While the Jews lived on their land, with the Temple in their midst, they had a high level of spiritual awareness. Prophecy was a constant factor in their lives. These centuries also saw the rise of other empires: Greece, with its scientific and artistic excellence, and Persia and Babylon, with highly developed sorcery cults of a kind that has now disappeared. The Greek world produced many truly great thinkers, such as the philosopher Aristotle, but its cult of beauty also led many people to a self-indulgent way of life, immoral and idolatrous.
===Greek influence in conflict with Torah===
Thus, inevitably, through this Gentile Greek influence as well as others, there were elements that came into conflict with Torah and the world of Jewish learning. During the early years of the Second Temple, these forces mounted an all-out campaign to conquer the land of Israel and to force the Jews away from the Torah. These Greeks opposed the Torah as much because of the Seven Laws as from any concern over the life led by the Jews themselves. They wanted to pollute Jewish wisdom with impure concepts to the point where it would lose the capacity to influence non-Jews in favor of Noachide practice. They sent troops into the Holy Temple itself in an attempt to destroy its altars and to contaminate the sacred olive oil used for lighting the lamps. This was no act of random destruction: this oil and its light correspond in the Temple service to the maintaining of pure Torah wisdom.
