-Roman world is therefore different from that of ancient Greece. It is a curious mixture of the most diverse beliefs. Nevertheless, the whole deserves to be called Hellenistic, because even the most strikingly non-Grecian elements were usually subjected more or less to the subtle molding of the Greek spirit.
The Hellenistic age used to be despised, but among modern scholars it is coming into its own. Its literary products are admittedly inferior to the glories of the earlier age, but even in literature its achievements are not to be despised, and in other spheres it is supreme. Notably in mathematics and in natural science it was the golden age. Euclid, the geometrician, lived three centuries before Christ.
The learning of the Hellenistic age was centered in Alexandria in Egypt, a city which had been founded by Alexander the Great. Athens had, perhaps, ceased to possess the primacy. That fact is typical of the time. Greek culture had ceased to belong to Greece in the narrower sense. It had become a possession of the world. The great library of Alexandria was a sign of the times. The Hellenistic age was an age of widespread learning.
When Rome became master of the eastern world, conditions were not fundamentally changed. Rome merely hastened a process that was already at work. Already the nations had been brought together by the spread of Greek culture; Roman law merely added the additional bond of political unity. The Roman legions were missionaries of an all-pervading Hellenism.
The Greco-Roman world was astonishingly modern. It was modern in its cosmopolitanism. In our own time the nations have again been brought together. The external agencies for their welding are far more perfect to-day than they were under the empire. Even the Roman roads would be but a poor substitute for the railroad and the telegraph and the steamship. But on the other hand we lack the bond of a common language. In some ways the civilized world was even more of a unit in the first century than it is to-day.
The cosmopolitanism of the Roman Empire was a God-given opportunity for the Church. In a cosmopolitan age, if a man has something to say, he will not lack for an audience. His message will be understood in one place as well as in another. The lesson is obvious for the Church of to-day. Again God has opened the world before us. If we have a message, in God's name let us proclaim it while yet there is time.
2. THE GREEK BIBLE
The Church originated in Palestine. The first missionaries were native Jews. Yet even they had been affected by the cosmopolitanism of the time. Even they could use Greek, in addition to their native language. And Paul, the greatest of the missionaries, though a Jew, was a citizen of a Greek city. The Church from the beginning was able to speak to the larger world.
One difficulty might possibly have arisen. The Christian mission was not carried on merely by the oral word. From the beginning Christianity was a religion with a Book. And that Book was not Greek. On the contrary it was intensely un-Grecian. The Old Testament is intolerant of heathen ideas. It is deeply rooted in the life of the chosen people. How could a Hebrew book be used in the Greek world?
The difficulty might have been serious. But in the providence of God it had been overcome. The Old Testament was a Hebrew book, but before the Christian era it had been translated into Greek. From the beginning Christianity was provided with a Greek Bible. It is always difficult to make a new translation of the Bible. Every missionary knows that. The introduction of a new translation takes time. It was fortunate, then, that a Greek-speaking Church had a Greek Bible ready to hand.
Everything was prepared for the gospel. God's time had come. Roman rule had brought peace. Greek culture had produced unity of speech. There was a Greek world, there were Greek-speaking missionaries, and there was a Greek Bible. In the first century, the salvation that was of the Jews could become a salvation for the whole world.
3. THE PAPYRI
The world in which the gospel was proclaimed is deserving of careful study. How shall it be investigated?
The most obvious way is to study the literature of the period. Until recent years that was almost the only way. But that method is partial at best. For literature is after all but an imperfect measure of any age. The society that is found in books is an idealized society, or at any rate it is the society of the great. The plain man is unrecorded. His deeds are not deemed worthy of a place in history.
Within the last thirty years, however, the plain people of the ancient world have come remarkably into view. They are revealed to us in the "non-literary papyri."
"Papyri" are pieces of papyrus. Papyrus was the common writing material of antiquity up to about AD 300, when vellum, or parchment, came into general use. Unfortunately papyrus, which was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, is not a very durable substance, so that ancient papyri have been preserved until modern times only under exceptionally favorable conditions. These conditions are found in Egypt, where the dry climate has kept the papyrus from disintegration.
In Egypt, within