The Lost and Hostile Gospels / An Essay on the Toledoth Jeschu, and the Petrine and Pauline Gospels of the First Three Centuries of Which Fragments Remain

by S. Baring-Gould

First let us consider the causes which contributed to the creation of the prejudice against the Hellenizers. Judaea had served as the battle-field of the Greek kings of Egypt and Syria. Whether Judaea fell under the dominion of Syria or Egypt it mattered not; Ptolemies and Seleucides alike were intolerable oppressors. But it was especially the latter who excited to its last exasperation the fanaticism of the Jews, and called forth in their breasts an ineffaceable antipathy towards everything that was Greek.

The temple was pillaged by them, the sanctuary was violated, the high-priesthood degraded. Antiochus Epiphanes entertained the audacious design of completely overthrowing the religion of the Jews, of forcibly Hellenizing them. For this purpose he forbade the celebration of the Sabbaths and feasts, drenched the sanctuary with blood to pollute it, the sacrifices were not permitted, circumcision was made illegal. The sufferings of the Jews, driven into deserts and remote hiding-places in the mountains, are described in the first book of the Maccabees.

Yet there was a party disposed to acquiesce in this attempt at changing the whole current of their nation's life, ready to undo the work of Ezra, break with their past, and fling themselves into the tide of Greek civilization and philosophic thought. These men set up a gymnasium in Jerusalem, Graecised their names, openly scoffed at the Law, ignored the Sabbath, and neglected circumcision.[1] At the head of this party stood the high-priests Jason and Menelaus. The author [pg xvii] of the first book of the Maccabees styles these conformists to the state policy, “evil men, seducing many to despise the Law.” Josephus designates them as “wicked” and “impious.”[2]

The memory of the miseries endured in the persecution of Antiochus did not fade out of the Jewish mind, neither did the party disappear which was disposed to symbolize with Greek culture, and was opposed to Jewish prejudice. Nor did the abhorrence in which it was held lose its intensity.

From the date of the Antiochian persecution, the names of “Greek” or “friend of the Greeks” were used as synonymous with “traitor” and “apostate.”

Seventy years before Christ, whilst Hyrcanus was besieging Aristobulus in Jerusalem, the besiegers furnished the besieged daily with lambs for the sacrifice. An old Jew, belonging to the anti-national party, warned Hyrcanus that as long as the city was supplied with animals for the altar, so long it would hold out. On the morrow, in place of a lamb, a pig was flung over the walls. The earth shuddered at the impiety, and the heads of the synagogue solemnly cursed from thenceforth whosoever of their nation should for the future teach the Greek tongue to his sons.[3] Whether this incident be true or not, it proves that a century after Antiochus Epiphanes the Jews entertained a hatred of that Greek culture which they regarded as a source of incredulity and impiety.

The son of Duma asked his uncle Israel if, after having [pg xviii] learned the whole Law, he might not study the philosophy of the Greeks. “ ‘The Book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night.’ These are the words of God” (Josh. i. 8), said the old man; “find me an hour which is neither day nor night, and in that study your Greek philosophy.”[4]

Gamaliel, the teacher of St. Paul, was well versed in Greek literature; that this caused uneasiness in his day is probable; and indeed the Gemara labours to explain the fact of his knowledge of Greek, and apologizes for it.[5] Consequently Saul, the disciple of Gamaliel, also a Greek scholar, would be likely to incur the same suspicion, as one leaning away from strict Judaism towards Gentile culture.

The Jews of Palestine viewed the Alexandrine Jews with dislike, and mistrusted the translation into Greek of their sacred books. They said it was a day of sin and blasphemy when the version of the Septuagint was made, equal only in wickedness to that on which their fathers had made the golden calf.[6]

The loudly-proclaimed intention of Paul to turn to the Gentiles, his attitude of hostility towards the Law, the abrogation of the Sabbath and substitution for it of the Lord's-day, his denunciation of circumcision, his abandonment of his Jewish name for a Gentile one, led to his being identified by the Jews of Palestine with the abhorred Hellenistic party; and the Nazarene Christians shared to the full in the national prejudices.