The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah Vol 1 - Predestination

came to be very largely charged with Greek, and
even Latin, words Hebraised, since this is easily
accounted for by the new circumstances, and the
necessities of intercourse with the dominant or
resident foreigners. Nor is it requisite to point out
how impossible it would have been, in presence of
so many from the Greek and Roman world, and
after the long and persistent struggle of their rulers
to Grecianise Palestine, nay, even in view of so
many magnificent heathen temples on the very soil
of Palestine, to exclude all knowledge of, or
contact with, Grecianism. But not to be able to
exclude was to have in sight the dazzle of that
unknown, which as such, and in itself, must have
had peculiar attractions to the Jewish mind. It
needed stem principle to repress the curiosity thus
awakened. When a young Rabbi, Ben Dama, asked
his uncle whether he might not study Greek
philosophy, since he had mastered the * Law' in
every aspect of it, the older Rabbi replied by a
reference to Josh. i. 8: * Go and search what is the
hour which is neither of the day nor of the night,
and in it thou mayest study Greek philosophy.' *