Hellenistic Jews needed to pick and choose between the various methods of consolation within their biblical heritage and their Greco-Roman culture to interpret suffering, offer comfort, and issue advice about how to behave in hardship.
See also Hellenistic Jews and Consolatory Rhetoric: 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews (Mohr Siebeck, 2023).
By Christine R. Trotter
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
Georgetown University
May 2025
In the Hellenistic and early Roman periods, Jews of various identities and social locations wrestled with theodicy and God’s purposes in suffering as a number of defining events seemed to contradict God’s covenantal promises that obedience to God’s law would be rewarded with life and disobedience would be punished with death. The fact that Jews who appeared to be the most faithful to the God of Israel were those most likely to suffer and die during the persecution of Antiochus IV in Jerusalem (168–167 BCE) constituted a theological problem that needed a solution. In 38 CE, Alexandrian Jews were attacked by their Greek neighbors and forced to eat pork under threat of torture, once again prompting questions about the value of fidelity to God and the meaning of suffering. When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE and razed the Temple, the sense of crisis only became more acute. Each of these events spawned texts which attempted to make sense of why God had allowed such atrocities to occur. Hostility and violence towards followers of Jesus also catalyzed theological creativity during this period, as advocates of the gospel grappled with the reality that faithfulness to its demands could result in suffering and death (e.g., see 1 Thessalonians, the earliest document of the New Testament).
How did Hellenistic Jewish writers attempt to comfort and encourage those living in the midst of and in the wake of religious persecution and violence? Scholarship has explored this question primarily in terms of the rise of Jewish apocalypticism (Portier-Young 2011, xxii; Collins 1998, 157) and the related development of afterlife beliefs during the Hellenistic and early Roman periods (Elledge 2017; Nickelsburg 2006). While studies on these topics are essential, a more comprehensive approach investigates how Hellenistic Jewish authors engaged with ancient consolatory rhetoric (Trotter 2023).
Ancient consolatory rhetoric consists of the means of persuasion by which ancient writers sought to alleviate grief and encourage distressed individuals to behave admirably in trying circumstances. Consolers employed such rhetoric to transform emotions and behavior. In terms of emotional transformation, the consoler attempted to guide a distressed person out of grief and towards joy (grief and joy were conceptualized as opposite emotions). Crucial to this endeavor was persuading the suffering person that their circumstances were tolerable. To this end, the consoler used rational arguments against grief they hoped could enable the distressed person to interpret their calamity through a more empowering frame. For example, understanding suffering as an indication of God’s displeasure could inflame grief but viewing suffering as a sign that God is testing his people could motivate individuals to rise to the occasion and prove their character. Arguments against grief are known as “consolatory arguments.” As for behaviors, the consoler instructed distressed individuals to cease from activities thought to intensify or prolong grief (e.g., fasting, mourning, ignoring self-care) and to adopt behaviors thought to ameliorate grief (e.g., returning to work, expressing gratitude, praying). These instructions given to suffering audiences are known as “consolatory exhortation.” By attempting to change both the emotions and behaviors of a suffering person, consolers tried to rescue an individual from the pits of despair and return them to their normal life as efficiently as possible.
To analyze ancient consolatory rhetoric is to enter into a bustling conversation of interlocutors of diverse religious, philosophical, and cultural identities. The schools of Hellenistic philosophy espoused different methods of comforting a bereaved or distressed person, such that within the umbrella category of Greco-Roman consolation, we find Platonic consolation, Stoic consolation, Peripatetic consolation, Epicurean consolation, and Cyrenaic consolation. In practice, Greek and Roman consolers freely mixed and molded methods from multiple philosophical schools, and it was no different among Hellenistic Jewish consolers. While they selectively employed the consolatory methods of their Greco-Roman culture, they also negotiated diverse perspectives on the meaning of suffering and the role of a consoler within their biblical heritage. For example, within ancient Jewish consolation, Paul A. Holloway has distinguished “the wisdom tradition,” “the prophetic tradition,” and “the apocalyptic tradition” of consolation (2009, 86–112). In sum, Hellenistic Jews needed to pick and choose between the various methods of consolation within their biblical heritage and their Greco-Roman culture to interpret suffering, offer comfort, and issue advice about how to behave in hardship.
Within Hellenistic Jewish consolation literature from the second century BCE to the end of the first century CE, we find three paradigmatic ways that Hellenistic Jewish consolers navigated the diverse resources within biblical and Greco-Roman consolation. First, they may accept aspects of Greco-Roman consolatory rhetoric as compatible with strands of biblical consolation and integrate both into their work (what I term the compatibility paradigm). Second, they may reject assumptions, methods, and/or arguments of Greco-Roman consolation as incompatible with their faith in the God of Israel (the rejection of Greco-Roman consolations paradigm). Third, they may reject certain assumptions and arguments within biblical consolation as inapplicable to the situation of their persecuted readers (the rejection of biblical assumptions and arguments paradigm). Finally, Hellenistic Jewish consolers may employ elements of multiple paradigms simultaneously, something they often did when formulating ideas about what happens after death.
Hellenistic Jewish consolers often agreed with their Greek and Roman counterparts regarding how to behave in adverse circumstances: a person should be calm, courageous, grateful to God/the gods, joyful, and fulfilling their obligations (rather than withdrawn and idle). For this reason, the consolatory exhortations of Hellenistic Jews significantly overlap with those of Greek and Roman consolers (Trotter 2023, 294–296). Nevertheless, Hellenistic Jewish consolers often imbued these same pieces of advice with a theocentric orientation by justifying the advice with consolatory arguments centered on the power and activity of the God of Israel. The Stoic philosopher Seneca urges bereaved individuals to “rejoice” because of the friends and loved ones they have had, rather than to “grieve” because they have lost them (Polyb. 11.1–3; Ep. 99.3–4). The apostle Paul instructs the bereaved Thessalonians to “rejoice at all times” and grounds this command in “the will of God in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:16, 18). The author of 4 Ezra (late first-century CE) instructs a mother and sons, “Rejoice … because I will deliver you, says the Lord” (4 Ezra 2.30–31; Metzger 1983, 527). Contrary to their Greek and Roman peers, Hellenistic Jewish consolers based admirable conduct in trying times in their confidence in their God’s ability to intervene in history to vindicate his people and punish their oppressors. Instead, Greek and Roman consolers were apt to support their exhortations with traditional sayings of the wise, stories of role models who also suffered (known as exempla), and arguments based on honor and shame.
Notwithstanding general compatibility on consolatory exhortations, Hellenistic Jews rejected a common way that Greeks and Romans conveyed sympathy. An expression of sympathy was an expected component of any written consolation, as it functioned to first gain the goodwill of the distressed audience by communicating fellow-feeling before trying to persuade them to change their point of view and behavior. One way Greeks and Romans accomplished this goal was to start their work by accusing the gods (especially Fate and Fortune) of cruelty and injustice (e.g., Seneca, Polyb. 2.2, 7; Plutarch, Cons. Apoll. 104D). Hellenistic Jewish consolers rejected this form of sympathy emphatically, maintaining that God was good and just despite whatever calamity had befallen his people. In its place, Hellenistic Jewish consolers often conveyed sympathy by communicating that they too (or a larger community) were also suffering. Yet unlike their Greek and Roman peers, they were hesitant to express grief about whatever calamity had occurred. To do so would counteract the positive interpretations of suffering that they advocated: that suffering is God’s discipline, is cleansing, is part of God’s good plan, is a test, is a sign of their election, etc. (Smith, 2002; Dumke 1980).
In terms of consolatory arguments, Hellenistic Jews rejected consolations used by their Greek and Roman peers that contradicted their view of God’s power and justice. It was normal within Greco-Roman consolation to state that nothing could be done to change the situation (Chapa 1998, 34). This was supposed to motivate survivors to accept their circumstances, endure, and move on. Hellenistic Jewish consolers, however, frequently claimed that God could change the situation and directed those under their care to hope in the Lord to deliver them and wait for his intervention. Another common consolatory argument among Greeks and Romans was that people who had died returned to the same state as they were before birth (e.g., Plutarch, Cons. Apoll. 109F–110A; Seneca, Ep. 54.4–5). This idea was intended to allay fears that the dead were suffering. Hellenistic Jewish authors rejected this consolatory argument because it disallowed the potential for God to reward and punish individuals after death, something many Hellenistic Jews viewed as essential when exceptionally pious people were killed without having received their reward from God while wicked people appeared to prosper in life (e.g., 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon). For God to execute justice necessitated extending the timeline in which God could reward and punish into the afterlife.
Because the Bible contains a diversity of perspectives on suffering, death, and afterlife, Hellenistic Jewish consolers did not reject “the biblical view” on any topic but favored certain biblical voices over others. Many rejected the widespread biblical assumption that suffering is the result of sin, deeming it inadequate to explain situations in which righteous people were suffering precisely because they refused to transgress God’s laws (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon) or boldly proclaimed the gospel (e.g., 1 Thessalonians, Hebrews). The predominant biblical assumption that death is final and results in neither postmortem reward nor punishment was also frequently challenged by Hellenistic Jewish consolers. Instead, they developed biblical perspectives that maintained that God’s relationship with individuals extended beyond death (e.g., Isa 26:19; Jer 31:15–17; Dan 12:2–3).
Hellenistic Jewish consolers held disparate views about the afterlife, yet their writings do exhibit certain tendencies in terms of how they responded to the various positions held by the philosophical schools of their day. Generally, they judged the Platonic idea that individuals are judged after death on the basis of their deeds to be compatible with the justice and power of the God of Israel. As a corollary to this belief, they usually rejected the Epicurean view that a deceased person no longer exists, as well as the Stoic perspective that the souls of all people could live on in heaven for a time. Eager to demonstrate that God keeps his covenantal promises, Hellenistic Jewish consolers developed their ideas on the afterlife with a view to what they deemed necessary for God to bless his faithful people and punish the wicked.
While the overt goal of consolatory rhetoric is to comfort distressed people, Hellenistic Jewish authors frequently used consolatory rhetoric as a means to other ends as well, such as reasserting the justice, power, and goodness of the God of Israel in dire circumstances and persuading readers to obey God’s commandments when faithfulness to God incurred real risks to one’s safety. The author of 2 Maccabees, for instance, incorporates consolatory rhetoric into his history to solve the problem of theodicy and convince audiences that obeying God’s laws is in their best interest individually and as a nation. The apostle Paul employs consolatory rhetoric to assure the Thessalonians that their suffering is not an indication that they did something wrong, but an expected outcome of holding fast to the gospel. For recent Gentile converts, this consolation is important for convincing them to stay the course rather than return to the worship of their former gods.
Although consolatory writings by Hellenistic Jews exhibit diverse perspectives, there are common threads that distinguish this body of literature from both prior biblical consolation and Greco-Roman consolation literature. In contrast to their biblical predecessors, who usually interpret suffering and premature death negatively as the result of transgression against God, Hellenistic Jewish consolers promote nonpunitive interpretations of suffering and death. They urge their readers to recognize that God is in control and will benefit his people through hardship and death, even if they cannot see it yet. Hellenistic Jewish consolers attempted to counter the impression created by suffering that God is absent, impotent, or unfaithful by arguing that what appears to be contrary to God’s plan is actually within God’s plan to give his people a better future. They affirmed that God is present, powerful, and faithful while fostering hope that God would soon deliver his faithful ones out of their suffering. In this respect, their consolation stands out from that of their Greek and Roman counterparts, who urged those under their care to bravely bear circumstances which could not be changed.
References
Chapa, Juan. 1998. Letters of Condolence in Greek Papyri. PapyFlor 29. Firenze: Edizioni Gonnelli.
Collins, John J. 1998. “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End.” Pages 129–61 in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. Vol. 1: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity. Edited by John J. Collins. New York: Continuum.
Dumke, James Arthur. 1980. “The Suffering of the Righteous in Jewish Apocryphal Literature.” PhD diss., Duke University.
Elledge, C. D. 2017. Resurrection of the Dead in Early Judaism 200 BCE-CE 200. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holloway, Paul A. 2009. Coping with Prejudice: 1 Peter in Social-Psychological Perspective. WUNT 244. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Metzger, Bruce M. 1983. “The Fourth Book of Ezra: A New Translation and Introduction.” Pages 517–59 in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments. Edited by James H. Charlesworth. ABRL. New York: Doubleday.
Nickelsburg, George E. 2006. Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity. HTS 56. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Plutarch. 1927–1969. Moralia. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt et al. 15 vols. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Portier-Young, Anathea E. 2011. Apocalypse Against Empire: Theologies of Resistance in Early Judaism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Seneca the Younger. 1917–1925. Epistles. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. 3 vols. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
–––. 1928–1935. Moral Essays. Translated by John W. Basore. 3 vols. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Smith, Barry D. 2002. Paul’s Seven Explanations of the Suffering of the Righteous. StBL 47. New York: Lang.
Trotter, Christine R. 2023. Hellenistic Jews and Consolatory Rhetoric: 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews. WUNT 2/600. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.