The Jewish and Christian account of the creation in contained in Chapter one and the first three verses of Chapter 2 of the book of Genesis. It is the finest prose-poetry that I know. As a poetic account of the Creation, I do not think it can be improved upon; and it is entirely worthy of its theme, which is to describe the stupendous fact of Creation. From my reading Professor Caird’s book “The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers”, I get the impression no Greek account of Creation exists at all. I know of none.
This is exactly what you would expect, contrasting the fierce monotheism of the Jews with the immoral Greek pantheon. The Jewish account has God creating Man in his own image; the Greek gods were surely created to some extent to satisfy the psychological needs of intelligent men? The consequences are also what you would expect. For the Jews, appointing a King was almost a betrayal of the “Kingship of God”; the Greek city states elected their Kings, and experimented with forms of government. So while the secular history of Israel was a bit of a shambles, because at first Judges were expected to arise from among the people to deal with any crisis, and then autocratic Kings, who of course made mistakes when power went to their heads; in contrast in the Greek city states the art of government was assiduously studied. And the pre-eminence of the Greek method ended with the conquests of Alexander the Great, and the spread of Hellenic culture far and wide. Jewish religion has spread far and wide, but there has never been the remotest prospect of Jewish culture doing so.
The scribes who compiled the book of Genesis had no hesitation in claiming to know the thoughts and actions of the Creator; so there is no harm in my doing so too. History surely suggests that the Almighty decided to introduce His Incarnation into the world, in the person of Jesus, when the Roman Empire was at its zenith; when the Augustinian peace had dawned, and before decay had seriously begun. There was free movement in the Empire, for those who were free. So the message could travel far and wide in a remarkably short time. At first the message was simply to believe in Jesus; the Church had no need to consider Law and Order, except that St.Paul urged Christians to be law-abiding. The Romans maintained Law and Order, and woe betide anyone who interfered with their prerogative. But after Nicea in 325AD, when Christianity became the official religion of the Empire, it should have occurred to Church leaders that they must express some views on the relationship between Church and State; and that meant they must have views, and think about it.
You could say that after Nicea, the Church was faced with the challenge, or even the vocation, of reconciling the practical necessities of governing a civil community, with the imperative of remaining faithful to the one true God, who created everything. The Church failed hopelessly. As Professor Caird writes in the last chapter of his “Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers”, the Church only considered the Incarnation as it concerned Jesus, and never went on to consider its application to normal Man. Had they gone on to consider normal Man, it might have occurred to them that they should consider what part he should play in the maintenance of Law and Order. They didn’t; in short, the early fathers failed to understand the very subject that they were supposed to know about. Two thousand years later, the clergy are no better. Is it surprising that the C.of E. today is heading for the scrap heap of terminal decline?
By 406AD. when the German tribes crossed the frozen Rhine, and for three years turned Gaul into a flaming desert, the Gallic clergy’s thoughts had only progressed to blaming this awful calamity on the failure of the population to repent; while the clergy in Italy continued their persecution of the Pelagian heresy. A more inept response to the crisis is hard to imagine. In 410AD. Alaric the Goth, having ravaged Greece, sacked Rome. In response to that tragedy, Augustine was moved to write his “City of God” in defence of Christianity. The traditional gods, it was said, would not have allowed the sack to happen.