Hellenization

[1] The similar word Hellenism, which is often used as a synonym, is used in 2 Maccabees[2] (c. 124 BC) and the Book of Acts[3] (c. AD 80–90) to refer to clearly much more than language, though it is disputed what that may have entailed.

(1st century fortifications at Pelum in Galatia, on Baş Dağ in Lycaonia and at Isaura are the only known Hellenistic-style structures in central and eastern Anatolia).

The Lydians had been particularly receptive to Greek culture, as were the 4th century dynasties of Caria and Lycia as well as the inhabitants of the Cilician plain and of the regions of Paphlagonia.

By the beginning of the Archaic period, settlement of Anatolia had begun to grow at a quick rate, and proper colonies in the traditional sense were established in the form of predominantly Greek city-states (πόλεις, póleis).

Extensive trade between mainland Greece and the Hellenistic portions of Anatolia was underway by the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, with fish, grain, timber, metal, and often slaves being exported from the land.

[18] Ionian, Aeolian and Doric settlers along Anatolia's Western coast seemed to have remained culturally Greek and some of their city-states date back to the Archaic Period.

Jason had established institutions of Greek education and in later years Jewish culture started to be suppressed including forbidding circumcision and observance of the Sabbath.

[23] Hellenization of members of the Jewish elite included names and clothes, but other customs were adapted by the rabbis, and elements that violated the halakha and midrash were prohibited.

One example is the elimination of some aspects of Hellenistic banquets, such as the practice of offering libations to the gods, while incorporating certain elements that gave the meals a more Jewish character.

[25][26] A bilingual Phoenician and neo-Hittite Luwian inscription found at Karatepe, dated to 800 BC, says that the ruling dynasty there traced their origins to Mopsus.

[19][25] Mopsus, whose name is also attested to in Hittite documents, may originally have been an Anatolian figure that became part of the cultural traditions of Pamphylia's early Greek settlers.

Based on Panemoteichos I and other Iron Age sites, including the Phrygian Midas şehri and the Cappadocian fortification of Kerkenes, experts believe that "behind the Greek influence that shaped the Hellenistic Pisidian communities there lay a tangible and important Anatolian tradition.

"[27] According to the writings of Arrian the population of Side, who traced their origins to Aeolian Cyme, had forgotten the Greek language by the time Alexander arrived at the city in 334 BC.

Finds from the abandoned Hellenistic era settlement include imported and locally produced imitation Greek-style terracotta figurines and ceramics.

Under Roman rule in the 1st century BC, there is evidence of Hellenistic style funerary architecture, decorative elements, mythological references, and inscriptions.

Hengel argued that virtually all of Judaism was highly Hellenised well before the beginning of the Christian era, and even the Greek language was well known throughout the cities and even the smaller towns of Jewish Palestine.

Scholars have continued to nuance Hengel's views, but almost all believe that strong Hellenistic influences were throughout the Levant, even among the conservative Jewish communities, which were the most nationalistic.

In his introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth discussed the profound influence of Stoic philosophy on Christianity:

Again in the doctrine of the Trinity, the ecclesiastical conception of Father, Word, and Spirit finds its germ in the different Stoic names of the Divine Unity.

The Church had only to reject the last of these terms to arrive at its own acceptable definition of the Divine Nature; while the further assertion 'these three are One', which the modern mind finds paradoxical, was no more than commonplace to those familiar with Stoic notions.

[33]The Greek East was one of the two main cultural areas of the Roman Empire and began to be ruled by an autonomous imperial court in AD 286 under Diocletian.

Most of the name changes took place in areas populated by ethnic Greeks in which a stratum of foreign or divergent toponyms had accumulated over the centuries.

[45] Relations too between Arvanites and other Orthodox Albanian-speaking communities such as those of Greek Epirus are mixed, as they are distrusted regarding religious matters due to a past Albanian Muslim population living amongst them.