05 May 2022
Living within a Hellenistic social context at odds with their religion, an inherent tension between opposition and integration existed within every Jew who resided outside of Judea. As a missionary living in and traveling throughout the Diaspora, Paul was no stranger to this cultural tension, yet it is difficult to place him within the continuum of resistance to accommodation. In Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, he simultaneously assimilates to the Greek use of rhetoric while asserting his own Jewish identity. To bolster his credibility and convince his audience that he understands their point of view, Paul employs ethos by reminding them that he not only “was extremely zealous for the traditions of [his] fathers,” but he was also even among those who “persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:14, 13). Barclay also describes how Paul “never lost his sense of belonging to, and even representing, the Jewish people” (395), which is evident in Galatians 2:15 when Paul explicitly asserts his Jewish identity: “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles.” In communicating how he resonates with the Jewish people, he also uses the familiar categorization of Jew/Gentile, which is an interesting sign of resistance that will be expanded upon later in Galatians.
Despite being primarily focused on the cultural antagonism between Jews and non-Jews, a clear strand of universalism is still present in The Wisdom of Solomon. Rather than relying on the ethnic labels of Jew/Gentile, the author never identifies “God’s children” as Jewish, instead juxtaposing the righteous and the wicked while emphasizing God’s care for all people: “For thou lovest all things that exist, and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made” (Wis. 11:24). Similarly, in chapter 3 of Galatians, Paul expands the boundary of who can identify as a child of Abraham, as he writes, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (v. 28-29). Paul’s rejection and redefinition of these ethnic and social categories invoke a universalist character that pushes Paul’s letter more toward the accommodation side of the continuum.
However, this movement toward cultural convergence is halted by how Paul’s view of the world remains rooted in his Jewish heritage. Other Jewish writers would use Hellenistic frameworks to assert their own Jewish identity. For example, Barclay describes how in Ezekiel’s play “[s]uch details, and the persistent allusions to Greek literature and history, suggest a conscious attempt to align Jews with Greeks in their common Egyptian environment” (136). Even though Paul was surrounded by Hellenistic culture, he never reaches outside of Judaism to place his ideas or definitions into Greek frameworks. At the close of chapter 5 in Galatians, Paul enumerates “the acts of the flesh” that bar you from the kingdom of God, then he lists the values of which “the fruit of the Spirit” consists (v. 19-23). As Paul draws a clear divide between Hellenisitic behaviors and Jewish morals, he maintains the traditional categories of righteous-Jew/sinful-Gentile that were introduced in Galatians 2:15. By operating exclusively within the Jewish framework instead of using Greek elements more familiar to his Gentile audience, Paul appears to be resisting Hellenization.
As the sign of the covenant between God and man, circumcision was a Jewish ancestral custom of utmost importance in early Judaism – it was the very thing that marked Jews as God’s people. In 2 Maccabees 6, circumcision is depicted as a practice for which Jews were even willing to be martyred: “two women who were arrested for having circumcised their children were publicly paraded about the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then thrown down from the top of the city wall” (v. 10). Despite Christianity being built out of Judaism, Paul disregards the laws that many Diaspora Jews clung to as an affirmation of their Jewish identity. In Galatians 6:15, Paul’s disparagement of the law and circumcision comes to a climactic peak: “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.” There could be no clearer sign of accommodation to Hellenization than excusing Gentile Christians from circumcision and denouncing its meaning altogether. Given Paul’s bold accommodation in his interpretation of the law, yet lack of acculturation in his conceptuality, in his Letter to the Galatians, Paul is able to represent both the impulse to oppose Hellenization and the impulse to assimilate to the culture of the Gentiles.
In Menahem Stern's Greek and Latin Authors on the Jews and Judaism, Vol. 1, a variety of elite Roman authors create an atmosphere of hostility toward the Jews through their criticisms and labels of Judaism’s identities and practices. For example, Cicero labels the Jews as “superstitious” and “barbaric” (197), while Seneca mistakes Jewish Sabbath rituals for “idleness” (431). With misunderstandings like these causing Diaspora Jews to live in constant fear of persecution, it seems as though James’ letter to those “scattered among the nations” (1:1) is an expression of his concern for oppressed Christian-Jews. Unlike Paul, who himself lived outside of Judea, James writes his letter to the Diaspora churches as a member of the Jerusalem community, or, as an outsider. Reading almost as an instruction book, the dogmatic nature of the James’ letter hints at a resistant stance toward Hellenistization: “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you” (James 1:21). The suggestion that his audience is morally filthy and evil, coupled with the overall pedagogical structure of the letter, seems to imply that James did not think that his audience even knew how to live correctly and honorably. James resists Hellenization in order to encourage the scattered churches to live in a way that warrants no persecution.
As described within the discussion of Galatians, circumcision was an essential ancestral custom that served as the visible sign of a Jew’s justification and salvation. While Paul’s denial of the salvic ability of works of the law reflects his mission’s push toward accommodation to Hellenization, James’ discussion of faith and works pulls him in the opposite direction. In chapter 2, James asks, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” (v. 14). To James, faith not accompanied by action was “dead” (v. 17). If circumcision can be thought of as the ultimate, most fundamental “action” of faith, James’ emphasis on the importance of deeds can also be seen as a resistance against the compromising of ancestral customs.
As another example of a piece written in response to persecution, Jospheus’s Against Apion is a clear apologetic in defense of early Judaism. In Against Apion, Josephus forms critiques against Greek practices and beliefs: “Instead, as if this were the most trifling of details, they allowed the poets to introduce what gods they chose, subject to all the passions, and the orators to pass decrees for entering the name of any suitable foreign god on the burgess-roll” (2.251). Through his criticism, Josephus separates Jewish and Greek practices and depicts Greek beliefs as erroneous. In his letter, James likewise separates the “wisdom that comes from heaven” from the “wisdom” that is “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:17, 15). James also encourages the Christian-Jews to not simply live like their Greek neighbors: “You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). Drawing these divides between Hellenistic culture and Jewish culture within the framework of traditional Jewish categories demonstrates the resistant impulse that is present in James’ letter.
The Letter to the Galatians and the Letter of James illustrate two different types of early Christianity: James presents a type of early Christianity that was working to preserve the integrity of its Jewish roots, while Paul presents a type of early Christianity that was willing to compromise to create a more Gentile-inclusive community. Thus, James represents a more resistant form of early Christianity, while Paul represents a more accommodative form of early Christianity. Based on their geographical locations and how those settings informed their social context, Paul’s letter is also more representative of early Christianity within the Diaspora, while James’ letter provides the perspective of early Christianity within Judea.
As this unit closes, I am able to reflect on the ways that I am now more sympathetic to Christian Jews who I might have been labeled as “legalistic” for pushing to maintain the traditions of early Judaism. It’s really easy for me to forget that Christianity grew out of Judaism, and with that now at the forefront of my mind, I find it almost surprising that not every Christian Jew was aggressively antagonistic to Hellenization, since their spiritual and religious life had been based around Jewish traditions for so long. I can’t imagine how scary it must have been to be pushing to preserve the integrity of something that meant so much to you, while even other Christian Jews were pushing in the opposite direction, let alone while the threat of external persecution was perpetually buzzing in your ear. It also makes me more sympathetic to understand the full context of the letters – especially the intended audience of Jewish Christians in the Diaspora and what it means to identify with that community. For example, I never stopped to think about how Paul wasn’t just writing to random people “in Galatia,” he was writing to Christian Jews living within the religious and social turmoil of the Diaspora.
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