Google Alerts and Hanukkah

It is now the holiday season, which means that my inbox is flooded with Greek Gods alerts associated with Hanukkah.

I had little idea before now just how many Jewish bloggers think that Antiochus IV is indicative of what Hellenic Polytheists of any era might feel/have felt about Judaism. Right now, I would like to take the opportunity to provide you with one Hellenic view of the situation: Antiochus IV was a d****e and/or an idiot. Quite frankly, other Greek leaders of the same period confronted the monotheistic religion with much more tolerance, even though monotheism was something many of them did not understand. Antiochus IV was also a d****e to other Hellenes, if it makes any difference.

Please, as you look forward to your sacred festival, remember that not all Hellenists want you to memorize Homer or offer Zeus a hecatomb of white bulls. To close, I would like to provide the following quotation from Julian, the last Emperor of Rome to observe the primary religion* of his ancestors, during his famed essay against Christianity:

I am one of those who avoid keeping their festivals with the Jews; but nevertheless I revere always the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; who being themselves Chaldaeans, of a sacred race, skilled in theurgy, had learned the practice of circumcision while they sojourned as strangers with the Egyptians. And they revered a God who was ever gracious to me and to those who worshipped him as Abraham did, for he is a very great and powerful God, but he has nothing to do with you [Christians]. For you do not imitate Abraham by erecting altars to him, or building altars of sacrifice and worshipping him as Abraham did, with sacrificial offerings. For Abraham used to sacrifice even as we Hellenes do, always and continually. And he used the method of divination from shooting stars. Probably this also is an Hellenic custom. But for higher things he augured from the flight of birds.

Happy Hanukkah.


* “Primary religion” is a term coined by Jan Assmann in Religion and Cultural Memory. It essentially refers to faiths that are based on cult (evolving worship) rather than a specific sacred text. Assmann argues that religions that are book-based generally have a strong rupture with a previous cult-based tradition.