The two main traditions in the way of thinking, that is, the Greek way of thinking and the Hebraic way of thinking, have been running as two main substreams in Western literature and culture in general. To comprehend these two traditions will be to understand the birth place of English literature, which has been neglected so far by literary students. The concern of this paper is to compare the two traditions in connection with the way of viewing God, Nature and Man during the 600－year period covering B.C. 900－B.C. 300 when the world had not been Hellenized yet.1. The understanding of God:The Greeks and the Hebrews all thought of God as transcendental as an eternal being. The transcendency of God, however, meant different things to the two ancient peoples. For the Greeks, it meant timelessness as against birth and death, and transcendence of the spirit as against body and emotion. For them God was the law of spirit which brought harmony and form to the universe. The Greeks read God's wisdom from the purposefulness of the organic cosmos.The Hebrews believed in the loving care of God, Creator of the world, who performed actions participating in the history of man. God was for them the object of admiration and surprise, not that ofagnosticism.
2. The understanding of Nature:For the Greeks Nature existed by itself and for itself. They closely observed and verified Nature. Reason led them to reach the wisdom of God which was the harmonious universal law. The mastery of this law or God's wisdom helped them to cultivate the natural sciences. On the other hand, the Hebrews thought that Nature was created by God out of nothing. Nature did not exist by itself. She was something created by means of the action of God. The world for the Hebrews was the world in which You and I formed a relation of interaction as two different individuals. And Nature was nothing but a stage on which human beings performed actions and made histories.
3. The understanding of Man:The Greeks characteristically regarded man as composed of body and soul. Body was a temporary being to be trained and overcome through training. And soul was the trained inner－spirit and the very maker of a true human being. The Greeks gave the ultimate priority to the spirit over the body. Contrariwise, the Hebrews did not know how to distinguish spirit from body. They merely presumed that soul animates and enlivens the body. They did not ever stop to ask, "What is man?", as the Greeks did. Instead their question was, "Adam, where are you now?" Thus their concern was not for mankind in general but for individuals like 'you' and 'I' at the specific station of place and time. A man for Greeks was ultimately a spiritual being. A man for Hebrews was a being of will.