“I think it is also a matter of the believe that
Greek—read pagan- thought had now contaminated Christianity. It is the whole “dehellenization” thing. Since the Christological dogmas are expressed in Greek terms that they are no longer persuasive.”
I take it these Western philosophers confused pagan Hellenism with the New Israel of The Fathers because both expressed ideas in Greek? Ironic that it was the West which was truly the heir to Hellenic paganism.
The pope has in several books, taken pains to advocate the need to go back to the fathers. He also has pointed out that the Judaism of Our Lord time was greatly affected by the Greek-Jew relationship, which was both antagonistic and symbriotic. Josephus is a great if flawed example of a Phrarisee who is hellenized but not. Modernist scholars came up with the idea that the Gospel were produced late in part because they were written in Greek. Since Paul wrote—so as we know exclusively in Greek, and since Acts recounts the squabbling between the Hebrew and the Greek Jews in the Jerusalem, and since all evidence shows that the whole of the Holy land was colonized, with rich Greeks and rich Jews holding estates in the land, why not just assume that the place was bicultural, and likewise the Church. Furthermore, given the proximity of Nazareth of a Greek City, there is no reason to deny emphatically that He spoke Greek, even though his mission was to “Hebrew-speakers.” especially since it is like that his family were among the colonizers from Judah?