Richard Hopkins notes that according to the prophecies in the Old Testament (e.g., Isaiah 11:10), New Testament (e.g., Romans 11:25), and the Book of Mormon (e.g., Jacob 5:7-17), the Gentiles (Hellens) were to be drawn to Christ following His mortal ministry when Israel would reject Him (Isaiah 53). In the Allegory of Zenos, after the natural branches of the olive-tree fail to produce good fruit, we find that the Lord of the vineyard instructs his servant to “take thou the branches of the wild olive-tree and graft them in, in the stead thereof” (Jacob 5:9). Thus, according to Hopkins, the Gentiles [or branches of the wild olive-tree] were expected to take from the Jews [or the branches of the natural olive-tree] the mantle of the Gospel and be grafted into the tree [Christianity] until the last days when … the “times of the Gentiles” would be “fulfilled” (D&C 45:25).
At the time Isaiah announced this prediction [or at the time Zenos pronounced his allegory] reasonable men could have seen it as ludicrous. How could a pagan, polytheistic society of depraved idolaters be brought to a point where they would even be interested in the Gospel, let alone supplant the House of Israel as its chief proponent? What could possibly have predisposed the Gentiles to accept Christ in such numbers that Christianity would become the dominant religious system of the Gentile world in less than three hundred years after Christ’s death? The answers to these questions are essential to an understanding of what happened to the early Church as it made the transition from Jewish exclusivity to Gentile dominance.
The foundation for the change started very shortly after the first prophecy of its occurrence was given… That was when a major shift in Gentile worship began through the medium of the classical Greek philosophers… . Although there are not enough resemblances between Greek theology and Judaism to conclude that the philosophers derived very many of their ideas from the Old Testament, there are several similarities. These similarities ultimately caused the Gentiles to be both attracted to the full truth and the Gospel and confused by the erroneous elements that remained in Hellenism… .
Hellenism, the philosophy and religion of the Greeks at the time of Christ, was founded primarily on the ideas of six Greek thinkers: Phythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, who were active from around 550 B.C. to about 350 B.C. It should be remembered that the ideas of these Greek philosophers were truly revolutionary. They contradicted the prevailing views of the pagan system, and the men who advanced them waged the same battle for religious liberty fought by reformers in every age. The movement even had its own martyrs, Heraclitus and Socrates being among the most noted. Over the centuries that followed, the distinctive ideas of these men grew into various schools of thought. The beliefs of those schools were gradually syncretized in the minds of the Greek public so that by the time of Christ, they were viewed by most of the Gentile world as a single monotheistic system of beliefs distinct from the polytheism and pantheism of the older, though still popular, pagan religions… .
Through its pervasive education system, Hellenism invaded Christianity with the same force Christianity invaded Hellenism. The result was a subtle transformation in the ideas of the Church. Among Bible scholars, prophesies of an apostasy from the teachings of Christ are well known. The issue for them is not whether it would occur, but when. Until recently, it would have been unnecessary to prove to Protestant theologians that prophesies of a great apostasy were fulfilled during the Dark Ages, when the Church was under Roman rule. Today, however, many Evangelical Christian scholars deny that any such apostasy occurred. Mormonism teaches that it has already occurred. It is Richard Hopkins’ contention that the apostasy in regard to the central points of biblical theology was complete by the end of the second century A.D. He documents in a very detailed and organized manner how the Gentiles corrupted the Christian concept of God. However, what amazes him most is not that the apostasy occurred, but that it did not result in an even greater departure from the truth. Thus, we find in Jacob 5:15-17:
And it came to pass that a long time passed away, and the Lord of the vineyard said unto this servant: come, let us go down into the vineyard, that we may labor in the vineyard… . And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: Behold, look here; behold the tree. And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard looked and beheld the tree in the which the wild olive branches had been grafted; and it had sprung forth and begun to bear fruit. And he beheld that it was good; and the fruit thereof was like unto the natural fruit.
[Richard R. Hopkins, How Greek Philosophy Corrupted the Christian Concept of God, pp. 34-36, 79, 84-85