HELIENIST (Gr. Hellegistes), the name given to those among the Jews, and after wards in the Christian church of Judea, who, either by birth or by residence, and by the adoption of the Greek language, manners and usages, were regarded as Greeks, in opposition to the Hebrews properly so called, whether of Palestine or of the dispersion. The name has sometimes been improperly restricted to persons of Greek parentage or descent; but like other Gentile names of the same form, it marks a class distinguished by the peculiar habits and language of Greece rather than by Greek descent. The Ifellenists, in this sense, formed a distinct body, and stood in a relation of rivalry, if not of antagonism to the Hebrews (see Acts vi. 1. and ix. 29). There is also a clear distinction between Hellenes (Greeks—from Hellas, q.v.) and Hellenists. The latter might, it is true, be Hellenes by birth, but the prominent idea conveyed by the name was rather the adoption or affectation of Greek manners and language than Grbek parentage or blood.
At the time of our Lord's crucifixion, the Jews of the dispersion were to be found In almost every part of the Roman empire; but it was among the Jews settled in Alex andria that the Hellenizing tendency found its freest development; and it is to that city that we. must refer the formation as well of that peculiar dialect of the Greek language which is known as the Hellenistic, as of that singularly acute and speculative philosophy Which exercised so large an influence on those early Christian schools, of which Origen is the most famous exponent.
The really characteristic element of the Hellenistic Greek consists in its foreign, and especially its Hebrew and Aramaic words and idioms. Although it was in its origin a purely popular form of the language, yet its being employed in the Alexandrian or Septuagint version of the Old Testament, has given to it all the fixedness and definite character of a written language. The Hellenisms of the Septuagint differ in many respects from those of the New Testament, which again present some points of discrepancy with those of the Alexandrian fathers; but there are certain leading characteristics common to them all, which constitute the distinctive" forms of the dialect, and which may also be described as peculiarities of structure and forms of thought derived from those Hebrew or Aramaic idioms which were the native modes of speech of the Greek-speak ing Hebrews.
The influence of the Hellenistic modes of thought on the philosophy of the Alexan drian schools will he traced under the head of the NEo-rLAToxiC PnimsOPIly. See Frankel, Monatsehrift (1855); also Winer, GTarnmatile, des Test. Spraehidionts (2(1 edition).