What was this complaint that came from the Hellenistics and Hebraics in the early Church in Jerusalem? The Hellenistic Jews are Jews that became Christian and lived for a long period away from Palestine where they received some of the Hellenistic culture. Those were not able to understand the Aramaic language that was used by the people in Palestine including Palestinian Christians. On the other side, those who the book of Acts calls Hebraic Jews were the Jews of Palestine that became Christian and didn’t immigrate, so they refused to speak except using the national language of the people of Palestine, i.e. Aramaic.
The Hellenistic Jews complained against the Hebraic Jews saying that “their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food”, i.e. in the aids that were distributed.
Each of these two communities had its own synagogue (It is what we call today the Knesset) so that they could understand preaching with their own language.
It is known that the Torah was only read in Hebrew for both the Hellenistics and the Hebraic, however that language was not used anymore. Therefore, they used to preach using Greek or Aramaic according to the linguistic knowledge of every nation.
When this problem appeared, the Apostles assigned seven men. Most of the interpreters said that this selection was the establishment of the system of deacons and the church named the martyr Saint Stephen, who was one of them, a deacon.
The apostles laid their hands on them and this expression indicates the process of the sanctification of a work that’s related to Sacraments and is not a simple blessing. Assigning a person to take care of the widows’ aids does not require the laying of hands. It is significant that in this selection the first one named was Stephen who was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”, and this means that he was not ignorant in the knowledge of faith and this is obvious from his speech to the Jews who killed him by stoning.
After that, the epistle says: “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples (i.e. number of Christians) in Jerusalem increased rapidly”. Later, the word “disciples” was replaced by the word “Christians” in Antioch. Then the epistle says: “and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith”. This refers to the Jewish priests that started believing in Jesus, and this explains that the Jewish community persecuted them because of that and that’s what made one of the great Christians to write an epistle to the Hebrews to strengthen through faith the priests that converted into Christ and the Jews that were under oppression.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “السبعة” –Raiati no19- 08.05.2011
