To the impious Greek, martyr meant witness, just a man who proclaimed guilt or innocence before a judge. A Christian martyr was different. He proclaimed to everyone. He proclaimed that Jesus, a Jew who had died three hundred before in…

As the gods were active in the world and as action implies reaction, they could be influenced by appropriate rituals, mostly ancient. Not for control, for the lessor cannot control the greater, but for harmony and unity. With appropriate actions,…

Jewish wisdom was in their books. But only they knew their language and many of them, no longer in their land, were losing that as they adopted Greek. The Pharaoh of Egypt, himself Greek, wanted their wisdom in his great…