faithfulness, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word.
Quite simply, a perfect list of everything that would have been absolutely stressed as essentials in the classical Hellene philosophies. Basically Christianity, Islam &Judaism at their best & highest expressions are just forms instituionalized earlier profound Greek Philosophy. With heavy does of that accrued wisdom literature that predates Abraham by some 5000yrs Life, the emrgence of civilization & evolution is always continuum, small changes over time.
That emergent pacifism, yielding & philosophical bent of the stubborn violent orthodox Hebrew mind, so stressing ethnic purity & exclusion, was completely altered & modified by that huge Hellene cultural influx dominance which opened up a cosomopolitan outlook which was inclusive ie: the proto-Christian evolutionary offshoot.
Evolution is everywhere, God is change, but having the Greeks come in, their language & culture adopted starting in 300BC, thats where everything is altered, God becomes God of all nations. a much larger cosmology meditated on, that replaces the old 'scape goat' tiny tribal origins.
(and cursing fig trees & swines ) |
