Potter again: “Not all gods stayed at home. In the centuries after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia, eastern peoples appear to have been drawn west in greater numbers, possibly because new centers of power such as Alexandria and Pergamon made the Aegean lands far more important than they had been in the past.”
They brought gods wth them gods like “Zeus Hadad” who “was originally from northern Syria and was understood not as a local manifestation of the Greek god, but rather as the supreme god to whom the closest approximation was Zeus.”
There was lots of Zeuses: “In some areas we find dedications to Zeus the Highest, ‘Dios Hypistos’; in others worship of Theos Hypistos - Highest God - and in others, more simply, Highest, Hypsistos. At Stratoniceia in Caria, for instance, there are dedications to Zeus the Highest and another divinity whose name is rendered variously as ‘the Divine,’ or ‘The Divine Messenger,’ ‘the Divine Heavenly Messenger,’ ‘the Divine Good’ or even ‘the Divine Royal.’” Elsewhere, there are dedications to “Zeus the Highest and the Hearer,” anlaogous to Jewish designations of their God as “Highest.”
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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