Even though the Prince of Greece was defeated by the Maccabees, a few centuries later he came back for a second round this time using the Roman empire, a round which still continues to this day…
As mentioned in the first article in this series, the Romans did not do away with Greek culture, in fact they built their empire on it. They even borrowed from it in their persecution of the Jews. In the 2nd century CE part of their persecution of the Jews included banning reading the Torah (Acts 15:21) and the pronunciation of God’s name (sounding familiar?) – a direct repeat of Antiochus Epiphanes prohibitions.
In 136 CE the Romans sentenced rabbi Hanina ben Teradyon to death for pronouncing God’s name and holding public readings of the Torah (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 18a). As an aside, this is a proof that the name was well known and pronounced not only by the rabbis more than 100 years after the time of Christ but was also known by the Romans otherwise they couldn’t have recognised that he was using it.
On top of this, the New Testament writers regularly warned us against false teachers who were to come. In Paul’s second letter to Timothy…
2 Tim 3:13–17 & 4:3-4
But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work…
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables…
In 3 John we see these people infiltrating the assembly…
3 John 9-10
I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the pre-eminence among them, does not receive us. Therefore, if I come, I will call to mind his deeds which he does, prating against us with malicious words. And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the assembly.
So here we have someone with a very Greek sounding name banning the beloved Jewish disciple John (Yeshua’s brother and author of several New Testament books) from meeting with fellow believers… the rot had already started.
After the deaths of the first apostles, which was around the same time the Romans started banning the name and the reading of Torah, a breed of “leaders” emerged who were steeped in Greek thought and philosophy and were determined to exert their control over the believers (the assembly). They are usually referred to as the “Church Fathers” most of whom were Greek anti-Semites (and therefore anti-Hebraic). The “church” they “fathered” bears little resemblance to the New Testament assembly handed down by the apostles. Through them the prince of Greece pushed Greek philosophy and thinking into the body of Messiah. They worked tirelessly to insert control systems and remove any Hebraic (in their view “Jewish”) elements from the faith and for all intents and purposes they created a whole new religion which is today called “the Christian church”. At the time many believers didn’t buy into this Greek invasion, however those who did set things up for Constantine when he decided to join the party and announced he had become a Christian around 312 CE.
As Constantine got more involved with his new found faith he found to his horror that much of the body of Christ had remained faithful to God’s instructions (Torah). They were keeping the Sabbath and God’s appointed times (the biblical feasts) which to Constantine’s Greek mind it seemed they were exhibiting “Jewish” behaviour (a people loathed by the Romans). He either didn’t understand or didn’t care that it was actually biblical behaviour so he set about completely reorganising and “improving” the church with the express purpose of getting rid of anything “Jewish” and imposing his (Greek) rules and paganism onto it.
Constantine’s god was Mithra the sun god. He never renounced this god and had images made with Mithra adorned on them long after his supposed conversion to Christianity. In fact he syncretised Christianity into Mithra worship by redefining his pagan worship customs as the newly acceptable Christian worship of God. At the same time he removed the Torah, its practices, its feasts, the Sabbath etc. He put the prince of Greece round II into full swing.
In 325CE Constantine introduced Christmas as an immovable feast on December 25th – Antiochus Epiphanes and Christmas ham anyone? The abomination of pigs and sun worship returning in the second takeover bid of the temple of God (this time the temple was His people Eph 2:19-22).
The Council of Nicea (325 CE) was also his first official attempt to stop believers observing Passover and making them observe the fables of 2 Tim 4:4 – the pagan fertility goddess’ rites of Easter/ Eostre/ Ester/ Ishtar/ Astarte/ Asherah/ Ashtoreth (pick your pagan Gentile religion, they’re all worshiping the same principality). In Constantine’s instructions to the council he wrote “Let us then have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries…”
However, the true followers of Messiah kept observing God’s instructions and appointed times for many centuries despite on-going persecution from Rome.
Throughout Catholicism’s history we see “the church” repeatedly trying to stamp out Christ’s “body” and turn it into the “church”…
The Council of Antioch in 345 CE excommunicated believers who celebrated Passover;
The Council of Laodicea in 365 CE banned believers from “Jewish” festivals and observance of the Sabbath;
The Council of Agde, France in 506 CE still trying to ban believers from participating in “Jewish” festivals;
The Council of Toledo X in 656 CE again positioning the Easter observance over Passover;
The Council of Nicea II in 787 CE excommunicating believers who observed Sabbath or any other practices “in the manner of the Jews.”
So more than 450 years after Constantine’s first Council of Nicea, Catholicism was still trying to stop believers from practicing a biblical faith. The prince of Greece is waging an unrelenting war on the bible, the Torah, God’s ways and His name, a war still very much in play today.
As the prince of Greece progressed his infiltration, he set up his “official” body of Messiah, named it “the church” (in the New Testament texts, the Greek word for “church” does not appear anywhere), changed its thinking, its theology, its feasts, its authority structure and its teaching. He paganised its practices, introduced Asherah (Easter) and Mithra (Christmas) worship, banned the Sabbath and moved its gatherings to a SUNday morning (the worship day and time of Constantine’s SUN god Mithra). All in all he converted Christianity to sun god worship.
Today’s “Christian” churches, be they Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic, Protestant, Pentecostal or anywhere in between are still languishing in the shadow of the prince of Greece. We have been un-grafted from the true olive root of our biblical (Hebrew) roots (Rom 11:16-27) and re-grafted onto the dead tree of Greek paganism (the fables spoken of in 2 Tim 4:4). We need to repent from our pagan practices and return to God’s ways as outlined in His book, the practices the apostles handed down to us before they were taken away by men controlled by the prince of Greece.
Going back to what Paul told Timothy in (2 Tim 3:13–17)…
“But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work…”
Paul’s mention of the Holy Scriptures can only refer to the Tanakh (Old Testament), because the New Testament wasn’t written when Timothy was a child.
Therefore, Paul says the Tanakh makes us wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus! It is also profitable for doctrine, reproof, instruction in righteousness making us complete and equipped for good works. When was the last time you were taught these things from the Tanakh? How much has the prince of Greece coloured your interpretation of scripture? Theology and practice looks very different when one takes a Hebraic view of the bible. We have been deceived by impostors and evil men (2 Tim 3:13).
In Part 4 we’ll see how the prince of Greece has affected both our theology and the way we interpret scripture.
Shalom and God Bless.