Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

The problem for the Jews was that, despite the success of their religion (as they saw it), their central political predicament had changed hardly at all. They were still a small people, uncompromisingly religious, surrounded by greater powers. From the time of Alexander the Great onwards, Palestine and the Middle East were ruled variously by Macedonians, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria. Each of these–and this is the crucial factor–was Hellenistic in outlook, and Israel became surrounded by cities, poleis, where, instead of the synagogue and Temple (as was true of Jerusalem), the gymnasium, the theatre, the lyceum, the agora and the odeum were the main cultural institutions. This was the situation in Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Tripoli and as a result the towns of Samaria and Judaea were regarded as backwaters. This cultural division succeeded only in driving the more orthodox Jews back on themselves. Many retreated to the desert, in search of a ritual purity which they felt was unobtainable in cities, even Jerusalem.