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But this much at least may be put down to his credit, that he lived to atone for the misrepresentation of the heroic struggle of the Jews with the Romans by preserving some record of many dark pages in their history and by refuting the calumnies of the Hellenistic vituperators about their origin and their religious teachings.
It could not indeed venture on open attacks, and such direct additions as were made by its means to religious conceptions e.g. the Pater Caelus formed by Ennius from the Roman Saturnus in imitation of the Greek Uranos were, while Hellenistic, of no great importance. But the diffusion of the doctrines of Epichar and Euhemerus in Rome was fraught with momentous consequences.
Drab clay, painted with red or black bands and details. Seals, &c. Inscriptions. IV. Persian Period. Weapons and implements. Iron. Pottery. White-yellow slipped ware with bands of black survives rarely from Age III. Stone vessels. Beads and seals. Scarabs and scaraboids in paste. Cylinders become scarce. V. Hellenistic. VI. Roman. VII. Byzantine.
Christianity at first sought for its credentials in Judaism, though the Jews saw very quickly that it 'destroyed the Law'. The belief of the Reformers was plausible; for they rejected just those parts of Catholicism which had nothing to do with Palestine, but were taken over from the old Hellenic or Hellenistic culture. But the residuum was less Jewish than Teutonic.
The first Jewish writer to show an intimate acquaintance with him and a clear idea of his relation to Jewish tradition was Azariah dei Rossi, who lived in the sixteenth century. His "Meor Einayim" dealt largely with the Hellenistic epoch of Judaism, and its attitude towards it is summed up in the remark that "all that is good in Philo agrees with our law."
There is the strongest evidence in Paul's epistles that he was well acquainted with the doctrines of Stoicism. The larger intellectual world of Philo of Alexandria and Seneca of the Imperial City lies behind these epistles. The Hellenistic Jew of the Dispersion differed widely from the Jew of Palestine, no matter how desirous he might be to identify himself with the worship at the Temple.
Thus whatever ideas were prevalent in Persia, in the Hellenistic kingdoms, or in Central Asia may also have been prevalent in north-western India, where was situated the university town of Taxila frequently mentioned in the Jâtakas as a seat of Buddhist learning.
This attribution of the doctrine of metempsychosis and eternal punishment is another piece of Hellenization, or a reproduction of a Hellenistic misunderstanding; for the Rabbinic records nowhere suggest that such ideas were held by the Pharisees.
The statue of Demosthenes is marvellous for truth; but it adds a touch of pathos; the statue of Lincoln misses the truth, through exaggerating the least pleasing features of the subject. When we want to ascertain how close Greek sculpture could come to actual fact, we turn from the great ideal age to the Hellenistic period.
It is no good symptom when there are almost as many female writers and female rulers as there are male. Such was the case, for instance, in the Hellenistic kingdoms, and in the age of the Caesars. What today is called by many the emancipation of woman would ultimately end in the dissolution of the family, and, if carried out, render poor service to the majority of women.
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