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THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE 
GREEKS  AND   ROMANS 


By 

Max  Radin 


158198 


Philadelphia 
The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America 

1915 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
The  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America 


t    t       « 


MATRI  MEM 

PIETATIS  ERGO 

HOC  OPUSCULUM 

D.  D.  D. 


PREFACE 

It  is  a  counsel  of  perfection  that  any  historical  study 
should  be  approached  with  complete  detachment.  To 
such  detachment  I  can  make  all  the  less  claim  as  I  freely 
admit  an  abiding  reverence  for  the  history  of  my  own 
people,  and,  for  the  life  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  a 
passionate  affection  that  is  frankly  unreasoning.  At 
no  place  in  the  course  of  the  following  pages  have  I 
been  consciously  apologetic.  It  is  true  that  where  sev- 
eral explanations  of  an  incident  are  possible,  I  have  not 
always  selected  the  one  most  discreditable  to  the  Jews. 
Doubtless  that  will  not  be  forgiven  me  by  those  who 
have  accepted  the  anti-Semitic  pamphlets  of  Willrich 
as  serious  contributions  to  historical  research. 

The  literature  on  the  subject  is  enormous.  Very  few 
references  to  what  are  known  as  "  secondary  "  sources 
will,  however,  be  found  in  this  book.  A  short  bibli- 
ography is  appended,  in  which  various  books  of  refer- 
ence are  cited.  From  these  all  who  are  interested  in 
the  innumerable  controversies  that  the  subject  has 
elicited  may  obtain  full  information. 

There  remains  the  grateful  task  of  acknowledging 
my  personal  indebtedness  to  my  friend.  Dr.  Ernst 
Riess,  for  many  valuable  suggestions.  Above  all  I 
desire  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  President  Solo- 
mon Schechter,  of  the  Jewish  Theological  Seminary  of 


8  PREFACE 

America,  at  whose  instance  the  preparation  of  this 
book  was  undertaken.  Those  who  share  with  me  the 
privilege  of  his  friendship  will  note  in  more  than  one 
turn  of  expression  and  thought  the  impress  of  that  rich 
personality. 

Max  Radin 

New  York  City, 
October,  1915 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction    13 

I.     Greek  Religious  Concepts 21 

II.     Roman  Religious  Concepts 40 

III.  Greek  and  Roman  Concepts  of  Race 48 

IV.  Sketch  of  Jewish  History  between  Nebuchadnez- 

zar and  Constantine 56 

V.  Internal    Development    of    the   Jews    during   the 

Persian  Period 66 

VI.     The  First  Contact  between  Greek  and  Jew 76 

VII.     Egypt 90 

VIII.     Jews  in  Ptolemaic  Egypt 104 

IX.  The  Struggle  against  Greek  Culture  in  Palestine  118 

X.     Antiochus  the  Manifest  God 135 

XI.     The  Jewish  Propaganda 148 

XII.     The  Opposition 163 

XIII.  The  Opposition  in  Its  Social  Aspect 176 

XIV.  The  Philosophic  Opposition   191 

XV.     The  Romans  210 

XVI.     Jews  in  Rome  during  the  Early  Empire 236 

XVII.     The  Jews  of  the  Empire  till  the  Revolt 257 

XVIII.    The  Revolt  of  68  c.  e 287 

XIX.     The   Development   of   the   Roman   Jewish    Com- 
munity       304 

XX.     The  Final  Revolts  of  the  Jews s^S 

XXI.     The   Legal    Position   of   the   Jews    in    the   Later 

Empire    350 

Summary    368 

Notes ;^y^ 

Bibliography    415 

Index 417 


ILLUSTRATIONS  .     ' 

Arch  of  Titus,  Rome Frontispiece 

Ruins    of    the    Amphitheater    at    Gerasa 

(Jerash),  Gilead,  Palestine facing  page    62 

Antiochus    (IV)    Epiphanes,   after   a   Coin 

(from  a  Drawing  by  Ralph  Iligan) "  "     136 

Greek  Inscription,  Found  on  Site  of  Temple 
Area,  Forbidding  Gentiles  to  Pass 
beyond  the  Inner  Temple  Walls  at 
Jerusalem    "  "     186 

Ruins  of  an  Ancient  Synagogue  at  Merom, 

Galilee,  Palestine  (Roman  Period) **  "    216 

Tombs    of    the    Kings,    Valley    of    Kedron, 

Jerusalem   (from  Wilson's  "Jerusalem ")       "  "     268 

Symbols  and  Inscriptions  from  Jewish  Cata- 
combs and  Cemeteries  in  Rome  (from 
Garrucci)    between  pages  310  and  311 


INTRODUCTION 

The  civilization  of  Europe  and  America  is  composed 
of  elements  of  many  different  kinds  and  of  various 
origin.  Most  of  the  beginnings  cannot  be  recovered 
within  the  limits  of  recorded  history.  We  do  not  know 
where  and  when  a  great  many  of  our  fundamental  insti- 
tutions arose,  and  about  them  we  are  reduced  to  con- 
jectures that  are  sometimes  frankly  improbable.  But 
about  a  great  many  elements  of  our  civilization,  and 
precisely  those  upon  which  we  base  our  claim  to  be 
called  civilized — indeed,  which  give  us  the  word  and 
the  concept  of  civic  life — we  know  relatively  a  great 
deal,  and  we  know  that  they  originated  on  the  east- 
ern shores  of  the  large  landlocked  sea  known  as  the 
Mediterranean. 

We  are  beginning  to  be  aware  that  the  process  of 
developing  these  elements  was  much  longer  than  we 
had  been  accustomed  to  believe.  Many  races  and  sev- 
eral millennia  seem  to  have  elaborated  slowly  the  insti- 
tutions that  older  historians  were  prepared  to  regard  as 
the  conscious  contrivance  of  a  single  epoch.  But  even 
if  increasing  archeological  research  shall  render  us 
more  familiar  than  we  are  with  Pelasgians,  Myceneans, 
Minoans,  Aegeans,  it  is  not  likely  that  the  claims  of  two 
historic  peoples  to  have  founded  European  civilization 
will  be  seriously  impugned.    These  are  the  Romans  and 


14  INTRODUCTION 


the  Greeks.  To  these  must  be  added  another  people, 
the  Jews,  whose  contribution  to  civihzation  was  no  less 
real  and  lasting. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  have  left  descendants  only 
in  a  qualified  sense.  There  are  no  doubt  thousands  of 
individuals  now  living  who  are  the  actual  descendants 
of  the  kinsmen  and  contemporaries  of  the  great  names 
in  Greek  and  Roman  history;  but  these  individuals  are 
widely  scattered,  and  are  united  by  national  and  racial 
bonds  with  thousands  of  individuals  not  so  descended, 
from  whom  they  have  become  wholly  indistinguishable. 
We  have  documentary  evidence  of  great  masses  of 
other  races,  Celtic,  Germanic,  Slavic,  Semitic,  entering 
into  the  territory  occupied  by  Greeks  and  Romans  and 
mingling  with  them,  and  to  this  evidence  is  added  the 
confirmation  of  anthropological  researches.  This  fact 
has  made  it  possible  to  consider  Greek  and  Roman  his- 
tory objectively.  Only  rarely  can  investigators  be 
found  who  feel  more  than  a  very  diluted  pride  in  the 
achievements  of  peoples  so  dubiously  connected  with 
themselves.  It  is  therefore  with  increasing  clarity  of 
vision  that  we  are  ordering  the  large  body  of  facts  we 
already  know  about  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  are 
gathering  them  in  constantly  broadening  categories. 

That  unfortunately  is  not  the  case  with  the  Jews. 
Here,  too,  racial  admixture  was  present,  but  it  never 
took  place  on  a  large  scale  at  any  one  time,  and  may 
always  have  remained  exceptional.  However  that  may 
be,  common  belief  both  among  Jews  and  non-Jews 
holds  very  strongly  the  view  that  the  Jews  of  to-day  are 


INTRODUCTION  15 


the  lineal  descendants  of  the  community  reorganized 
by  Ezra,  nor  is  it  likely  that  this  belief  would  be  ser- 
iously modified  by  much  stronger  evidence  to  the  con- 
trary than  has  yet  been  adduced/  The  result  has  been 
that  the  place  of  the  Jews  in  history  has  been  deter- 
mined upon  the  basis  of  institutions  avowedly  hostile 
to  them.  It  may  be  said  that  historians  have  introduced 
the  Jews  as  a  point  of  departure  for  Christianity,  and 
have  not  otherwise  concerned  themselves  with  them. 

There  was  a  time  when  Greek  and  Roman  and  Jew 
were  in  contact.  What  was  the  nature  of  that  contact? 
What  were  its  results  ?  What  were  the  mutual  impres- 
sions made  by  all  three  of  them  on  one  another?  The 
usual  answer  has  been  largely  a  transference  of  modern 
attitudes  to  ancient  times.  Is  another  answer  possible  ? 
Do  the  materials  at  our  disposal  permit  us  to  arrive  at 
a  firmer  and  better  conclusion  ? 

It  is  necessary  first  to  know  the  conditions  of  our 
inquiry.  The  period  that  we  must  partially  analyze 
extends  from  the  end  of  the  Babylonian  Captivity  to 
the  establishment  of  Christianity — roughly  from  about 
450  B.  c.  E.  to  350  c.  E.,  some  seven  or  eight  hundred 
years. 

The  time  limits  are  of  course  arbitrary.  The  contact 
with  Greeks  may  have  begun  before  the  earlier  of  the 
two  limits,  and  the  relations  of  the  Jews  with  both 
Greeks  and  Romans  certainly  did  not  cease  with  either 
Constantine  or  Theodosius.  However,  it  was  during 
the  years  that  followed  the  return  from  the  Exile  that 
much  of  the  equipment  was  prepared  with  which  the 


i6  INTRODUCTION 


Jew  actually  met  the  Greek,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
relations  of  Christian  Rome  to  the  Jews  were  deter- 
mined by  quite  different  considerations  from  those  that 
governed  Pagan  Rome.  It  is  at  this  point  accordingly 
that  a  study  of  the  Jews  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
may  properly  end. 

The  Sources 

Even  for  laymen  it  has  become  a  matter  of  great 
interest  to  know  upon  what  material  the  statements  are 
based  which  scientists  and  scholars  present  to  them.  It 
is  part  perhaps  of  the  general  skepticism  that  has  dis- 
placed the  abundant  faith  of  past  generations  in  the 
printed  word.  For  that  reason  what  the  sources  are 
from  which  we  must  obtain  the  statements  that  we  shall 
make  here,  will  be  briefly  indicated  below. 

First  we  have  a  number  of  Greek  and  Latin  writers 
who  incidentally  or  specially  referred  to  the  Jews. 
However,  as  is  the  case  with  many  other  matters  of 
prime  importance,  the  writings  of  most  of  these  authors 
have  not  come  down  to  us  completely,  but  in  fragments. 
That  is  to  say,  we  have  only  the  brief  citations  made 
of  them  by  much  later  writers,  or  contained  in  very  late 
compilations,  such  as  lexicons,  commonplace  books,  or 
manuals  for  instruction.  Modern  scholars  have  found 
it  imperatively  necessary  to  collect  these  fragments,  so 
that  they  may  be  compared  and  studied  more  readily. 
In  this  way  the  fragments  of  lost  books  on  history, 
grammar,  music,  of  lost  poems  and  plays,  have  been  col- 
lected at  various  times.  Similarly  the  fragments  con- 
cerning the  Jews  have  been  collected,  and  gathered  into 


INTRODUCTION  17 


a  single  book  by  M.  Theodore  Reinach,  under  the  title 
of  Textes  d'  auteurs  grecs  et  latins  relatifs  au  judaisme. 
Here  the  Greek  and  Latin  texts  and  the  French  trans- 
lation of  them  are  arranged  in  parallel  columns,  and 
furnished  with  explanatory  footnotes.  M.  Reinach's 
great  distinction  as  a  classical  scholar  enables  him  to 
speak  with  authority  upon  many  of  the  controverted 
questions  that  these  texts  contain.  Often  his  judg- 
ment as  to  what  certain  passages  mean  may  be  unques- 
tioningly  accepted,  and  at  all  times  one  disagrees  with 
him  with  diffidence. 

Secondly,  we  have  the  Jewish  literature  of  the 
period ;  but  that  literature  was  produced  under  such 
various  conditions  and  with  such  diverse  purposes  that 
a  further  classification  is  necessary. 

Most  important  for  our  purposes  is  that  part  of 
Jewish  literature  which  was  a  direct  outcome  of  the 
contact  we  are  setting  forth — the  apologetic  writings  of 
the  Jews,  or  those  books  written  in  Greek,  only  rarely 
in  Latin,  in  which  Jewish  customs  and  history  are 
explained  or  defended  for  non-Jewish  readers.  Most 
of  these  books  likewise  have  been  lost,  and  have  left 
only  inconsiderable  fragments,  but  in  the  case  of  two 
writers  we  have  very  extensive  remains.  One  of  these 
men  is  the  Alexandrian  Jew  Philo,  a  contemporary  of 
the  first  Roman  emperors.  The  other  was  the  Pales- 
tinian Jew  Joseph,  who  played  an  important,  if  ignoble, 
part  in  the  rebellion  of  68  c.  e. 

An  estimate  of  the  character  of  Philo  and  Josephus 
— to  give  the  latter  the  name  by  which  alone  he  is 


i8  INTRODUCTION 


remembered — or  of  the  value  of  their  works,  is  out  of 
place  here.  Philo's  extant  writings  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  philosophic  exposition,  and  are  only  in- 
directly of  documentary  value.  However,  he  also  wrote 
a  ''  Defense  "  of  his  people,  of  which  large  portions 
have  survived,  notably  the  In  Flaccum,  a  bitter  invective 
against  the  prefect  of  Egypt  under  Tiberius,  and  the 
Legatio  ad  Gaium,  a  plea  in  behalf  of  the  Alexandrian 
Jews  made  to  the  emperor  Caligula  by  an  embassy  of 
which  Philo  was  himself  a  member.' 

An  apologetic  purpose,  for  himself  more  than  for  his 
fellow-citizens,  is  discernible  in  practically  all  the  extant 
writings  of  Josephus.  One  of  them,  however,  the  mis- 
named Contra  Apionem,  is  avowedly  a  defense  of  the 
Jews  against  certain  misrepresentations  contained  in 
Greek  books.  The  importance  of  Josephus'  works  it  is 
impossible  to  overrate.  For  many  matters  he  is  our 
sole  authority.  But  the  character  exhibited  in  his  own 
account  of  his  conduct  has  impaired  the  credibility  of 
much  of  what  he  says,  and  has  provoked  numerous  con- 
troversies. It  is  impossible  to  disregard  him,  and  un- 
safe to  rely  upon  him.  However,  it  is  not  unlikely  that 
fuller  knowledge,  which  the  sands  of  Egypt  and  Pales- 
tine may  at  any  time  offer,  will  compel  us  to  change  our 
attitude  toward  him  completely.^ 

Besides  the  apologetic  Jewish  writings,  directed  to 
gentile  readers,  there  was  a  flourishing  literature  in 
Greek  (and  perhaps  in  Latin  too)  intended  for  Greek- 
speaking  Jews.  It  may  be  said  that  no  branch  of 
literary  art  was  quite  neglected.    The  great  majority  of 


INTRODUCTION  19 


these  books  are  lost.  Some,  however,  of  a  homiletic  or 
parenetic  tendency,  attained  partial  sanctity  in  some  of 
the  Jewish  congregations,  and  were,  under  such  pro- 
tection, transferred  to  the  Christian  communities  that 
succeeded  them.  They  may  now  be  found  in  collections 
of  Apocrypha  and  Pseudepigrapha,  such  as  the  Ger- 
man collection  of  Kautzsch  and  that  recently  completed 
in  English  by  Charles.  Examples  are  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  the  Jewish  Sibyl,  the  Letter  of  Aristeas,  etc. 

All  these  books  were  intended  for  Jewish  readers, 
but  for  Jews  whose  sole  mother  tongue  was  Greek.  In 
Palestine  and  Syria  the  Jews  spoke  Aramaic,  and  the 
educated  among  them  used  Hebrew  for  both  literary 
and  colloquial'  purposes.  There  w^as  consequently  an 
active  literature  in  these  languages.  Some  books  so 
written  were  early  translated  into  Greek,  and  from 
Greek  into  Latin  and  Ethiopic,  and  have  survived  as 
part  of  the  Apocrypha.  Judith,  First  Maccabees,  Tobit, 
are  instances.  It  was  a  rare  and  fortunate  accident  that 
gave  us  the  Plebrew  original  of  such  a  book,  of  Ben 
Sira,  or  Ecclesiasticus. 

Again,  the  highly  organized  religious  and  legal  insti- 
tutions of  the  Jews  found  literary  expression  in  the 
decisions  and  comments  upon  them  that  all  such  insti- 
tutions involve.  The  exposition  of  the  consecrated 
ancient  literature  was  also  begun  in  this  period.  It  was 
not,  however,  till  relatively  late,  200  c.  e.  and  after, 
that  actual  books  were  put  together,  so  that  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  accept  uncritically  references  to  earlier  dates. 


20  INTRODUCTION 


The  books  referred  to  are  primarily  the  Mishnah  and 
the  other  extant  collections  of  Baraitot.  Besides  these, 
such  works  as  the  Megillat  Taanit  and  the  Seder  Olam 
must  be  grouped  here.  The  earlier  portions  of  both 
Talmuds  may  be  included,  perhaps  all  of  the  Jerusalem 
Talmud.       ^ 

One  source  of  somewhat  problematic  character  re- 
mains to  be  considered.  Biblical  critics  have  been  at 
some  pains  to  assign  as  much  as  possible  of  the  Bible 
to  the  earlier  centuries  of  the  period  we  have  delimited. 
That  more  than  a  very  slight  portion  can  be  so  assigned 
is  scarcely  probable,  but  some  of  it  may,  especially  those 
books  or  passages  in  which  Greek  influence  is  clearly 
noticeable.  However,  little  profit  can  be  gained  for 
our  purposes  from  material  that  demands  such  a  deal 
of  caution  in  its  use. 

Finally,  besides  literary  evidences,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  have  wretchedly  failed  to  substantiate  the  poet's 
vaunt  of  being  more  lasting  than  brass,  we  have  the 
brass  itself ;  that  is,  we  have  the  stones,  coins,  utensils, 
potsherds,  and  papyri  inscribed  with  Hebrew,  Aramaic, 
Greek,  Latin,  Babylonian,  and  Egyptian  words,  which 
are  the  actual  contemporaries,  just  as  we  have  them,  of 
the  events  they  illustrate.  It  is  the  study  of  evidences 
like  these  that  has  principally  differentiated  modern 
historical  research  from  the  methods  it  displaced,  and  in 
the  unceasing  increase  of  these  fragmentary  and  in- 
valuable remains  our  hopes  of  better  knowledge  of 
ancient  life  are  centered." 


CHAPTER  I 
GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS 

The  Jew  is  presented  to  the  modern  world  in  the 
double  aspect  of  a  race  and  a  religion.  In  a  measure 
this  has  always  been  the  case,  but  we  shall  not  in  the 
least  understand  what  the  statement  of  the  fact  means 
without  a  very  close  analysis  of  the  concepts  of  race  and 
religion  formed  by  both  Greeks  and  Romans. 

The  word  religion  has  a  very  definite  meaning  to  us. 
It  is  the  term  appHed  to  the  body  of  beliefs  that  any 
group  of  men  maintain  about  supernatural  entities  upon 
whom  they  consider  themselves  wholly  dependent.  The 
salient  fact  of  modern  religions  is  that  for  most  men  the 
group  is  very  large  indeed,  that  it  vastly  transcends  all 
national  limits.  Christianity,  Islam,  and  Buddhism,  all 
profess  the  purpose  of  gaining  the  entire  human  race 
for  their  adherents,  and  have  actively  attempted  to  do 
so.  The  fact  that  the  religions  with  which  we  are  most 
familiar  are  "  world-religions,"  and  the  abstract  char- 
acter of  the  predicates  of  the  Deity  in  them,  would  seem 
to  make  religion  as  such  practically  free  from  local 
limitation.  However,  that  is  not  completely  true  even 
for  our  time.  In  the  first  place,  the  bulk  of  Christians,  as 
of  Muslims  and  Buddhists,  are  in  all  three  cases  bearers 
of  a  common  culture,  and  have  long  believed  themselves 
of  common  descent.    They  occupy  further  a  continuous, 


22     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

even  if  very  large,  area.  Religious  maps  of  the  world 
w^ould  show  solid  blocks  of  color,  not  spots  scattered 
everywhere.  Secondly,  even  within  the  limits  of  the 
religion  itself  national  boundaries  are  not  wholly 
expunged.  The  common  Christianity  of  Spain  and 
England  presents  such  obvious  differences  that  insis- 
tence upon  them  is  unnecessary ;  nor  does  the  fact  that 
Southern  Germany,  Belgium,  and  Ireland  are  ail 
Roman  Catholic  imply  that  all  these  sections  have  the 
same  religious  attitude. 

These  are  modern  illustrations,  and  they  represent 
survivals  of  a  state  of  things  which  in  the  Greek  world 
was  fundamental.  As  it  seems  to  us  axiomatic  that  an 
abstractly  conceived  God  cannot  be  the  resident  of  a  lim- 
ited area  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  just  so  axiomatic 
it  seemed,  at  one  stage  of  Greek  religious  growth, 
that  a  god  was  locally  limited,  that  his  activities  did  not 
extend — or  extended  only  in  a  weakened  form — 
beyond  a  certain  sharply  circumscribed  geographical 
area.  That  is  probably  the  most  fundamental  and  thor- 
oughgoing of  the  differences  between  Greek  religious 
feeling  and  that  of  our  day.  Opinions  may  differ  widely 
about  the  degree  of  anthropomorphism  present  at  the 
contrasted  periods ;  and  then,  as  now,  the  statements 
made  about  the  nature  and  power  of  the  Deity  were 
contradictory,  vague,  and  confusing.  But  one  thing  it 
is  hard  to  question :  the  devoutly  religious  man  of  to- 
day feels  himself  everywhere,  always,  in  the  presence 
of  his  God.  The  Greek  did  not  feel  that  his  god  was 
everywhere  with  him,  certainly  did  not  feel  that  he  was 
everywhere  approachable/ 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  23 

At  another  point  too  we  are  in  great  danger  of 
importing  modern  notions  into  ancient  conditions. 
Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Islam  are  all  book-religions. 
The  final  source  of  their  doctrines  is  a  revelation  that 
has  been  written  down,  and  is  extant  as  an  actual  and 
easily  accessible  book.  Moreover,  it  is  the  narrative 
portion  of  this  book  that  is  the  best-known  part  of  it, 
and  that  is  generally  associated  in  the  popular  mind 
with  it.  In  the  same  way,  we  are  prone  to  think  of 
Greek  religion. as  a  series  of  extraordinarily  beautiful 
myths  or  narratives  of  gods  and  heroes,  which  have 
likewise  been  written  down,  and  are  extant  in  the  poems 
and  dramas  of  which  they  are  the  subject.  This  view 
has  been  greatly  strengthened  by  the  unfortunate  cur- 
rency of  the  epigram  that  Homer  was  the  Greek  Bible. 
No  one  would  be  inclined  to  force,  except  as  a  paradox, 
the  analogy  upon  which  the  statement  rests ;  yet  the 
phrase  is  so  terse  and  simple,  and  the  elements  of  the 
comparison  are  so  generally  familiar,  that  consciously 
and  unconsciously  current  conceptions  are  moulded 
by  it. 

Now  if  the  epigram  quoted  is  essentially  true,  we 
have  at  once  a  measure  of  Greek  religious  feeling,  since 
the  Homeric  poems  are  as  accessible  to  us  as  to  the 
Greeks  themselves.  We  should  be  compelled  to  reckon 
with  variety  in  the  interpretation  of  the  text,  but  in  the 
literal  signification  there  would  always  be  a  point  of 
departure.  And  we  should  at  once  realize  that  for 
divine  beings  depicted  as  they  are  by  Homer  a  devotion 
of  a  very  different  sort  is  demanded  from  that  which 


24     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

modern  faiths  give  their  Deity.  Nor  does  later  Htera- 
ture  represent  the  gods  on  a  loftier  moral  plane.  When 
we  read  Aristophanes,'  it  becomes  still  more  difficult  to 
understand  how  the  gods  could  retain  their  divinity  not 
only  when  deprived  of  their  moral  character,  but  even 
when  stripped  of  their  dignity.  So  far  from  raising  the 
moral  character  of  the  divine  beings  who  are  the  actors 
in  these  legends,  the  later  versions  of  many  quite  unex- 
ceptionable myths  deliberately  debase  them  by  subject- 
ing most  actions  to  a  foully  erotic  interpretation.*  The 
less  offensive  narrative,  to  be  sure,  survives  as  well,  but 
it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  divinity  of  the  personages  in 
question  seems  to  be  as  unquestioned  in  the  corrupt  as 
in  the  purer  form  of  the  story. 

How  might  an  emotionally  sensitive  or  mentally 
trained  man  pour  forth  supplication  before  a  guzzling 
braggart  like  the  Aristophanic  Heracles  or  an  effem- 
inate voluptuary  like  the  Apollo  of  Alexandrian  poetry? 
It  seems  hard  to  discover  any  other  defense  than  the  one 
Charles  Lamb  offered  for  the  dramatists  of  the  Restora- 
tion— that  the  world  the  gods  moved  in  was  a  wholly 
different  one  from  the  human  world ;  a  world  in  which 
moral  categories  had  no  existence,  a  Land  of  Cockayne 
without  vices,  because  it  was  without  the  sanctions 
which  vice  disregards.  No  doubt  some  Greeks  felt  in 
this  way  toward  the  myths.  But  it  was  not  a  satis- 
factory theory.  It  introduced  a  dualism  into  standards 
of  conduct  that  soon  became  intolerable,  when  men 
reflected  seriously  upon  other  sides  of  the  divine  nature, 
and  drew  inferences  from  it. 


A 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  25 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  difficulty  we  find  in  address- 
ing words  of  prayer  and  praise  to  such  unworthy  gods 
as  sat  upon  the  Homeric  Olympus  is  modern,  and  was 
probably  not  felt  at  all  by  the  vast  majority  of  Greeks, 
either  in  Homer's  time  or  later.  Not  that  the  fraud, 
cruelty,  faithlessness  there  exhibited  seemed  to  the 
Greeks  of  any  epoch  commendable  or  imitable  quaHties. 
Even  the  Homeric  Greek  was  far  from  being  in  a 
barbarous  or  semi-barbarous  state.  Civic  virtues  as 
between  men  were  known  and  practised.  But  the  per- 
sonality of  the  individual  gods  in  these  stories  could  be 
disregarded  in  practice,  because  they  were  in  no  sense  a 
part  of  the  Greek  religion.  The  chastest  of  men  might 
with  a  clear  conscience  worship  the  lecherous  Zeus, 
because  worship  did  not  at  all  concern  itself  with  the 
catalogue  of  his  amours.  In  Homer's  time  and  after, 
the  Greek  firmly  believed  that  the  Olympians  were 
actually  existing  beings,  but  he  scarcely  stopped  to  ask 
himself  whether  it  was  literally  true  that  Zeus  had 
bidden  Hera  be  silent  under  threats  of  personal  violence. 
What  did  concern  him  in  his  relation  with  his  gods 
was  the  disposition  in  which  the  god  was  likely  to  be 
toward  him  or  his  people.  And  his  religious  activity 
was  directed  to  the  end  of  making  that  disposition  as 
good  as  possible. 

The  matter  just  set  forth  is  far  from  being  new  doc- 
trine ;  but  for  the  general  reader  it  must  be  constantly 
re-emphasized,  because  it  is  constantly  forgotten.  We 
continually  find  the  Greek  myths  discussed  in  terms  that 
would  be  true  only  of  the  Gospel  narratives,  and  we  see 


26     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

the  Greek  gods  described  as  though  they  possessed  the 
sharpness  of  personal  outHne  which  the  Deity  has  in  the 
minds  of  beHeving  Christians.  It  is  no  doubt  the  extant 
Hterature — a  florilegium  at  best — that  is  at  fault  in  the 
matter.  This  literature,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  not 
preserved  altogether  by  accident.  To  a  large  extent  it 
represents  a  conscious  selection,  made  for  pedagogic 
purposes.  The  relative  coherence  which  Greek  myths 
have  for  us  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  surviving  poems 
and  dramas  which  contain  them  were  selected,  partially 
at  least,  by  Hellenistic  and  Byzantine  schoolmasters  in 
order  to  fit  into  a  set  cycle  or  scheme.  Even  in  what 
we  have  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  myths 
about  the  gods  could  pretend  to  no  sanctity  for  any- 
body, devout  or  scoffer,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they 
negated  themselves,  that  widely  differing  and  hope- 
lessly contradictory  stories  were  told  of  the  same  event 
or  person. 

In  reality  the  Greek  myths  were  not  coherent.  It 
is  hard  to  discover  in  many  of  them  a  folkloristic  kernel 
that  had  to  be  kept  intact.  Almost  everywhere  we 
are  dealing  with  the  free  fantasies  of  highly  imaginative 
poets.  So  fully  was  this  understood  that  the  stories 
most  familiar  to  us  are  generally  alluded  to  in  serious 
Greek  literature  with  an  apologetic  w?  ol  iroL-qrai  (/)ao-t, 
*'  as  the  poets  say,"  or  some  similar  phrase.  And  as 
these  stories  were  largely  unrelated,  so  also  were  the 
gods  of  whom  they  were  told,  even  though  they  bore 
the  same  name.  If  mythographers  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  collect  all  the  stories  known  of  any   one 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  27 

god — Hermes,  for  example — there  would  be  nothing 
except  the  common  name  to  indicate  that  they  referred 
to  the  same  chief  actor,  and  much  that,  except  for  the 
common  name,  would  be  referred  to  different  gods.  Not 
even  a  single  prominent  trait,  not  a  physical  feature, 
would  be  found  to  run  through  all  the  myths  so 
collected. 

So  far  we  have  been  dealing  with  extant  literature. 
But  if  the  more  recondite  notices  of  popular  super- 
stition are  taken  into  account,  as  well  as  the  archeo- 
logical  discoveries,  we  meet  such  figures  as  Demeter, 
Artemis,  Apollo,'  in  various  and  curious  forms  and 
associations,  so  that  one  might  be  tempted  to  suppose 
that  these  highly  individualized  figures  of  poetry  were, 
in  the  shrines  in  which  they  were  worshiped,  hardly 
more  than  divine  appellatives  of  rather  vague  content. 
And  on  the  islands  of  the  Aegean,  in  Crete  and  Cyprus, 
where  the  continuity  between  Aegean,  Mycenean,  and 
Hellenic  civilization "  was  perhaps  less  disturbed  by 
convulsive  upheavals,  this  seems  especially  to  have  been 
the  case. 

For  cult  purposes,  then — the  primary  purpose  of 
Greek  religion — there  was  less  difference  between  gods 
than  we  might  suppose.  Not  even  the  strongly  marked 
personages  that  poetry  made  of  them  were  able  to  fix 
themselves  in  the  popular  mind.  Sculptors  had  been 
busy  in  differentiating  types,  and  yet  even  here  the  pro- 
cess was  not  completed.  While  in  general  we  know  of 
Poseidon-types,  Zeus-types,  etc.,  in  art,  the  most  thor- 
oughly equipped  critics  find  themselves  embarrassed  if 


28     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

they  are  required  to  name  a  statue  that  is  wholly  lack- 
ing in  definite  external  symbols  or  attributes,  such  as 
the  thunderbolt,  trident,  caduceus,  and  others.^  Even 
I  "the  unrivaled  artistic  abilities  of  Greek  sculptors  found 
it  impossible  to  create  unmistakable  types  of  the  Greek 
gods,  for  the  reason  that  the  character  of  the  god  as 
portrayed  in  myth  and  fable  was  fluid,  and  not  fixed. 

As  among  most  peoples  of  the  time,  the  essential 
religious  act  was  that  which  brought  the  god  and  his 
worshiper  into  contact — the  sacrifice.  What  the  real 
nature  of  sacrifice  was  need  not  concern  us  here.  The 
undoubted  fact  is  that  sacrifice  and  prayer  formed  a 
single  act ;  ^  that  it  was  during  the  sacrifice  that  the  wor- 
shiper ventured  to  address  his  prayer  to  the  godhead  he 
invoked.  In  doing  so  he  must  of  necessity  use  the 
god's  name,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  name  was  of 
more  general  and  less  specific  connotation  than  is 
usually  supposed.  But  the  act  of  worship  itself  was 
specifically  occasioned.  Even  the  fixed  and  annually 
recurring  festivals  related  to  a  specific,  if  recurring, 
occasion  in  the  life  of  the  people.  This  was  eminently 
the  case  in  the  irregular  acts  of  worship  that  arose 
out  of  some  unforeseen  contingency.  Whatever  the 
divine  name  was  that  was  used,  the  specific  occasion  of 
its  use  made  it  necessary  also  to  specify  the  function  of 
the  divinity  of  which  the  intervention  was  sought.  That 
was  regularly  done  by  attaching  to  the  name  a  qualify- 
ing epithet.  When  the  rights  of  hospitality  were 
threatened  with  invasion,  it  was  ZeiJ?  EeVio?,  Zeus  the 
Protector  of  Strangers,  that  was  addressed.    In  grati- 


158198 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  29 

tude  for  a  deliverance,  Zeus  or  Apollo  or  Heracles  or 
the  Dioscuri  or  many  another  might  be  invoked  as  ''  the 
Savior."  *  And  it  might  well  be  argued  that  the  Greek 
who  did  so  had  scarcely  anything  more  definite  in  mind 
than  a  Roman  who  worshiped  Salus,  the  abstract  prin- 
ciple of  safety.  In  very  many  cases  the  particular  func- 
tion was  especially  potent  in  certain  areas,  so  that  a  local 
adjective  applied  as  a  divine  epithet  would  sum  up  the 
power  desired  to  be  set  in  motion. 

In  the  actual  moment  of  prayer  or  propitiation,  it 
was  often  a  matter  of  courtesy  to  ignore  the  existence 
of  other  gods.  This  makes  perhaps  a  sufficiently 
definite  phenomenon  to  justify  the  application  to  it  of 
the  special  name  ''  henotheism  "  long  ago  devised  by 
Max  Mliller ;  ^  and  in  henotheism  we  have  very  likely  the 
germ  of  monotheism.  But  when  not  actually  engaged 
in  worship,  the  Greek  was  well  aware  that  there  were 
many  gods,  and  that  there  were  differences  among 
them,  and  this  quite  apart  from  the  myths,  to  which,  as 
has  been  said,  no  very  great  importance  can  be  attached 
in  this  connection.  The  differences  in  power  and  prom- 
inence of  deities  were  perhaps  not  original,  but  they  had 
arisen  quickly  and  generally. 

One  difference  particularly,  that  between  gods  and 
heroes,  seems  to  have  been  real  to  the  popular  mind.  A 
difference  in  the  terminology  that  described  the  ritual 
act,  and  a  difference  in  the  act  itself,  point  to  a  real  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  divine  conceptions." 

Who  and  what  the  heroes  actually  were  is  an 
extremely  doubtful  matter.    That  some  of  them  were 


30     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

originally  men  is  a  proposition  with  which  legend  has 
made  us  familiar."  We  shall  recur  later  to  the  com- 
mon heroization  of  the  dead.  That  some  of  them  were 
undoubted  gods  has  been  amply  established.'"  It  may 
well  be  that  they  were  deities  of  a  narrowly  limited  ter- 
ritory, knowledge  of  whom,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
remained  sharply  circumscribed  for  a  long  time,  so  that 
when  they  came  later  within  the  range  of  myth-making 
they  could  not  be  readily  fitted  into  any  divine  scheme. 
Often  the  name  that  appears  in  some  legends  as  a  hero 
appears  in  others  as  an  epithet  or  cult-title  of  a  better- 
known  god.  This  fact  may  be  variously  interpreted. 
At  least  one  interpretation  derives  this  fusion  of  names 
from  the  fact  that  the  worshipers  of  the  later  deity 
invaded  the  cult-home  of  the  earlier,  and  ultimately 
degraded  the  latter  to  accessory  rank.  Or  it  may  be 
taken  as  a  compromise  of  existing  claims.  At  any  rate, 
in  some  of  the  heroes  we  seem  to  reach  an  element  some- 
what closer  to  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Greek 
masses.  And  if  the  gods,  or  most  of  them,  are  heroes 
who  owe  their  promotion  to  a  fortunate  accident  rather 
than  to  any  inherent  superiority,  we  may  discover  the 
fundamental  divine  conceptions  of  the  Greeks  in  the 
traits  that  especially  mark  the  heroes :  sharp  local  limi- 
tation, absence  of  personal  lineaments,  adoration  based 
upon  power  for  evil  as  well  as  for  good." 

It  was  because  of  this  last  fact  that  Greek  poets  could 
deal  freely  with  gods  and  heroes  in  the  narratives  they 
created.  The  divine  name  possessed  none  of  the  ineffa- 
ble sanctity  it  has  for  us  by  thousands  of  years  of  tradi- 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  31 

tion.  Except  during  the  performance  of  the  ritual  act, 
the  god's  presence  and  power  were  not  vividly  felt,  and 
it  would  have  been  considered  preposterous  to  suppose 
that  he  resented  as  compromising  an  idle  tale  from 
which  he  suffered  no  impairment  of  worship.  That  the 
gods  really  existed,  and  that  honor  was  to  be  paid  them 
after  the  ancestral  manner,  was  more  than  the  essence, 
it  was  the  totality,  of  popular  Greek  theology.  Specu- 
lation as  to  the  real  nature  of  gods  and  the  world,  the 
mass  of  citizens  would  have  regarded  as  the  most  futile 
form  of  triviality." 

But  there  were  some  who  thought  otherwise.  Many 
thoughtful  men  must  have  felt  the  absurdities  and 
immoralities  of  the  myths  as  keenly  as  we  do.  Xeno- 
phanes  "  protests,  and  no  doubt  not  first  of  all  men, 
against  them.  Further,  with  the  earliest  stirrings  of 
cosmic  speculation  in  Ionia,  systems  of  theology  are 
proposed  that  dispense  with  demiurges  and  adminis- 
trators. Intellectually  developed  men  cannot  have  been 
long  in  ridding  themselves  of  popular  conceptions  that 
violated  the  most  elementary  reflection.  To  be  sure, 
the  philosopher  did  not  always  feel  free  to  carry  his 
conviction  to  the  point  of  openly  disregarding  the 
established  forms.  To  do  so  would  bring  him  into  con- 
flict with  other  institutions  that  he  valued,  and  with 
which  religious  forms  had  become  inextricably  bound 
up.  But  his  own  beliefs  took  broader  and  broader 
ground,  and  well  before  Alexander  became  monotheism, 
pantheism,  or  agnosticism."'' 


32     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

All  these  standpoints  must  be  kept  in  mind  when  we 
deal  with  the  conflict  between  Greek  and  Jew :  the 
popular  one,  no  doubt  rooted  in  a  primitive  animism, 
to  which  the  gods  were  of  indifferent  and  somewhat 
shifting  personality,  but  to  which  the  ritual  act  was 
vital;  the  attitude  of  poetry  and  folk-lore,  in  which 
divine  persons  appeared  freely  as  actors,  but  in  which 
each  poem  or  legend  was  an  end  in  itself  unrelated  to 
any  other;  and  finally  the  philosophic  analysis,  which 
did  not  notably  differ  in  result  from  similar  processes 
of  our  own  day. 

We  find  the  Hellenic  world  in  possession  of  very 
many  gods.  Some  of  them  are  found  practically  wher- 
ever there  were  Greeks,  although  the  degree  of  venera- 
tion they  received  in  the  different  Greek  communities 
varied  greatly.  However,  such  common  gods  did  exist, 
and  their  existence  involves  the  consideration  of  the 
spread  of  worships. 

It  is  of  course  quite  possible  that  the  common  gods 
grew  out  of  the  personification  of  natural  phenomena, 
the  solar-myth  theory,  on  which  nineteenth-century 
scholars  sharpened  their  ingenuity."  It  may  be,  too, 
that  one  or  more  of  them  are  the  national  gods  of  the 
conquering  Hellenes,  whensoever  and  howsoever  such 
a  conquest  may  have  taken  place.  Some  may  have  been 
of  relatively  late  importation.  The  Greeks  lived  in  ter- 
ritory open  to  streams  of  influence  from  every  point  of 
the  compass.  Of  one  such  importation  we  know  some 
details — the  worship  of  Dionysus.'"  Of  others,  such  as 
Aphrodite,   we   suspect   a   Semitic   origin  by   way  of 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  Z3 

Cyprus."  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  names  of  most  of 
the  common  gods  are  difficult  to  trace  to  Greek  roots,  a 
fact  in  itself  of  some  significance. 

We  must  remember  that  the  wandering  of  the  god  is 
often  merely  the  wandering  of  a  name.  That  is  especially 
true  in  those  cases  in  which  an  old  divine  name  becomes 
the  epithet  or  cult-title  of  the  intruding  deity.  Here 
obviously  there  was  no  change  in  the  nature  of  the  god 
worshiped  and  no  interruption  of  his  worship.  It  is 
very  likely,  too,  that  very  few  deities  ever  completely 
disappeared,  even  when  there  was  a  real  migration  of  a 
god.  The  new  god  took  his  place  by  the  side  of  the 
old  one,  and  relations  of  many  kinds,  superior  or 
inferior,  were  speedily  devised.  So  at  Athens,  in  the 
contest  between  Poseidon  and  Athena,  permanently 
recorded  on  the  west  pediment  of  the  Parthenon,  the 
triumph  of  Athena  merely  gave  her  a  privilege.  The 
defeated  Poseidon  remained  in  uninterrupted  posses- 
sion of  shrine  and  votaries. 

How  did  the  worship  of  certain  gods  spread?  One 
answer  is  obvious :  by  the  migration  of  their  votaries. 
Locally  limited  as  the  operation  of  the  divinity  was, 
in  normal  circumstances  there  never  was  a  doubt 
that  it  could  transcend  those  limits  when  the  circum- 
stances ceased  to  be  normal.  And  that  certainly  took 
place  when  the  community  of  which  the  god  was  a 
member  changed  its  residence.  The  methods  of  pro- 
pitiation, as  crystallized  into  the  inherited  ritual,  and  the 
divine  name,  in  which,  for  the  rank  and  file,  the  indi- 
viduality of  the  god  existed,  would  be  continued,  though 


34     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

they  were  subject  to  new  influences,  and  not  infre- 
quently suffered  a  sea-change. 

But  migration  of  all  or  some  of  the  worshipers  of  a 
given  deity  was  not  the  only  way  by  which  the  god  him- 
self moved  from  place  to  place.  Exotic  rituals,  as  soon 
as  men  became  acquainted  with  them,  had  attractions  of 
their  own,  especially  if  they  contained  features  that 
made  a  direct  sensational  appeal.  The  medium  of 
transference  may  have  been  the  constantly  increasing 
commerce,  which  brought  strangers  into  every  city  at 
various  times.  In  all  Greek  communities  there  was  a 
large  number  of  "  disinherited  " — metics,  emancipated 
slaves,  suffrageless  plebs — to  whom  the  established  gods 
seemed  cold  and  aloof,  or  who  had  only  a  limited  share 
in  the  performance  of  the  established  ritual.  These 
men  perhaps  were  the  first  to  welcome  newer  rituals, 
which  it  was  safer  to  introduce  when  they  were  directed 
to  newer  gods.^°  They  were  assisted  in  doing  this  by 
the  long-noted  tolerance  Greeks  exhibited  toward 
other  religious  observances,  a  tolerance  which  Chris- 
tian Europe  has  taught  us  to  consider  strange  and 
exceptional. 

That  tolerance  was  not  altogether  an  inference  from 
polytheism  itself.  Polytheism,  to  be  sure,  takes  for 
granted  the  existence  of  other  gods  in  other  localities, 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  it  permits  the  entrance  of 
one  god  into  the  jurisdiction  of  another.  And  it  was 
not  universal.  Among  communities  inhospitable  in 
other  respects  it  did  not  prevail.  But  it  was  the  general 
rule,  because  the  conception  of  ao-e/Seia,  of  "  impiety,'"^ 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  35 

was  largely  the  same  everywhere.  Impiety  was  such 
conduct  as  prevented  or  corrupted  the  established  forms 
of  divine  communication.  The  introduction  of  new 
deities  was  an  indictable  offense  at  Athens  only  so  far 
as  it  displaced  the  old  ones.  Where  no  such  danger  was 
apprehended,  no  charge  would  lie.  The  traditions  that 
describe  the  bitter  opposition  which  the  introduction  of 
Dionysus  encountered  in  many  places,  are  too  uniform 
to  be  discredited.'''  But  the  opposition  was  directed  to 
the  grave  social  derangements  that  doubtless  attended 
the  adoption  by  many  of  an  enthusiastic  ritual.  The 
opposition  cannot  have  been  general  nor  of  long  dura- 
tion, since  the  worship  of  Dionysus  spread  with  extra- 
ordinary rapidity,  and  covered  the  whole  Greek  world. 

Religious  movements  curiously  like  the  "  revivals  " 
of  medieval  and  modern  times  visited  Greece  as  they 
visit  most  organized  communities.  One  of  the  most 
important  of  these,  which  gradually  spread  over  Greece 
during  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries  b.  c.  e.,  must  be 
reserved  for  later  treatment.  We  may  note  here  merely 
that  there  had  been  present  from  very  early  times  the 
nuclei  of  a  more  intense  religious  life  than  any  that 
could  be  experienced  through  the  rather  perfunctory 
solemnities  of  the  state  cults.  These  were  the  mysteries, 
of  which  the  most  famous  were  the  Eleusinian  in  Attica. 
Some  assign  the  latter  to  an  Egyptian  origin.^^  Wher- 
ever they  came  from,  they  had  assumed  a  large  place  in 
the  imagination  of  Greeks  as  early  as  the  eighth  cen- 
tury ;  ^*  and  they  gained  their  adherents  not  so  much 
by  wrapping  themselves  in  impenetrable  secrecy  as  by 


36     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

promising  their  participants  an  otherwise  unattainable 
degree  of  divine  favor.  Other  mysteries  existed  else- 
where, possibly  modeled  upon  the  Eleusinian.  All,  how- 
ever, made  similar  claims.  It  was  in  the  form  of 
mysteries  that  the  emotional  side  of  religion  was 
deepened.  Further,  the  organization  of  these  mysteries 
exercised  a  profound  influence  upon  all  propagandizing 
movements,  whether  religious  or  not.  It  is  not  unlikely 
that  the  earliest  organization  of  the  Christian  ecclesiae 
was,  at  least  in  part,  influenced  by  the  organization  of 
the  mysteries,  whether  of  Eleusis  or  of  some  other  sort. 
It  has  been  said  that  one  commonly  worshiped  group 
of  heroes  were  frankly  and  concededly  dead  men.  It 
needs  no  demonstration  to  make  clear  that  such  wor- 
ship of  the  dead  must  of  necessity  be  very  old ;  but  at 
many  places  in  the  Greek  world  this  ancient  worship  of 
the  dead  had  become  much  weakened.  The  Homeric 
poems,  for  example,  know  it  only  in  a  very  attenuated 
form.^  At  many  other  places,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
flourished  vigorously  and  continuously  from  the  earliest 
times.  The  application  of  the  word  17/30)?, "  hero,"  to  the 
dead  may  have  had  very  ancient  sanction.  In  later  times, 
the  term  appears  very  commonly,"^  and  undoubtedly 
claims  for  the  persons  so  qualified  the  essential  char- 
acteristics of  other  heroes — i.  e.  immortality,  the  prim- 
ary divine  quality  in  Homer,  and  greatly  increased 
power.  It  involved  no  difficulty  to  the  Greek  mind  to 
make  this  claim,  for  it  was  a  very  common,  perhaps  uni- 
versal, belief  that  gods  and  men  were  akin,  that  they 
were  the  same  in  nature.     Perhaps  the  very  oldest  of 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  Z7 

transcendental  beliefs  is  that  the  all-overwhelming 
phenomenon  of  death  is  not  an  annihilation,  and  that 
something  survives,  even  if  only  as  a  shadow  in  the 
House  of  Hades.  When  men  began  to  speculate 
actively  upon  the  real  results  of  bodily  death,  it  must 
have  occurred  to  many  that  the  vaguely  enlarged  scope 
of  such  life  as  did  survive  was  a  return  to  a  former  and 
essential  divinity ."" 

But  from  a  hero,  limited  and  obscure,  to  a  god,  seated 
in  full  effulgence  at  the  table  of  Zeus,  was  a  big  step, 
and  bigger  yet  was  the  deification  of  living  men.  It 
may  even  be  that  the  latter  conception  was  not  Greek, 
but  was  borrowed  from  Egypt  or  Mesopotamia.  There 
is  no  indication  of  its  presence  before  Alexander.  That 
a  man  in  the  flesh  might  be  translated  from  mortality 
to  immortality — entrilckt — was  a  very  ancient  convic- 
tion. The  son-in-law  of  Zeus,  Menelaos,  had  been  so 
privileged.^**  A  poetic  hyperbole  claimed  as  much  for 
the  tyrannicide  Harmodius.^^  There  were  others,  of  no 
special  moment,  who  by  popular  legend  had  walked 
among  men  and  were  not  found,  as  in  later  times  hap- 
pened to  Arthur  and  Barbarossa.  But  they  became  as 
gods  only  by  their  translation.  We  do  not  meet  in 
Greece  for  centuries  men  who  ventured  to  claim  for 
themselves  in  the  visible  body  that  measure  of  divinity. 
In  Egypt,  however,  and  Mesopotamia  the  conception 
was  not  new.  Certainly  Pharaoh  did  not  wait  to  receive 
his  divine  character  from  the  hand  of  the  embalmer. 
He  was  at  all  times  Very  God.  At  both  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Nile,  Alexander  found  ample  precedent  for  the 


38     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


assumption  of  divine  honors,  to  which  he  no  doubt 
sincerely  beheved  he  had  every  claim.  We  know  how 
he  derived  his  descent,  without  contradiction  from  his 
mother  Olympias.  It  was  novel  doctrine  for  Greeks, 
but  the  avidity  with  which  it  was  accepted  and  imitated 
showed  that  it  did  not  absolutely  clash  with  Greek 
manner  of  thought. 

After  Alexander,  every  king  or  princelet  who 
appeared  with  sufficient  force  to  overawe  a  town  could 
scarcely  avoid  the  formal  decree  of  divinity.  The 
Ptolemies  quietly  stepped — though  not  at  once — into  the 
throne  and  prerogatives  of  Ra.  Seleucus  adopted  Apollo 
as  his  ancestor,  and  his  grandson  took  0eo?,  "  the  God," 
as  his  title.  His  line  maintained  a  shadowy  relation 
with  Marduk  and  Nebo  of  Babylon.  Demetrius  the 
Besieger  had  only  to  show  himself  at  Athens  to  be 
advanced  into  Olympus. 

The  religion  briefly  and  imperfectly  sketched  in  this 
chapter  was  not  really  a  system  at  all.  There  is  a  deal  of 
incoherency  in  it,  of  cross-purposes  and  contradiction. 
There  was  no  priestly  caste  among  the  Greeks  to  gather 
into  a  system  the  confused  threads  of  religious  thinking. 
Its  ethical  bearings  came  largely  through  the  idea  of 
the  state,  in  which  religion  was  a  highly  important  con- 
stituent. There  was  also  a  personal  and  emotional  side 
to  Greek  religion,  and  in  particular  cases  the  adoration 
of  the  worshiper  was  doubtless  the  sacrifice  of  a  broken 
and  contrite  heart,  and  not  the  blood  of  bullocks.  But 
the  crudities  of  animism  cropped  out  in  many  places, 


GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  39 

and  in  the  loftiest  of  Greek  prayers  there  is  no  note  like 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  all  thy  soul,  and  all  thy  might."  In  its  most 
developed  form  a  Greek's  dependence  on  his  god  was 
resignation,  not  self-immolation. 


CHAPTER  II 
ROMAN  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS 

Roman  religious  ideas  were  in  many  respects  like 
those  of  the  Greeks,  partly  because  they  were  borrowed 
from  the  Greeks  and  partly  because  they  were  common 
to  all  the  nations  of  the  Mediterranean  world.  It  may 
even  be  that  some  of  these  common  forms  are  categories 
which  the  human  mind  by  its  constitution  imposes  upon 
some  classes  of  phenomena,  Grundideen,  as  ethnolo- 
gists call  them/  Among  both  Romans  and  Greeks  we 
shall  find  deities  sharply  limited  in  their  spheres,  we 
shall  find  the  religious  act  exhausted  in  the  ritual  com- 
munion, we  shall  find  evanescent  personalities  among 
the  gods.  But  all  these  things  will  be  found  in  a  far 
different  degree,  and  at  various  periods  many  other 
matters  will  demand  consideration  which  the  Greeks  did 
not  know  at  all  or  knew  to  a  slighter  extent. 

The  differences  in  national  development  would  of 
themselves  require  differences  of  treatment.  Greek 
religion  grew  up  in  countless  independent  communities, 
which  advanced  in  civilization  at  very  different  rates. 
Roman  religion  was  developed  within  a  single  civic 
group,  and  was  ultimately  swamped  by  the  institutions 
with  which  it  came  into  contact.  Again,  it  is  much  more 
necessary  among  the  Romans  than  among  the  Greeks 
to  distinguish  clearly  between  periods.    Roman  political 


ROMAN  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  41 

history  passed  through  points  of  obvious  crisis,  and 
many  institutions  were  plainly  deflected  at  these  points 
into  quite  new  paths  of  development. 

Real  comprehension  of  Roman  religion  is  a  matter  of 
recent  growth.  During  the  vogue  of  comparative 
mythology,  the  Roman  myths  were  principally  dis- 
cussed, and  the  patent  fact  that  these  were  mere  trans- 
lations from  the  Greek  seemed  a  complete  summing  up 
of  Roman  religion.  It  is  only  when  the  actual  Roman 
calendar,  as  recorded  on  stone  during  the  reign  of 
Augustus,  came  to  be  studied  that  the  real  character  of 
Roman  religion  began  to  be  apprehended.^ 

The  results  of  this  study  have  made  it  clear  that  dur- 
ing the  highest  development  of  the  Roman  state  the 
official  religious  ritual  was  based  upon  pastoral  and 
agricultural  conditions  that  could  scarcely  be  reached 
even  in  imagination.  Propitiatory  and  dramatic  rites 
carried  out  with  painful  precision,  unintelligible  formu- 
laries carefully  repeated,  ceremonial  dances  in  which 
every  posture  was  subject  to  exact  regulation,  all  these 
things  indicate  an  anxious  solicitude  for  form  that  is 
ordinarily  more  characteristic  of  magic  than  of  religion. 
Now,  magic  and  religion  have  no  very  definite  limits  in 
anthropological  discussions,  but  most  of  those  who  use 
the  terms  will  probably  agree  that  magic  is  coercive, 
and  religion  is  not.  We  shall  see  at  various  points  in 
Roman  religion  that  a  coercive  idea  was  really  present 
in  the  Romans'  relation  with  the  gods,  and  that  it  fol- 
lowed in  a  measure  from  the  way  the  gods  were 
conceived.^ 


42     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


The  personality  of  the  Greek  gods  was  not  so  sharply 
individualized  as  the  myths  we  happen  to  know  would 
indicate,  but  the  gods  were  persons.  That  is,  during 
the  act  of  prayer  and  sacrifice  there  was  conjured  up  in 
the  mind  of  the  worshiper  a  definite  anthropomorphic 
figure,  who  dealt  with  him  somewhat  as  a  flesh  and 
blood  man  would  do.  But  what  was  present  in  a 
Roman's  mind  in  very  early  times — those  of  the  king- 
dom and  the  early  republic — was  probably  not  at  all  like 
this.  The  name  of  his  deity  was  often  an  abstraction, 
and  even  when  this  was  not  verbally  the  case,  the  idea 
was  an  abstract  one.  And  this  abstraction  had  so  little 
plastic  form  that  he  was  scarcely  certain  of  the  being's 
sex  to  which  he  addressed  words  of  very  real  supplica- 
tion, and  wholly  uncertain  what,  if  any,  concrete  mani- 
festation the  god  might  make  of  his  presence." 

But  it  will  be  well  to  understand  that  this  abstraction, 
which  the  Roman  knew  as  Salus,  or  Fortuna,  or  Vic- 
toria, was  not  a  philosophic  achievement.  It  was  not  a 
Platonic  ''  idea."  No  one  could  doubt  the  fact  that  in 
times  of  danger  safety  was  often  attained.  The  means 
of  attainment  seemed  frequently  due  to  chance;  that  is, 
to  the  working  of  unintelligible  forces.  It  was  to  evoke 
these  forces  and  set  them  in  operation  that  the  Roman 
ritual  was  addressed,  and  whether  these  forces  acted 
of  their  own  mere  motion,  or  whether  the  formularies 
contained  potent  spells,  which  compelled  their  activity, 
was  not  really  of  moment.  That  was  the  nature  of  the 
"  abstraction  "  which  such  words  as  Fides,  Concordia, 
and  the  rest  signified  to  Roman  minds. 


ROMAN  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  43 

In  the  early  days  a  great  deal  of  the  religious  practice 
was  borrowed  from  the  Etruscan  neighbors,  conquerors 
and  subjects  of  Rome.  The  Etruscans,  as  far  as  any- 
thing can  be  said  definitely  about  them,  were  especial 
adepts  in  all  the  arts  by  which  the  aid  of  deities,  how- 
ever conceived,  could  be  secured.  How  much  of  actual 
religious  teaching  they  gave  the  Romans,  that  is,  how  far 
they  actually  influenced  and  trained  the  emotions  which 
the  sense  of  being  surrounded  by  powerful  and  unac- 
countable forces  must  excite,  is  not  yet  determinable. 
But  they  gave  the  Romans,  or  increased  among  them, 
the  belief  in  the  eflicacy  of  formulas,  whether  of  the 
spoken  word  or  of  action. 

Although  most  of  the  Roman  deities  were  abstrac- 
tions in  the  sense  just  indicated,  many  others  and  very 
important  ones  bore  personal  names.  These  names  could 
^ot  help  suggesting  to  intelligent  men  at  all  times  that 
the  god  who  bore  one  of  them  was  himself  a  person,  that 
his  manifestations  would  be  in  human  form,  and  that  his 
mental  make-up  was  like  their  own.  Genetic  relations 
between  themselves  and  the  gods  so  conceived  were 
rapidly  enough  established.  It  is  very  likely,  too,  that 
some  of  these  deities,  perhaps  Jupiter  himself,  were 
brought  into  Italy  by  kinsmen  of  those  who  brought 
Zeus  into  Greece,  although  the  kinship  must  have  been 
extremely  remote.  And  when  the  gods  are  persons, 
stories  about  them  are  inevitable,  arising  partly  as  folk- 
lore and  partly  from  individual  poetic  imagining.  There 
are  accordingly  traces  of  an  indigenous  Roman  or  Italic 
mythology,    but    that    mythology    was    literally    over- 


44     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


whelmed,  in  relatively  early  times,  by  the  artistically 
more  developed  one  of  the  Greeks,  so  that  its  very 
existence  has  been  questioned.'' 

The  openness  of  the  Romans  to  foreign  religious 
influences  is  an  outcome  of  a  conception,  common 
enough,  but  more  pronounced  among  the  Romans  than 
anywhere  else.  In  most  places  the  gods  were  believed 
to  be  locally  limited  in  their  sphere  of  action,  and  in 
most  places  this  limitation  was  not  due  to  unchangeable 
necessity  but  to  the  choice  of  residence  on  the  part  of 
the  deity.  Since  it  was  a  choice,  it  was  subject  to  revo- 
cation. The  actual  land,  once  endeared  to  god  or  man, 
had  a  powerful  hold  upon  his  affections,  vastly  more 
powerful  than  the  corresponding  feeling  of  to-day,  but 
for  either  god  or  man  changes  might  and  did  occur. 

Both  Greeks  and  Romans  held  views  somewhat  of 
this  kind,  but  the  difference  in  political  development 
compelled  the  Roman  to  face  problems  in  the  relations 
of  the  gods  that  were  not  presented  to  the  Greeks. 
Greek  wars  were  not  wars  of  conquest.  They  resulted 
rather  in  the  acknowledgment  on  the  part  of  the 
vanquished  of  a  general  superiority.  With  barbarians, 
again,  the  struggles  were  connected  with  colonizing 
activity,  and,  when  they  were  successful,  they  resulted 
in  the  establishment  of  a  new  community,  which  gen- 
erally continued  the  ancient  shrines  in  all  but  their 
names.  Roman  wars,  however,  soon  became  of  a  dif- 
ferent sort.  The  newly  conquered  territory  was  often 
annexed — attached  to  the  city,  and  ruled  from  it.  To 
secure  the  lands  so  obtained  it  was  frequently  found 
necessary  to  destroy  the  city  of  which  they  were  once  a 


ROMAN  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  45 


part,  and  that  involved  the  cessation  of  rites,  which  the 
gods  would  not  be  likely  to  view  with  composure.  The 
Romans  drew  the  strictly  logical  inference  that  the 
only  solution  lay  in  bringing  the  gods  of  the  conquered 
city  to  Rome.  The  Roman  legend  knew  of  the  solemn 
words  with  which  the  dictator  Camillus  began  the  sack 
of  Veii : ''  Thou,  Queen  Juno,  who  now  dwellest  in  Veii, 
I  beseech  thee,  follow  our  victorious  troops  into  the  city 
that  is  now  ours,  and  will  soon  be  thine,  where  a  temple 
worthy  of  thy  majesty  will  receive  thee."  ^  But  besides 
this  legendary  incident,  we  have  an  actual  formula 
quoted  by  Macrobius  from  the  book  of  a  certain  Furius,' 
probably  the  contemporary  of  the  younger  Africanus. 
The  formula,  indubitably  ancient  and  general,  is  given 
as  Africanus  himself  may  have  recited  it  before  the 
destruction  of  Carthage  in  146  b.  c.  e.,  and  it  is  so  sig- 
nificant that  we  shall  give  it  in  full : 

Whoever  thou  art,  whether  god  or  goddess,  in  whose  ward 
the  people  and  city  of  Carthage  are,  and  thou  above  all,  who 
hast  accepted  the  wardship  of  this  city  and  this  people,  I 
beseech,  I  implore,  I  beg,  that  ye  will  desert  the  people  and 
city  of  Carthage,  that  ye  will  abandon  the  site,  the  consecrated 
places  and  the  city,  that  ye  will  depart  from  them,  overwhelm 
that  people  and  city  with  fear,  dread,  and  consternation,  and 
graciously  come  to  Rome,  to  me  and  my  people :  that  our 
site,  our  consecrated  places,  and  our  city  be  more  acceptable 
and  more  pleasing  in  your  sight,  and  that  ye  may  become  the 
lords  of  myself,  the  Roman  people,  and  my  soldiers.  Deign 
to  make  known  your  will  to  us.  If  ye  do  so,  I  solemnly 
promise  to  erect  temples  in  your  honor  and  establish  festal 
games.* 

What  might  happen  as  an  incident  of  warfare  could 
be  otherwise  effected  as  well.  We  have  very  old  evi- 
dence of  the  entry  of  Greek  deities  into  the  city  of 


46     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Rome.  The  Dioscuri  came  betimes ;  also  Heracles  and 
Apollo,  both  perhaps  by  way  of  Etruria.  And  in  his- 
torical times  we  have  the  well-known  official  importa- 
tion of  the  Great  Mother  and  of  Asclepius.'* 

These  importations  of  Greek  gods  were  at  the  time 
conscious  receptions  of  foreign  elements.  The  foreign 
god  and  his  ritual  were  taken  over  intact.  Greek  modes 
of  divine  communion,  notably  the  lectisternium,  or 
sacrificial  banquet,^"  and  the  games,  were  adopted  and 
eagerly  performed  by  Romans.  When  Rome  reached  a 
position  of  real  primacy  in  the  Mediterranean,  the  pro- 
cess of  saturation  with  foreign  elements  was  acceler- 
ated, but  with  it  an  opposition  movement  became  appar- 
ent, which  saw  in  them  (what  they  really  were)  a  source 
of  danger  for  the  ancient  Roman  institutions.  The  end 
of  the  second  Punic  war,  approximately  200  b.  c.  e., 
shortly  after  a  most  striking  instance  of  official  im- 
portation of  cults,  that  of  the  Phrygian  Cybele,.  par- 
ticularly marks  a  period  in  this  respect  as  in  so  many 
others.  From  that  time  on,  the  entry  of  foreign 
religions  went  on  apace,  but  it  was  somewhat  sur- 
reptitious, and  was  carried  on  in  the  train  of  economic, 
social,  and  political  movements  of  far-reaching  effect. 

When  the  Jews  came  in  contact  with  the  Romans,  this 
point  had  been  long  reached.  As  far,  therefore,  as  the 
Jews  were  concerned,  their  religion  shared  whatever 
feeling  of  repulsion  and  distrust  foreign  religions 
excited  among  certain  classes,  and  equally  shared  the 
very  catholic  veneration  and  dread  that  other  classes 
brought  to  any  system  of  worship. 


ROMAN  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS  47 


The  former  classes  correspond  roughly  to  those  of 
educated  men  generally.  Their  intellectual  outlook  was 
wholly  Greek,  and  all  their  thinking  took  on  a  Greek 
dress.  But  they  received  Greek  ideas,  not  only  through 
Homer  and  Sophocles,  but  also  through  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  Not  popular  Greek  religion,  but  sophisti- 
cated religious  philosophy,  was  brought  to  the  intel- 
lectual leaders  of  Rome.  One  of  the  very  first  works  of 
Greek  thought  to  be  brought  to  Roman  attention  was 
the  theory  of  Euhemerus,  a  destructive  analysis  of  the 
existing  myths,  not  merely  in  the  details  usually  cir- 
culated, but  in  respect  to  the  fundamental  basis  of  myth- 
making."  In  these  circumstances  educated  men  adopted 
the  various  forms  of  theism,  pantheism,  or  agnosticism 
developed  by  the  Greek  philosophical  schools,  and  their 
interest  in  the  ceremonial  of  their  ancestral  cult  became 
a  form  of  patriotism,  in  which,  however,  it  was  not 
always  possible  to  conceal  the  consciousness  of  the 
chasm  between  theory  and  practice. 

The  other  part  of  the  Roman  population,  which  knew 
Greek  myths  chiefly  from  the  stage,  could  not  draw 
such  distinctions.  What  was  left  of  the  old  Italian 
peasantry  perhaps  continued  the  sympathetic  and  propi- 
tiatory rites  that  were  the  substance  of  the  ancient 
Roman  cult.  But  there  cannot  have  been  a  great  number 
of  these.  The  mass  of  the  later  plebs,  a  mixed  multitude 
in  origin,  could  get  little  religious  excitement  out  of  the 
state  ritual.  What  they  desired  was  to  be  found  in  the 
Oriental  cults,  which  from  this  time  on  invaded  the 
city  they  were  destined  to  conquer. 


CHAPTER  III 
GREEK  AND  ROMAN  CONCEPTS  OF  RACE 

During  the  nineteenth  century  a  pecuHar  rigidity 
was  given  to  the  conception  of  race  through  the  appH- 
cation  of  somewhat  hastily  formed  biological  theories. 
One  or  another  of  the  current  hypotheses  on  heredity 
was  deemed  an  adequate  or  even  necessary  explanation, 
and  by  any  of  them  racial  characteristics  became  deter- 
mined, fixed :  race  was  an  unescapable  limiting  con- 
dition. The  Ethiopian  could  not  change  his  skin. 
These  ideas,  when  popularized,  corresponded  crudely 
to  certain  other  ideas  already  present  in  men's  minds — 
ideas  that  often  had  a  very  different  basis.  Their  lowest 
manifestation  is  that  form  of  vicarious  braggadocio 
which  is  known  as  jingoism,  racial  or  national,  and  is 
expressed  in  the  depreciation  of  everything  that  con- 
cerns other  ".races." 

Many  historians  have  been  influenced  by  this  modern 
and  unyielding  concept  of  race,  and  have  permitted 
themselves  to  make  rather  large  promises  about  the 
destinies  of  existing  groups  of  men  on  the  basis  of  it.^ 
But  as  late  as  a  hundred  years  ago  it  was  not  yet  in 
existence.  The  term  race  then  denoted  a  sum  of 
national  and  social  traits  which  it  might  be  difiicult  to 
acquire  in  one  generation,  but  which  could  readily  be 
gained  in  two.     Even  such  disparate  ethnic  groups  as 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  CONCEPTS  OF  RACE  49 

Austrian  and  Magyar  knew  of  no  impassable  chasm 
that  good-will  on  either  side  could  not  bridge. 

It  is  the  latter  racial  feeling  and  not  the  modern  one 
that  classical  antiquity  knew.  Consequently,  in  the 
clash  of  races  that  took  place  during  the  period  with 
which  this  book  deals,  ''  race  "  must  be  understood  as 
the  centuries  before  the  nineteenth  understood  it. 
Racial  prejudices,  pride  of  blood,  contempt  for  ''slave- 
nations, "existed  and  found  voice,  but  the  terms  are  not 
coextensive  with  those  of  to-day. 

It  is  well-known  that  a  primary  Greek  distinction  was 
that  between  Hellene  and  barbarian,  and  it  is  equally 
familiar  that  the  distinction  had  not  been  fully  formed 
in  the  time  of  Homer.  There  is  no  indication  that  the 
Trojans  were  felt  to  be  fundamentally  different  from 
the  Acheans,  although  it  is  likely  enough  that  the  allies 
who  attacked  the  great  city  of  the  Troad  were  of  differ- 
ent descent  from  those  that  defended  it.  The  one 
instance  found  in  Homer  of  the  word  /3dp/3apo<i  is  in  the 
compound  l3ap/3ap6(f>Mvos^  "  of  barbarous  speech  "  (Iliad 
ii.  867),  which  makes  the  original  meaning  of  the  word 
apparent.  A  Greek  was  one  whose  speech  was  intel- 
ligible. All  others  were  barbarians,  "jabberers."  And 
it  is  not  only  incidentally  that  Homer  fails  to  make  the 
racial  division  clear.  When  he  of  set  purpose  con- 
trasts the  two  armies,  as  in  Iliad  iv.  422-437,  it  is  the 
contrast  between  the  silent  discipline  of  the  Greeks  and 
the  loose,  noisy  marshaling  of  the  Trojans:  ''For  all 
were  not  of  one  speech  or  of  a  single  language.  Mixed 
were  their  tongues,  since  the  men  came  from  far-off 
lands." 


so     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


It  is  probably  in  the  course  of  just  such  expeditions 
as  the  IHad  tells  of,  a  joint  movement  against  a  common 
foe,  that  a  sense  of  national  unity  arose,  and  it  is  likely 
that  it  came  to  include  many  tribes  of  different  race. 
We  do  not  know  what  real  basis  there  is  for  the  tradi- 
tional divisions  of  lonians,  Dorians,  and  Aeolians. 
These  divisions  have  not  proved  very  valuable  means 
of  classification  to  modern  students  of  Greek  dialects. 
The  generic  name  of  Greek  to  the  East  was  Yavan, 
obviously  the  same  as  Ionian,^  and  that  name  indicates 
where  the  first  contact  took  place.  The  struggles  of 
Greeks  to  establish  themselves  on  the  coast  of  Asia 
Minor  probably  created  the  three  traditional  groups, 
by  forcing  them  to  combine  against  threatened  destruc- 
tion. But  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  any  real  feel- 
ing of  common  origin  and  common  responsibility 
existed  even  here. 

On  the  continent,  again,  there  were  large  groups  of 
men  whom  the  Greeks  found  difficulty  in  classifying. 
There  were  some  Epirotes  and  Macedonians  whose 
claim  to  be  Greeks  was  admitted.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, Epirotes  and  Macedonians  were  classed  as  bar- 
barians, though  a  different  sort  of  barbarians  from 
Scythian  and  Phrygian.  The  first  realization  of 
national  unity  came  with  the  first  great  national  danger, 
the  catastrophe  that  impended  from  the  Persians. 

Even  then  actual  invasion  did  not  succeed  in  com- 
bining the  Greeks  even  temporarily.  That  was  due  to 
the  inherent  difficulty  in  interesting  Thessalians  or 
Boeotians  in  the  quarrels  of  lonians.^    In  spite  of  them, 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  CONCEPTS  OF  RACE  51 


the  danger  was  at  that  time  averted,  but  it  did  not  there- 
fore become  less  real.  The  consciousness  of  this  ever- 
present  danger  and  the  bitter  experiences  of  subjection 
created  groups  that  coalesced  more  solidly  than  ever 
before  about  certain  leaders,  Athenians  or  Spartans. 
In  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries,  the  concept  of  a  Greek 
race  received  a  real  outline,  and  the  feeling  of  a  com- 
mon race  pride  became  highly  developed. 

This  race  pride  showed  itself  principally  in  an  over- 
weening confidence  in  the  superiority  of  Greek  arms. 
It  is  a  false  notion  that  represents  the  Greek  as  careless 
or  contemptuously  indififerent  of  the  races  about  him. 
Never  were  men  more  eager  for  curious  tales  of  out-of- 
the-way  peoples.  Their  earliest  historians  won  their 
chief  success  in  this  way.  But  Greeks  had  beaten  back 
the  conquerors  of  the  world,  and  had  maintained  them- 
selves aggressively  as  well.  It  was  very  natural  that 
something  of  this  attitude  was  apparent  in  dealing  with 
barbarians  even  on  terms  of  comity.  The  Greeks  had 
at  least  colorable  ground  for  believing  that  in  military 
matters  they  were  masters  wherever  they  chose. 

One  phrase  of  which  some  Greek  writers  were  fond 
need  not  be  taken  too  seriously.  Barbarians,  we  are 
told,  are  by  nature  slaves.*  It  would  be  an  error  to 
attach  much  importance  to  the  statement.  Greeks  did 
not  really  believe  that  Darius  or  Datames  or  Hamilcar 
was  servile  in  character  or  in  disposition.  The  expres- 
sion was  merely  the  facile  chauvinism  that  military 
prestige  readily  stirs  up  in  any  nation.  So  at  certain 
times  some  Englishmen  were  ready  to  call  the  French 


52     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

cowards,  or  Frenchmen  to  call  Prussians  so.  Among 
the  Greeks  the  principal  basis  for  the  statement  was  the 
fact  that  the  activity  of  Greek  merchants  and  pirates 
filled  every  city  with  slaves  of  all  foreign  nations. 
Indeed  the  phrase  is  no  more  than  a  generalized  asser- 
tion of  that  state  of  things. 

We  shall  have  to  qualify  similarly  the  statement  now 
and  then  encountered  of  a  natural  and  permanent  hos- 
tility between  Greeks  and  barbarians.  It  is  a  common- 
place of  Athenian  orators,  but  it  practically  always 
concerns  the  real  hereditary  enemy  of  Greeks,  and 
particularly  of  Athens — the  Persians.  It  is  in  calling 
the  Greeks  against  their  ancient  foe  that  Isocrates  uses 
the  phrase,"  and  in  Demosthenes  ^  it  is  especially  based 
upon  the  hostilities  so  long  maintained  between  Athens 
and  Persia  and  the  ancient  grudge  Athenians  bore  for 
the  sack  of  their  city  in  480  b.  c.  e. 

The  first  achievement  of  united  Hellas  was  the 
invasion  of  Persia,  although  it  was  under  Macedonian 
leadership  that  this  was  done,  but  soldiers  of  Alexander 
appeared  as  Greeks  to  the  East,  and  Alexander  is^i>  -T'p);^' 
melek  Yavan, ''  king  of  Greece,"  in  the  Book  of  Daniel.^ 

Just  at  this  culminating  point  in  the  development  of 
Greek  nationality,  the  process  of  blurring  began.  Greek 
and  non-Greek  were  no  sooner  sharply  contrasted  than 
by  the  conscious  assimilation  policy  of  Alexander's  suc- 
cessors the  lines  tended  to  obliterate  themselves.  At 
first  Greek  culture  was  dominant,  but  beneath  it  Syrian, 
Egyptian,  and  Cappadocian  obstinately  survived,  and 
ultimately,  under  Christian  and  Mohammedan  influ- 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  CONCEPTS  OF  RACE  53 

ences,  regained  their  place.  It  is  with  one  phase  of  this 
specific  problem — the  threatened  submergence  of  an 
Asiatic  people  by  Greek  culture — that  we  are  particu- 
larly concerned. 

The  attitude  of  Romans  toward  other  nations  was, 
as  might  be  expected,  even  more  arrogantly  that  of 
masters  and  conquerors.  But  where  we  find  among 
Greeks  a  certain  theoretical  importance  attached  to 
purity  of  Hellenic  descent*  (which,  by  the  by,  was 
largely  ignored  in  practice),  the  Romans  scarcely 
understood  what  the  term  meant.  A  system  in  which 
emancipated  slaves  were  citizens,  who  in  the  second 
generation  were  eligible  to  high  civic  honors,^  and  not 
infrequently  attained  them — such  a  system  did  not  tend 
to  encourage  claims  to  purity  of  blood.  That  does  not 
mean  that  foreign  origin,  real  or  suspected,  could  not 
at  any  time  become  a  handle  for  abuse.  Cicero  fastens 
on  the  Celtic  strain  in  Piso's  lineage  with  savage  delight, 
just  as  Demosthenes'  enemies  rarely  forgot  to  remind 
him  of  his  Scythian  grandfather.^"  But  these  are  not 
matters  of  real  significance.  The  significant  fact  was 
that  they  who  were  Liby-Phoenicians  in  one  generation 
were  descendants  of  Romulus  in  the  next." 

Sumus  Romani  qui  fuimus  ante  Rudini,  "  We  are 
Romans,  we  who  formerly  were  Rudinians,"  says 
Ennius,^^  and  the  metamorphosis  was  as  complete  and  as 
easy  if,  instead  of  Italians,  they  were  wholly  barbarous 
elements  that  were  absorbed.  In  religious  matters  the 
Romans  more  than  the  Greeks  felt  the  efficacy  of  form. 
So  in  political  matters  the  formula  of  emancipation  and 


54     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

the  decree  of  citizenship  were  deemed  operative  of  a 
real  change  in  the  persons  affected. 

The  Roman  nobiHty,  it  is  true,  often  made  preten- 
sions to  a  purity  of  descent  that  felt  every  foreign 
admixture  as  a  stain/'  But  such  claims  were  absurdly 
groundless,  and  cannot  really  have  deceived  even  those 
who  maintained  them.  The  great  majority  of  Romans 
had  no  quarrel  with  any  who  desired  and  tried  to  be 
Roman.  Even  Juvenal's  venom  is  vented  only  on  the 
avowed  foreigners,  who  as  Greeks,  Egyptians,  and 
Syrians  lolled  at  their  ease,  while  the  ragged  Cethegi 
and  Cornucanii  munched,  standing,  the  bread  of  afflic- 
tion and  charity.  The  leveling  tendencies  of  the  autoc- 
racy removed  a  great  many  of  the  reasons  of  this  fric- 
tion, and  in  part  succeeded  in  giving  even  the  Greek- 
speaking  East  and  the  Latin-speaking  West  a  common 
culture  to  maintain.  But  by  that  time  new  movements 
of  population  made  such  race-concepts  as  were  based  on 
blood-kinship  too  plainly  out  of  accord  with  the  facts 
to  be  seriously  asserted.  At  the  close  of  the  period  we 
are  discussing,  every  man  was  either  a  Roman  citizen, 
with  a  pressingly  heavy  share  of  the  burden  of  main- 
taining the  Roman  system,  or  he  was  not.  Who  his 
ancestors  were  was  wholly  forgotten.  It  had  even 
ceased  to  be  of  moment  whether  he  spoke  Greek  or 
Latin  or  Syriac,  Punic,  or  even  Gallic,"  which  had  never 
completely  died  out  in  their  ancient  homes. 

At  no  time  did  a  feeling  of  racial  kinship  make  a 
strong  sentimental  appeal.  That  the  whole  human  race 
was  an  extended  family  was  taken  as  axiomatic.  Strik- 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  CONCEPTS  OF  RACE  55 


ing  physical  differences  did  not  prevent  similarity  of 
names  from  proving  kinship  between  Egyptian  and 
Greek  and  Persian  and  Ethiopian.  All  through  Greek 
history  factions  in  Greek  cities  called  upon  outsiders 
against  their  countrymen.  The  Phoenicians  of  Utica 
preferred  the  foreign  Romans  to  their  Carthaginian 
kinsmen.  Similarly  the  Campanians  of  Capua  chose  to 
fraternize  with  the  Libyans  and  Phoenicians  of  Hanni- 
bal's army  rather  than  the  closely  related  Latins.^^  In 
these  circumstances  nothing  will  lend  itself  more  easily 
to  distorting  our  view  of  the  times  than  the  importation 
into  them  of  the  modern  view  of  race — of  that  view,  at 
least,  in  which  the  historians  of  the  nineteenth  century 
found  so  easy  and  adequate  an  explanation  of  every- 
thing they  desired  to  debase  or  extol. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SKETCH    OF   JEWISH    HISTORY    BETWEEN 
NEBUCHADNEZZAR  AND  CONSTANTINE 

We  have  briefly  sketched  in  the  foregoing  chapters 
the  concepts  of  race  and  rehgion  that  Greek  and  Roman 
applied  to  the  world  about  them.  These  concepts  were 
not  starkly  rigid.  They  changed  considerably  and  often 
rapidly  in  the  six  centuries  our  subject  covers.  They  are 
further  to  be  qualified  by  the  social  environment  within 
which  they  operated.  But  it  was  not  only  the  Greeks 
or  Romans  who  in  blood  and  thought  passed  through 
many  and  profound  changes.  The  Jews,  too,  developed 
in  many  directions,  and  this  development  can  no  more 
be  lost  sight  of  than  the  corresponding  one  among  their 
neighbors. 

In  586  B.  c.  E.  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  which  had  for 
some  years  been  a  Babylonian  dependency,  was  ended 
as  a  political  institution,  and  the  majority  of  its  people, 
at  any  rate  of  the  nobles  and  wealthy  men  of  them,  were 
forcibly  deported  to  Babylon.  The  deportation  though 
extensive  was  not  complete.  Some,  principally  peasants 
and  artisans,  were  left,  but  in  districts  so  long  wasted 
by  war  their  condition  can  only  have  been  extremely 
wretched.  Since  the  whole  region  was  part  of  the  same 
huge  empire,  the  old  boundary  lines  were  probably 
obliterated,  and  those  who  lived  there  subjected  to  the 


FROM  NEBUCHADNEZZAR   TO    CONSTANTINE       57 

control  of  imperial  governors  residing  in  one  or  another 
of  the  walled  cities  of  Syria  or  Philistia. 

Within  the  next  two  generations  momentous  political 
changes  occurred.  The  Babylonian  empire  gave  way 
to  a  Persian,  which,  however,  can  at  first  have  changed 
nothing  except  the  personnel  of  the  actual  administra- 
tors. According  to  a  very  probable  tradition,  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  Cyrus  was  to  permit,  at  any  rate  not  to 
oppose,  the  remigration  of  some  of  the  Judean  families 
or  clans  to  their  former  homes.  Within  the  next  hun- 
dred years  a  larger  and  larger  number  of  the  families 
deported  by  Nebuchadnezzar  likewise  returned,  though 
never  all  of  them  and  perhaps  not  even  a  majority  of 
them.  Much  of  the  old  territory  must  have  been  found 
unoccupied,  since  otherwise  conflicts  must  have  arisen 
with  interests  vested  within  the  fifty  years  and  more 
that  had  elapsed,  and  of  these  we  do  not  hear.  But  we 
do  hear  of  immediate  conflicts  between  the  returned 
exiles  and  those  who  professed  to  be  the  descendants  of 
the  Israelites  (and  Judaites)  left  by  Assyrians  (and 
Babylonians)  on  the  soil.  These  latter  were  beginning 
to  gather  about  Shechem,  where  they  must  already  have 
been  a  dominant  element,  and  where  they  had  created  a 
cult  center  on  Mount  Gerizim.  The  conflict  tended  to 
become  compromised  in  time,  until  the  activities  of  the 
reformer  Ezra,  backed  by  the  civil  governor  Nehemiah, 
again  and  permanently  separated  them. 

The  returned  exiles  had  from  the  beginning  made 
the  ancient  capital  their  center,  and  had  succeeded  in 
obtaining  permission  to  rebuild  their  ancient  shrine. 


58     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


But  they  were  at  an  obvious  disadvantage  compared 
with  their  rivals  at  Shechem,  until  the  city  of  David 
could  receive  the  characteristic  of  a  city — the  walls 
which  alone  distinguished  village  or  somewhat  more 
densely  populated  section  of  the  open  country  from  the 
polis  or  city  proper.  These,  too,  were  obtained  through 
Nehemiah,  and  the  prohibition  of  connubium  between 
the  so-called  Samaritans  of  Shechem  and  the  Jews  of 
Jerusalem  was  the  first  aggressive  act  of  the  now  self- 
reliant  community. 

The  system  of  government  of  the  Persian  empire  was 
not  oppressive.  The  distant  king  of  kings  was  mainly 
insistent  upon  recognition  of  his  sovereignty  and  regu- 
larity of  tribute,  less  as  a  means  of  support  than  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  submission.  Within  the  provinces 
the  satrap  was  practically  king,  and  might  make  his 
domination  light  or  burdensome  as  he  chose.  We  have 
excellent  contemporary  evidence  that  he  took  his 
responsibilities  lightly  for  the  most  part.  In  the  moun- 
tains of  Asia  Minor  many  tribes  seem  scarcely  to  have 
known  that  they  were  born  vassals  of  the  Persian  king.* 
The  local  satrap  rarely  attempted  to  control  in  detail  the 
administrative  affairs  of  the  communities  in  his  charge, 
particularly  when  such  an  attempt  would  precipitate  a 
rebellion. 

In  Judea  the  open  plains  and  low  hills  rendered  it 
easier  for  the  governor  to  emphasize  the  king's  author- 
ity than  it  was  among  the  mountains  of  Cappadocia 
or  the  fiords  of  Cilicia,  whose  native  syennesis,  or  king, 
retained  both  title  and  authority.    We  have,  however, 


1 


FROM  NEBUCHADNEZZAR   TO   CONSTANTINE       59 

a  confused  and  particularly  fragmentary  record  of 
what  actually  happened  in  the  two  hundred  years  that 
elapsed  between  Zerubbabel  and  Alexander.  Changes 
of  great  moment  in  the  political,  social,  and  religious  life 
of  the  Jews  were  undoubtedly  taking  place,  since  we 
find  those  changes  completed  a  few  years  later,  but  we 
can  only  conjecture  the  stages  of  the  process.  On  the 
whole  our  sources,  till  considerably  later,  are  very 
imperfect.  The  Persian  period  forms  the  largest  gap 
in  the  history  of  the  Jews. 

A  great  many  Biblical  scholars,  particularly  in  Ger- 
many, assign  to  this  period  an  influence  nothing  short 
of  fundamental.  A  large  part  of  the  texts  now  gathered 
in  the  Bible  are  placed  in  this  time.  The  extreme  view 
practically  refers  the  beginning  of  Jewish  history  to 
this  date,  and  assumes  that  only  a  very  small  part  of  the 
older  literature  and  institutions  survived  the  Babylonian 
exile.  The  new  community  began  its  life,  it  is  asserted, 
with  elements  almost  wholly  dependent  upon  the  civil- 
ization of  Babylon  and  Persia. 

It  is  extremely  unlikely  that  this  theory  is  correct. 
Every  individual  assertion  of  course  must  be  judged  in 
the  light  of  the  evidence  presented  for  it.  And  on  this 
point  it  may  be  sufficient  to  mention  that  the  evidence 
for  almost  every  position  is  of  the  feeblest.  It  consists 
largely  in  apparent  inconsistencies  of  statements  or 
allusions,  for  which  the  theory  advanced  suggests  a 
hypothetical  reconciliation.  If  these  hypotheses  are  to 
be  considered  scientifically,  they  at  best  present  a  possi- 
ble solution  and  always  only  one  of  many  possible  solu- 


6o     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

tions.  But  the  general  theory  suffers  from  an  incon- 
sistency much  graver  than  those  it  attempts  to  remove. 

The  inconsistency  lies  in  this :  The  soil  of  Palestine, 
never  of  high  fertility,  had  greatly  deteriorated  by  the 
frequent  wars  of  the  seventh  century  and  the  neglect 
and  desolation  of  the  following  centuries.  Commerce, 
because  of  the  absence  of  ports,  was  practically  non- 
existent. Those  who  returned  can  scarcely  have  found 
time  for  anything  else  than  the  bare  problem  of  living. 
In  these  circumstances  it  is  obviously  improbable  that 
a  literary  activity  rich  and  powerful  enough  to  have 
created  the  masterpieces  often  assigned  to  this  period 
can  have  existed.  The  conditions  of  pioneers  do  not 
readily  lend  themselves  to  such  activities.  City  life,  an 
essential  prerequisite  of  high  achievements  in  art,  was 
being  reconstructed  very  slowly  and  was  confined  almost 
wholly  to  Jerusalem.  The  difficulty  is  a  serious  one, 
and  is  quite  disregarded  by  many  scholars  to  whom  the 
bleakness  of  our  records  of  this  time  affords  a  constant 
temptation. 

Jewish  soldiers  fought  in  the  armies  of  their  Persian 
master  wherever  these  armies  went.  Some  must  have 
been  among  the  Syrian  contingent  at  Marathon  and 
Plataea.'  The  garrisons  of  the  frontiers  contained 
many  of  them.  Recently  a  fortunate  accident  has  dis- 
closed, at  the  upper  cataract  of  the  Nile,  a  garrison  com- 
munity of  Jews,  of  which  the  records,  known  as  the 
Assuan  and  Elephantine  papyri,^  have  opened  up  quite 
new  vistas  in  Jewish  history.  Perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant point  established  is  the  beginning  of  the  Diaspora. 


FROM   NEBUCHADNEZZAR    TO    CONSTANTINE       6i 

The  existence  of  communities  of  Jews  outside  of  Pal- 
estine, developing  their  own  traditions  and  assimilating 
their  appearance  and  social  customs  to  those  of  their 
neighbors,  is  a  matter  of  capital  importance  for  the  his- 
tory of  later  Jewry.  When  such  communities  multi- 
plied, Jerusalem  came  more  and  more  to  have  a  merely 
religious  presidency  over  them,  and  the  constitution  of 
Judea  itself  became  determined  by  that  fact,  while  the 
foundations  were  being  laid  for  the  career  of  religious 
propaganda  later  so  successfully  undertaken. 

The  virtual  autonomy  of  the  Persian  period  allowed 
the  development  of  a  well-organized  ruling  caste  of 
priests,  in  which  were  perhaps  included  the  Soferim,  or 
Scribes,  men  learned  in  the  Law,  who  had  no  definite 
priestly  functions.  The  scope  of  the  high  priest's  juris- 
diction, the  extent  of  his  powers,  may  not  have  been 
sharply  defined  as  yet.  In  itself  the  presence  of  a  high 
priest  as  head  of  the  state  was  not  at  all  unusual  in  that 
region.  As  has  been  said,  the  interference  of  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Persian  sovereign  was  a  variable  quan- 
tity. In  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  century  a  Jew, 
Nehemiah,  held  the  office  of  tirshatha,  or  viceroy,  an 
accident  that  was  of  inestimable  value  to  the  growing 
community,  and  may  have  finally  secured  the  threatened 
political  existence  of  Jerusalem. 

One  other  political  event,  of  which  we  have  dim  and 
confused  accounts,  was  a  rebellion — whether  in  or  of 
Judea — under  Artaxerxes  Ochus  (359-338  b.  c.  e.). 
The  account  of  Josephus  speaks  of  feuds  in  the  high- 
priestly  family,  the  murder  of  a  claimant  in  the  temple 


(>2     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


precincts,  and  the  intervention  of  the  all-powerful 
eunuch  Bagoas."  That  some  such  thing  happened  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,  although  we  cannot  recover 
the  details.  It  is,  however,  unwarranted  to  make  the 
incident  in  any  way  typical  of  the  fortunes  of  Judea 
during  Persian  rule.  There  was  no  tradition  in  later 
times  of  Persian  oppression,  nor  can  even  this  rebellion, 
if  rebellion  it  was,  have  involved  serious  repressive 
measures,  since  the  Greek  invasion  a  few  years  later 
found  the  Jews  loyal  to  their  overlord. 

When  the  Macedonian  Alexander  changed  the  face 
of  the  East,  the  Jews  were  swept  along  with  the  rest  of 
the  loose-jointed  empire  built  by  Cyrus  and  Darius. 
Upon  Alexander's  death,  after  uncertainties  which  the 
w^iole  Levant  shared,  Palestine  fell  to  Egypt,  of  which 
it  was  a  natural  geographical  appanage  as  it  had  been 
for  millennia  before.  Under  the  suzerainty  of  the 
Ptolemies  the  Jewish  communities  in  Egypt  received 
very  considerable  reinforcements,  and  the  home-coun- 
try became  a  real  national  expression,  and  rapidly 
attained  a  relatively  high  degree  of  material  well-being, 
since  the  practical  autonomy  of  Persian  days  was  con- 
tinued. Seized  by  Antiochus  of  Asia  in  the  decrepitude 
of  Egypt,  Judea  entered  with  full  national  conscious- 
ness into  the  heterogeneous  kingdom  ruled  by  a  singu- 
larly fantastic  royal  house.  A  blunder  in  policy  of  the 
peculiarly  fantastic  Epiphanes  provoked  a  revolt  that 
was  immediately  successful  in  causing  the  prompt  aban- 
donment of  the  policy,  and  was  helped  by  dynastic 
chaos  to  a  still  larger  measure  of  success. 


FROM  NEBUCHADNEZZAR   TO   CONSTANTINE      63 

The  leaders  of  that  revolt,  the  Hasmonai  family,  pro- 
duced a  succession  of  able  soldiers.  Besides  the  old 
Mattathiah  and  his  heroic  son  Judah,  Jonathan,  Simon, 
and  John,  by  selling  their  service  dearly  to  this  one  or 
that  one  of  the  Syrian  pretenders,  by  understandings 
with  the  ubiquitous  Roman  emissaries,  above  all  by 
military  skill  of  the  first  order,  changed  the  virtual 
autonomy  of  Persian  and  Ptolemaic  times  into  a  real 
one,  in  which  Syrian  suzerainty  was  a  tradition,  active 
enough  under  the  vigorous  Sidetes,  non-existent  under 
the  imbecile  Cyzicenus." 

During  all  this  time  Jews,  from  personal  choice  and 
royal  policy,  had  extended  their  dispersion  through- 
out the  new  cities  founded  by  their  Seleucid  masters. 
Until  the  battle  of  Magnesia,  190  b.  c.  e.,  Asia  Minor 
was  the  real  center  of  the  Seleucid  monarchy  ;  and  in  the 
innumerable  cities  established  there,  Jews  in  large  num- 
bers settled.  When  Judea  became  independent  there 
were  probably  as  many  Jews  outside  of  it  as  within  it. 

With  the  Hasmonean  princes — "  high  priest  "  is  the 
title  which  the  Hebrew  legend  on  their  coins  gives 
them  ^ — the  country  entered  upon  a  career  of  conquest. 
Galilee,  Idumaea,  the  coast  cities  of  Philistia,  portions 
of  Gilead  were  seized  by  John,  or  Aristobulus,  or  Alex- 
ander, so  that  Judea  rapidly  became  one  of  the  impor- 
tant kingdoms  of  the  East,  with  which  no  one  could  fail 
to  reckon  who  became  active  in  the  affairs  of  that 
region.  Rome  had  backed  the  Hasmoneans  against 
Syria  so  long  as  Syria  presented  the  possibility  of 
becoming  dangerous.     But  that   soon  ceased.     By  a 


64     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


strange  paradox  of  history  the  Hellenized  East  found 
its  last  champion  against  the  Romans  in  the  Persian 
kings  of  Pontus,  and  when  Mithradates  was  crushed,  it 
could  only  be  a  question  of  the  order  in  which  every 
fragment  of  Alexander's  empire  would  slip  into  the 
maw  of  the  eagles.  The  Roman  liquidator,  Pompey, 
appeared  in  Asia,  and  Antioch  became  a  suburb  of 
Rome. 

The  pretext  for  clearing  their  way  to  Egypt  by  tak- 
ing Judea  presented  itself  in  a  disputed  succession. 
The  sons  of  Alexander  Jannai  were  compelled  to  accept 
the  arbitrament  of  the  Romans,  with  the  usual  result. 
The  loser  in  the  award,  Aristobulus,  attempted  to  make 
good  by  arms  what  he  had  lost  in  the  decision.  A 
Roman  army  promptly  invested  Jerusalem,  moved  by 
the  patent  injustice  of  allowing  a  capable  and  vigorous 
prince  to  usurp  the  place  of  a  submissive  weakling.  The 
Roman  general  walked  into  the  inner  court  of  the  tem- 
ple, and  peered  into  the  Holy  of  Holies.  He  found 
nothing  for  his  pains,  but  his  act  symbolized  the  pres- 
ence of  the  master,  and  left  a  fine  harvest  of  hate  and 
distrust  for  the  next  generations  to  reap. 

From  that  time  on,  the  history  of  Judea  is  the  not 
uncommon  one  of  a  Roman  dependency.  The  political 
changes  are  interesting  and  dramatic  but  not  of  particu- 
lar importance :  vassal  kings,  docile  tetrarchs,  finally 
superseded  by  the  Roman  procurator  with  all  the 
machinery  of  his  office.  Judea  was  different  only  in 
that  her  rebellions  were  more  formidable  and  obstinate. 
But  Rome  had  developed  a  habit  of  crushing  rebellions. 


FROM  NEBUCHADNEZZAR    TO    CONSTANTINE       65 

Simeon  bar  Kosiba,  known  chiefly  as  Bar-Kochba,  was 
the  last  Jew  to  offer  armed  resistance.  With  his  death 
the  poHtical  history  of  Judea  comes  to  an  end. 

The  rehgious  and  social  history  of  the  Jews  had  for 
many  centuries  ceased  to  be  identical  with  that  of  their 
country.  It  was  a  minority  of  Jews  then  living  that 
participated  in  the  rebellion  of  68,  and  perhaps  a  still 
smaller  fraction  that  took  part  in  the  rising  under 
Trajan  and  Hadrian.  The  interest  of  all  Jews  in  the 
fortunes  of  Judea  must  at  all  times  have  been  lively 
and  deep,  but  the  feeling  was  different  in  the  case  of 
non-Palestinian  Jews  from  that  of  men  toward  their 
fatherland. 

Meeting  for  the  study  of  their  ancient  lore  in  their 
''  guild-house,"  the  proseucha,  or  schola,  the  Jewish 
citizens  of  the  various  cities  of  the  Roman  empire  or  the 
Parthian  kingdom  did  not  present  to  their  neighbors  a 
spectacle  so  unique  as  to  arrest  the  latter's  attention  at 
once.  They  were  simply  a  group  of  allied  cult-com- 
munities, sometimes  possessing  annoying  exemptions  or 
privileges,  but  not  otherwise  exceptional.  An  excep- 
tional position  begins  for  them  when  their  privileges 
are  abolished,  and  their  civil  rights  curtailed,  by  the 
legislation  of  the  early  Christian  emperors. 


CHAPTER  V 

INTERNAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  JEWS 
DURING  THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD 

The  Jews  took  to  Babylon  a  highly  complicated  body 
of  civil  law  and  religious  doctrine.  The  essence  of  the 
latter  was  an  exclusive  monotheism,  and  that  belief  was 
not  the  possession  of  a  cultured  few,  but  the  accepted 
credo  of  the  entire  nation.  No  doubt,  among  the  com- 
mon people,  practices  still  existed  that  implied  the  recog- 
nition of  polytheism.  No  doubt,  too,  words  and  phrases 
occurred  in  common  speech,  in  poetry,  and  in  ritual, 
which  had  arisen  in  polytheistic  times,  and  are  fully 
intelligible  only  with  a  polytheistic  background.  But 
these  phrases  and  practices  do  not  imply  the  survival  of 
polytheism,  either  as  a  whole  or  in  rudimentary  form, 
any  more  than  using  the  names  of  the  Teutonic  gods  for 
the  days  of  the  week  commits  us  to  the  worship  of  those 
gods,  or  the  various  funeral  superstitions  still  in  vogue 
allow  the  inference  that  our  present-day  religion  is  a 
worship  of  the  Di  Manes. 

Just  as  the  Jewish  religion  was  in  a  highly  developed 
form  at  the  time  of  the  Exile,  so  the  Law  was  very 
fully  developed.  That  the  entire  Law,  as  embodied  in 
the  Pentateuch,  was  promulgated  by  Moses  is  not  alto- 
gether likely,  but  that  any  considerable  fraction  of  it  is 
later  than  586  b.  c.  e.  is  equally  unlikely.    Interpolations 


THE  JEWS  DURING  THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD  67 

doubtless  occurred  often.  To  insert  into  an  authorita- 
tive text  an  inference  from  the  words  which  the  inter- 
polator honestly  believed  to  be  true,  was  not  a  generally 
reprehended  practice.  Perhaps  some  of  the  emphasis 
upon  sacerdotal  organization  which  parts  of  the  Penta- 
teuch show,  may  have  so  been  imported  into  the  con- 
stituent codes  of  the  Torah.  But  on  how  slight  a  scale 
this  was  can  be  readily  seen  by  comparing  the  Penta- 
teuch with  any  of  the  apocryphal  books  consciously 
designed  to  magnify  the  priesthood.^  The  actual  civil 
law  bears  every  mark  of  high  antiquity.  The  religious 
law  is  at  least  not  inconsistent  with  such  antiquity. 

Now  neither  in  civil  law  nor  in  religious  thought  did 
the  community  that  slowly  formed  itself  about  the 
acropolis  of  Zion  remain  stationary.  We  must  suppose 
that  the  energies  of  the  returning  exiles  were  pretty 
well  concentrated  upon  the  economic  problems  before 
them.  But  an  actual  community  they  were  from  the 
start,  and  although  the  communal  life  was  far  from 
attaining  at  once  to  the  richness  of  former  days,  it  con- 
tained all  the  elements  necessary.  Without  a  common 
law,  i.  e.  a  regulation  of  conflicting  claims  to  property, 
and  without  a  common  cult,  i.  e.  a  regulation  of  the  com- 
munication between  the  divine  and  the  human  members 
of  a  state,  no  state  was  conceivable  to  the  ancient  world. 
Changed  conditions  will  infallibly  modify  both,  and 
some  of  these  modifications  it  will  be  necessary  to 
understand. 

We  possess  in  the  book  known  as  Ben  Sira,  or 
Ecclesiasticus/  an  invaluable  and  easily  dated  record 


68     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

of  life  as  it  appeared  to  a  cultured  and  wealthy  inhabi- 
tant of  Jerusalem  about  the  year  200  b.  c.  e.  The  inci- 
dental references  to  past  time  and,  above  all,  the  infer- 
ences which  may  legitimately  be  drawn  about  the 
origins  of  a  society  so  completely  organized  as  that  of 
Judea  at  that  time,  render  recourse  to  the  book  a  neces- 
sity at  many  points  of  our  investigation.  While  accord- 
ingly we  find  it  a  convenient  terminus  in  both  directions, 
we  must  make  large  individual  qualifications.  Ben  Sira 
does  not  fully  represent  his  time  or  his  people.  He 
belonged  to  a  definite  social  stratum.  His  own  studies 
and  reflections  had  no  doubt  developed  conclusions 
that  were  far  from  being  generally  shared.  But  he  is 
an  eloquent  and  unimpeachable  witness  that  the  Biblical 
books  had  already  reached  a  high  measure  of  sanctity, 
and  the  division  later  perpetuated  in  the  tripartite  canon 
of  Law,  Prophets,  and  Writings,  already  existed ;  and, 
if  nothing  else,  the  single  reference  to  Isaiah  as  the 
prophet  of  consolation  renders  it  probable  that  even  so 
heterogeneous  a  corpus  as  the  canonical  Isaiah  was 
already  extant  much  as  we  have  it  now.^ 

Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  length  of  time  necessary 
to  permit  this  development.  But  that  a  very  few  gen- 
erations could  have  sufficed  for  it  is  scarcely  credible. 
Since  even  the  Secondary  Canon,  that  of  the  prophets, 
had  already  become  a  rigid  one,  in  which  historical  dif- 
ferences in  parts  of  the  same  book  were  ignored,  the 
Law  must  have  been  fixed  for  an  even  longer  time,  and 
the  process  of  interpretation  which  every  living  code 
requires  must  have  gone  on  apace  for  very  many  years 
indeed. 


THE  JEWS  DURING  THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD  69 

We  know  very  little  of  the  actual  agencies  by  which 
this  process  was  effected.  The  second  great  code  of  the 
Jews  was  not  finally  fixed  till  200  c.  e.  We  are,  how- 
ever, measurably  familiar  with  the  organization  of  the 
judiciary  for  some  two  centuries  before,  but  even  here 
there  are  distressing  gaps,  and  for  the  time  before 
Hillel  the  tradition  is  neither  clear  nor  full.  All,  there- 
fore, that  concerns  the  organization  of  the  judicial 
bodies  that  framed  and  applied  the  Law  must  be  con- 
jectured, and  the  earliest  conjectures  embodied  in  Tal- 
mudic  tradition  are  perhaps  as  good  as  any.  The  devel- 
opment of  "  houses  of  prayer  "  was  a  necessity  where 
so  many  Jewish  communities  were  incapacitated  from 
sharing  in  the  great  cult  ceremonies  at  Jerusalem,  and 
these  houses  became  a  convenience  within  Palestine  and 
Jerusalem  itself.  But  the  creation  of  houses  of  prayer 
demanded  local  organization,  and  with  that  local  organ- 
ization gradations  of  members  and  the  establishment 
of  local  magistrates.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
organization  of  the  Greek  city-state,  familiar  to  the 
East  for  many  years,  became  a  model  for  these  cor- 
porately  organized  communities.  Now  the  judicial 
function  inherent  in  the  character  of  ancient  magis- 
trates of  all  descriptions  might  easily  have  been  the 
means  of  originating  that  long  series  of  responsa  from 
which  the  later  Mishnah  was  finally  winnowed.  With 
every  increase  of  population,  power,  and  governmental 
machinery,  the  judicial  system  increased  in  complexity, 
and  the  intimate  relation  which  the  civil  code  bore  to  the 
ancient  sacred  code,  as  well  as  the  close  penetration  of 


70     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

life  by  religion,  tended  to  render  the  complexity  still 
more  intricate. 

But  if  the  origin  of  the  oral  law,  in  its  application  at 
least,  can  be  made  clear  to  ourselves  only  by  means  of 
such  imaginative  reconstruction,  we  are  helped  on  the 
side  of  Jewish  religious  development  by  the  possession 
of  at  least  one  fact  of  prime  importance.  The  religious 
system  of  the  Bible  knows  of  a  life  after  death,  in  Sheol, 
but  does  not  know  of  a  survival  of  personality.  War- 
lock and  witch,  by  such  incantations  as  were  used  by 
Odysseus  at  the  mouth  of  the  dread  cave,  or  by  the  wise 
woman  at  En-Dor,  could  give  the  shadowy  ghost  enough 
outline  to  be  recognizable  under  his  former  name,  but 
for  the  most  part  all  these  flitting  spirits  were  equal 
and  undistinguishable.  But  about  loo  b.  c.  e.  there  was 
current  generally,  although  not  universally,  a  very  dif- 
ferent belief,  to  wit,  that  in  Sheol,  or  the  grave,  per- 
sonality was  not  extinguished,  but  at  most  suspended ; 
and  that  under  certain  conditions  it  might,  or  certainly 
would,  be  permanently  continued.  In  other  words, 
between  the  deportation  to  Babylon  and  the  culmination 
of  the  Hasmonean  rule,  the  belief  about  life  after  death 
had  very  considerably  changed  for  most  people.  And 
the  change  was  of  a  nature  that  must  inevitably  have 
affected  conduct,  since  the  acceptability  of  man's  life 
could  no  longer  be  proved  by  the  naively  simple  method 
of  Eliphaz  the  Temanite,"  nor  yet  by  the  austere  con- 
sciousness of  rectitude  that  was  the  ideal  of  the  prophets. 
Transferred  to  a  world  beyond  perception,  reward  and 
penalty  gave  the  Torah  a  superhuman  sanction,  which 


THE  JEWS  DURING  THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD  71 

must  have  been  far  more  powerful  than  we  can  now 
readily  imagine. 

It  is  idle  to  look  for  the  origin  of  this  belief  in  any  one 
series  of  influences.  For  many  generations  poets  and 
philosophers  had  swung  themselves  in  bolder  and  bolder 
imagery  up  to  the  Deity,  which  they,  as  Jews,  conceived 
in  so  intense  and  personal  a  fashion.  Very  many  pas- 
sages in  the  Bible  have  seemed  to  imply  a  belief  in  per- 
sonal immortality  and  resurrection,  and  perhaps  do 
imply  such  a  belief.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  assume  that 
these  passages  are  of  late  origin.  Some  of  them  may 
be,  but  one  would  have  to  be  very  certain  of  the  limita- 
tions of  poetic  exaltation  to  say  just  what  definite  back- 
ground of  belief  metaphor  and  hyperbole  demand.  We 
shall  not  go  far  wrong  if  we  assume  that  even  before 
the  Exile,  individual  thinkers  had  conceived,  perhaps 
even  preached,  the  dogma  of  personal  immortality.  Its 
general  acceptance  among  the  people  occurred  in  the 
period  previously  mentioned.  Its  official  authorization 
took  place  much  later  in  the  final  triumph  of  Pharisaism. 

Personal  immortality  and  resurrection  of  the  body 
are  kindred,  but  not  identical,  conceptions.  Of  the  two, 
resurrection  is  probably  the  older,  and  resurrection,  we 
may  note,  implies  a  real  suspension  of  personality,  when 
the  body  is  dissolved  in  death.  But  the  body  may  be 
recombined,  and,  when  that  occurs,  the  personal  life  is 
renewed.  The  exact  time  must  have  been  very  differ- 
ently conceived  by  different  men.  A  great  many,  how- 
ever, had  already  very  definite  fancies — one  can  hardly 
say  beliefs — as  to  the  great  day  that  would  deliver  the 


T2     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

souls  from  Sheol.  That  such  a  great  day  would  come, 
on  which  the  whole  cosmos  would  be  permanently  read- 
justed, is  the  essence  of  all  eschatology.  It  was  only 
natural  that  all  other  hopes  of  the  people  should  tend 
to  be  combined  with  it ;  and  of  these  hopes  the  principal 
one  was  the  Messianic  hope. 

It  is  obvious  that  no  adequate  discussion  of  the 
development  of  this  hope  can  be  given  here,  even  if  our 
fragmentary  sources  permitted  such  discussion.  The 
most  that  can  be  done  is  to  state  the  situation  briefly.  It 
is  all  the  more  important,  as  the  Messianic  idea  was  the 
source  of  the  most  powerful  political  movements  among 
the  people,  and  the  direct  occasion  of  at  least  one  of  the 
desperate  insurrections  of  the  Jews. 

Many  nations  look  back  to  a  golden  age  of  power  and 
prosperity,  and  forward  to  a  future  restoration  of  it. 
The  Jews  likewise  never  forgot  the  kingdom  of  David 
and  Solomon,  and  saw  no  reason  to  despair  of  its  return. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Hasmonean  rule  at  its  greatest 
extent  was  practically  such  a  restoration.  But  condi- 
tions and  people  had  radically  changed  between  David 
and  Alexander  Jannai.  In  looo  b.  c.  e.  it  was  a  mighty 
achievement  for  the  small  tribal  confederation  to  have 
dominated  its  corner  of  the  Levant,  to  have  held  in 
check  the  powerful  coast  cities  of  Philistia,  to  have  been 
sought  in  alliance  by  Tyre  and  Egypt.  In  lOO  b.  c.  e., 
men's  minds  had  long  been  accustomed  to  the  rise  and 
fall  of  great  empires.  Assyria,  Babylonia,  Persia, 
Macedon,  Egypt,  Syria,  Athens,  and  Sparta,  and  in  the 
distant  west  Carthage  and  Rome,  had  at  different  times 


THE  JEWS  DURING  THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD  73 

been  lords  of  many  lands.  The  Judean  kingdom  itself 
had  arisen  from  the  wreckage  of  such  an  empire.  It 
was  accordingly  a  different  political  ideal  that  filled  the 
imagination  of  every  nation  at  this  time.  To  secure 
and  maintain  the  independence  of  a  few  square  miles 
of  semi-arid  soil  between  the  Jordan  and  the  Sea  was 
no  deed  to  puff  men  with  inordinate  pride,  however 
difficult  of  actual  accomplishment  it  was.  As  a  step 
toward  larger  deeds,  however,  it  was  notable  enough. 

What  was  the  larger  deed,  and  how  was  it  to  be 
accomplished  ?  However  disproportionate  it  may  seem 
to  us,  it  was  nothing  else  than  the  dominion  over  the 
whole  world,  to  be  accomplished  by  sudden  and  miracu- 
lous conversion  of  men's  souls  for  the  most  part,  or  by 
force  of  arms,  if  it  should  prove  necessary.  And,  as 
was  natural  enough,  it  was  in  the  ancient  royal  line,  the 
stock  of  David,  that  the  leader,  the  Anointed  of  God, 
was  to  be  found. 

The  family  of  David,  which  was  still  important  and 
powerful  when  Zechariah  xii.was  written  (perhaps  the 
fourth  century  b.  c.  e.)  ,  had  evidently  since  fallen  on  evil 
days.  It  cannot,  of  course,  have  entirely  disappeared, 
but  no  member  of  undoubted  Davidic  lineage  arises  to 
make  political  pretensions.  It  is  even  likely  that,  in  the 
absence  of  adequate  records,  and  with  the  loss  of 
importance  which  the  family  suffered  during  the  fourth 
and  third  centuries  b.  c.  e.,  it  had  become  impossible  for 
anyone  to  prove  descent  from  David. 

None  the  less,  perhaps  because  of  the  decline  of  the 
family,  popular  imagination  clung  to  the  royal  house. 


74     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


In  the  bitter  days  of  exile,  the  writer  of  Psalm  Ixxxix. 
loses  no  faith  in  the  destiny  of  David's  line: 

I  have  made  a  covenant  with  My  chosen, 
I  have  sworn  unto  David,  My  servant, 
Thy  seed  will  I  establish  forever, 
And  build  up  thy  throne  to  all  generations. 

So  the  author  of  First  Maccabees,  a  loyal  supporter 
of  a  non-Davidic  dynasty,  puts  in  the  mouth  of  the 
dying  Mattathiah  the  acknowledgment  of  the  ultimate 
sovereignty  of  the  ancient  house :  ''  David  for  being 
merciful  possessed  the  throne  of  an  everlasting  king- 
dom "  (I  Mace.  ii.  57). 

The  certainty  of  this  high  destiny  grew  inversely  with 
the  political  fortunes  of  the  people.  But  when  even 
the  Hasmoneans  fell,  and  Judea,  so  far  from  increas- 
ing the  possessions  of  Solomon,  found  herself  a  hope- 
lessly insignificant  fraction  of  a  huge  empire,  it  was  not 
merely  the  political  side  of  the  Messianic  idea  that  fed 
upon  its  non-realization.  Obscure  economic  and  re- 
ligious factors  had  long  been  operative,  and  all  these 
raised  popular  temper  to  a  point  of  high  and,  as  it 
proved,  destructive  tension.  It  must  always  be  remem- 
bered that  those  who  undertook  to  lead  the  people 
against  the  Romans  did  not  aim  at  the  restoration  of 
the  Hasmonean  or  even  Solomonic  kingdom.  The 
establishment  of  a  throne  in  Jerusalem  was  the  first  step 
of  that  triumphant  march  through  the  world  which 
would  inaugurate  the  reign  of  the  God-anointed  son  of 
David.    The  Judean  zealots  fought  for  no  mean  prize. 

The  Jews  who  came  into  contact  with  Greeks  and 
Romans  were  a  people  whose  development  had  been 


THE  JEWS  DURING  THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD  75 

continuous  from  the  earliest  times.  The  cataclysms  of 
their  history  had  produced  disturbances,  but  no  break 
in  their  institutional  growth.  To  the  civil  codes  of  the 
ancient  polity  they  were  in  the  process  of  adding  a  new 
body  of  law  based  upon  judicial  decisions.  To  the 
ethical  monotheism  of  their  former  development  the 
popular  mind  was  adding  a  belief  in  personal  immortal- 
ity and  bodily  resurrection.  Folk-lore  and  superstitions 
on  one  side,  and  speculative  philosophy  on  the  other, 
were  busy  here,  as  they  were  busy  everywhere,  in  modi- 
fying the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  the  established 
religion. 

Finally  the  Messianic  idea  was  gaining  strength  and 
form.  In  essence  a  hope  for  future  prosperity,  it  had 
united  in  itself  all  the  dreams  and  fancies  of  the  people, 
which  had  arisen  in  many  ways.  It  became  in  the  end 
the  dream  of  a  world-monarchy,  in  which  a  scion  of 
David's  line  would  be  king  of  kings  and  give  law  to  the 
world  from  Jerusalem.  The  ushering  in  of  that  era 
soon  became  a  great  day  of  judgment  affecting  the 
whole  universe  and  ardently  desired  to  correct  the 
oppressive  evils  of  actual  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   FIRST   CONTACT   BETWEEN   GREEK 

AND  JEW 

Jews  came  into  the  occidental  horizon  as  part  of 
a  larger  whole.  That  whole  was  known  as  Syria. 
Unfortunately  Syria  itself  is  a  very  vague  term,  and  is 
without  real  ethnographic  or  geographic  unity.  It 
might  include  Mesopotamia  and  all  the  intervening 
region  between  the  Taurus  and  Egypt.  One  might  sup- 
pose that  with  such  a  people  as  the  Phoenicians  Greek 
dealings  had  been  so  extensive  and  frequent  that  it  was 
impossible  to  call  them  out  of  their  name,  but  Tyrians 
too  are  considered  and  spoken  of  as  branches  of  the 
Syrians.  The  name  soon  became  practically  a  descrip- 
tive epithet,  more  or  less  derogatory  in  its  implication.* 

The  lower  part  of  the  region  between  the  Taurus 
and  Sinai  was  known  to  Greeks  as  Syria  Palaestina,  a 
name  almost  certainly  derived  from  the  Philistine  cities 
whose  position  on  the  coast  and  whose  origin  made 
them  familiar  to  traders.  The  Greeks  knew,  of  course, 
that  variously  denominated  tribes  occupied  the  hinter- 
land, but  what  little  they  knew  about  them  did  not  until 
somewhat  later  get  into  the  literary  fragments  that 
have  come  down  to  us.  Perhaps  they  would  not  even 
have  been  surprised  to  learn  that  here,  as  in  Asia  Minor, 
a  very  large  number  of  peoples  had  settled  and  fought 
and  jumbled  one  another  into  what  seemed  to  superficial 
outsiders  a  common  group  of  Syrians, 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  77 

The  particular  section  later  occupied  by  the  Jews  had 
itself  been  the  scene  of  a  racial  babel.  The  Israelites 
were,  by  their  tradition,  expressly  commanded  to  dis- 
possess Hittite,  Girgashite,  Canaanite,  Amorite,  Periz- 
zite,  Hivite,  and  Jebusite.^  The  recurrence  of  this 
enumeration  indicates  an  historical  basis  for  the  tradi- 
tion. It  is  very  likely  that  nations  so  named  were 
actually  subdued  by  the  invading.  Hebrews.  The  fact 
that  the  tribes  dispossessed  are  seven  in  number  makes 
caution  necessary  in  accepting  the  statement.  Perhaps 
some  of  these  "  nations  "  are  different  names  for  the 
same  group.  Some  of  them,  e.  g.  Hittite  or  Amorite, 
may  be  vague  descriptive  terms,  like  Syrian  or  even 
Hebrew. 

Then  there  were  the  Phoenicians,  representing  per- 
haps the  first  Semitic  invasion  of  this  territory.  Below 
them,  the  Philistines,  ''  from  Caphthor,"  who  are  very 
plausibly  identified  with  Cretans  or  "  Minoans,"  the 
Keftiu  of  the  Egyptians.^  During  Mesopotamian  and 
Egyptian  sovereignty,  Mesopotamian  and  Egyptian 
infiltration  may  be  safely  assumed.  The  desert  never 
ceased  to  contribute  its  share  of  tribes.  Permanent 
results  of  such  nomad  invasions  were  the  settlement  of 
the  various  Hebrew  tribes — Moab  and  Edom  in  the 
southeast  and  Israel  on  both  sides  of  the  Jordan. 

If  the  analogy  of  other  times  and  places  is  to  be  fol- 
lowed, no  one  of  these  groups  was  ever  completely  and 
literally  exterminated.  Jewish  tradition  knows  of  an 
attempted  extermination — that  of  the  Amalekites — 
only  as  a  very  exceptional  thing.  The  resultant  nation- 
alities, which  in  Greek  times  occupied  Palestine,  were 


78     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

likely  enough  to  have  been  of  somewhat  mixed  origin. 
When  the  Greeks  came  to  know  them  well,  however, 
the  Jews  had  long  been  a  well-defined  group,  frowning 
upon  intermarriage,  although  it  is  not  likely  that  the 
prohibition  of  connubium  had  its  source  in  any  impor- 
tance attached  to  racial  purity,  or  that  all  Jews  every- 
where were  equally  strict  in  enforcing  it/ 

As  has  been  suggested,  the  first  contact  was  probably 
military.  Since  Jews  served  in  the  Persian  armies  as 
far  south  as  Elephantine,  they  probably  were  equally 
present  in  the  battalions  of  Datis  and  of  Mardonius.' 
Another  early  contact  was  in  the  slave-mart,  no  doubt 
both  as  buyers  and  the  bought.  Enterprising  Tyrian 
traders  had  made  themselves  comfortable  in  Jeru- 
salem before  Nehemiah  (Neh.  xiii.  6),  and  human 
commodities  formed  the  chief  merchandise  of  most 
commerce.  Before  him,  perhaps  before  the  Exile,  Joel 
reproaches  the  Phoenicians  with  the  words,  ''  The  chil- 
dren also  of  Judah  and  the  children  of  Jerusalem  have 
ye  sold  unto  the  Grecians.""  "  Syrus  "  had  become  a 
common  slave-name  in  Greece  in  the  fifth  century,  and 
Syrus  might  include  anything.^ 

All  these  scattered  and  uncertain  hints  do  not  tend 
to  present  a  very  clear  picture.  However,  the  time 
was  rapidly  coming  when  Greek  contact  with  "  Syria  " 
was  to  be  vastly  more  intimate. 

In  the  spring  of  334  b.  c.  e.,  Alexander  crossed  the 
Hellespont  to  carry  out  the  cherished  vision  of  Isocrates, 
a  united  Hellas  drastically  stamping  out  the  Persian 
peril.     From  the  complete  success  of  his  efforts  we  are 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  79 

wont  to  date  the  so-called  Hellenistic  epoch,  the  period 
in  which  Greek  influences  in  art,  government,  and  society 
were  dominant.  But  Hellenization  had  in  actual  fact 
begun  long  ago  in  the  domain  of  art.  It  had  penetrated 
central  Asia  Minor  far  back  in  the  seventh  century  b.  c. 
E.,"  and  the  magnificent ''  satrap-sarcophagus  "  at  Sidon 
shows  how  thoroughly  it  was  appreciated  at  the  very 
borders  of  Judea  well  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century 
B.  c.  E.*"  A  generation  before  Alexander  the  king  of 
Sidon  bore  a  Greek  name.^** 

So  the  ''king  of  Yavan,"  who  received  the  submission 
of  Jerusalem,  passed,  on  his  way  to  Egypt,  among  a 
people  to  whom  the  name  of  Greek  was  quite  familiar — 
who  had  long  known  of  Greek  skill  in  craftsmanship, 
Greek  prowess  on  the  field  of  battle,  and  Greek  shrewd- 
ness in  bargaining.  The  new  empire,  on  the  dizzy 
throne  of  which  Alexander  placed  himself,  seemed  to 
all  the  East  commensurate  with  the  whole  world,  and 
to  the  kinsmen  of  the  new  king  of  kings  and  lord  of 
lords  all  men  were  ready  enough  to  grant  the  deference 
formerly  owed  to  Persians. 

At  Alexander's  untimely  death  it  could  scarcely  have 
seemed  to  men  that  great  changes  were  impending.  On 
the  contrary,  the  prestige  of  his  literally  miraculous 
successes,  the  impress  of  his  powerful  and  fascinating 
personality,  continued  for  a  long  time.  It  might  be 
doubtful — in  fact,  it  must  have  immediately  become 
uncertain — whether  the  persons  to  whom  the  actual 
administration  of  afifairs  would  fall,  would  be  of  Alex- 
ander's blood.    The  satraps  of  the  old  regime  had  to 


8o     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

some  extent  been  displaced  by  the  great  king's  generals. 
Every  one  of  these  was  convinced  that  the  coveted  prize 
would  fall  to  the  strongest  or  cleverest  or  quickest ;  but 
for  a  while  a  short  and  troubled  truce  was  maintained 
under  the  shadow  of  regal  authority  embodied  in  the 
poor  fool  Arrhidaeus  and  the  unborn  child  of  Roxane. 
When  the  young  Alexander  was  born,  the  conditions 
at  Babylon  challenged  the  intriguing  of  every  court- 
parasite.  Ptolemy,  son  of  Lagos,  satrap  of  Egypt,  was 
the  first  to  disregard  the  confused  and  divided  authority 
of  the  zany  king  and  his  baby  colleague.  A  general 
debacle  followed.  Palestine  suffered  more  than  others, 
because  it  was  unfortunately  situated  on  the  road  to 
Egypt.  But  by  about  300  b.  c.  e.  the  country  was 
definitely  settled  as  a  province  of  Egypt,  and  it  entered 
upon  a  century  of  extraordinary  and  varied  growth. 

It  is  just  about  this  time  that  unmistakable  knowledge 
of  the  Jews  themselves,  as  a  separate  nationality  of 
Syrians,  is  evidenced  in  extant  Greek  writers.  His- 
tories of  the  nearer  and  of  the  remote  East,  impressions 
of  travel  and  concatenation  of  irresponsible  gossip  of 
all  sorts  had  long  been  written  by  Greeks.  Some  of 
these  may  well  have  contained  reference  to  the  Jews. 
In  the  fifth  century,  Herodotus  speaks  of  the  "  Syrians 
of  Palestine  "  in  connection  with  the  rite  of  circum- 
cision, which,  he  claims  to  know  from  the  testimony 
of  the  Syrians  themselves,  was  derived  from  Egypt." 
However,  he  obviously  writes  at  second  hand,  so  that 
we  have  no  means  of  knowing  whether  or  not  he  refers 
to  Jews.     That  he  knew  the  name  'lovhaloi  is  not  likely, 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  8i 

but  the  fact  that  his  source  was  probably  a  hterary  one 
makes  it  possible  to  date  the  acquaintance  of  Greeks 
with  the  practice  of  circumcision  in  this  region,  and 
therefore  perhaps  with  Jews,  at  least  to  the  beginning 
of  the  fifth  century  b.  c.  e. 

The  peculiar  natural  phenomena  of  the  Dead  Sea 
attracted  the  attention  of  travelers  from  very  early 
times.  Aristotle  discusses  it,  and  after  him — no  doubt 
before  him,  as  well — the  collectors  of  wonder-tales,  of 
which  we  have  so  many  later  specimens.  Interest  in 
the  Dead  Sea,  however,  by  no  means  implied  interest  in 
those  who  dwelt  on  its  borders,  and  the  story  of  the 
bituminous  formation  on  the  water  and  the  curious 
manner  in  which  it  was  collected  could  be  and  was  told 
without  so  much  as  a  mention  of  the  name  of  Jews.'' 

But  they  are  mentioned,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
extant  Greek  writers,  by  the  famous  pupil  and  successor 
of  Aristotle,  Theophrastus  of  Lesbos.  The  passage 
does  not  occur  in  any  one  of  the  works  of  Theophrastus 
which  we  have  in  bulk,  such  ns  the  Characters  or  the 
Natural  History.  It  is  a  quotation  made  by  the  Neopla- 
tonic  philosopher  Porphyrins,  who  wrote  somewhere 
about  275  c.  E.  The  quotation  may,  in  accordance  with 
ancient  custom,  be  of  substance  rather  than  verbatim. 
Faulty  memory  may  have  further  diminished  its  value 
for  our  purposes.  When  we  add  to  these  facts  possible 
uncertainties  in  the  transmission  of  the  text  of  Por- 
phyrius,  we  are  in  a  fair  way  of  realizing  from  what 
dubious  material  we  must  piece  our  knowledge  together. 
6 


82     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

The  passage  is  in  itself,  except  perhaps  for  one  casual 
phrase,  strangely  unimportant,  but  as  the  earliest  plain 
reference  to  Jews  in  a  Greek  writer  it  deserves  citation 
in  full: 

t^  As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  the  Jews,  those  Syrians  who  still 

maintain  the  ancient  form  of  animal  sacrifice,  were  to  urge 
us  to  adopt  their  method,  we  should  probably  find  the  practice 
repellent.  Their  system  is  the  following :  they  do  not  eat  of 
the  sacrificial  flesh,  but  burn  all  of  it  at  night,  after  they  have 
poured  a  great  deal  of  honey  and  wine  upon  it.  The  sacrifice 
they  seek  to  complete  rather  rapidly,  so  that  the  All-Seer  may 
not  become  a  witness  of  pollution.  Throughout  the  entire 
time,  inasmuch  as  they  are  philosophers  by  race,  they  discuss 
the  nature  of  the  Deity  among  themselves,  and  spend  the  night 
in  observing  the  stars,  looking  up  at  them  and  invoking  them 

I  as  divine  in  their  prayers. 

As  Reinach  points  out,"  there  is  scarcely  a  correct 
word  in  this  description  considered  as  an  account  of 
actual  Jewish  sacrificial  rites.  If  we  have  a  correct,  or 
even  approximately  correct,  version  of  Theophrastus' 
report,  he  or  his  informant  was  curiously  misinformed. 
This  informant  obviously  could  not  have  been  a  Jew. 
No  Jew  could  have  been  so  ignorant  of  the  customs  of 
his  people.  Nor  did  his  statement  come  directly  from 
any  one  who  had  actually  witnessed,  from  the  Court  of 
the  Gentiles,  even  a  small  part  of  a  Jewish  sacrifice.  It 
may  well  be  that  we  have  before  us  an  inextricable  con- 
fusion between  Jewish  and  other  Syrian  rites.  We  are 
left  to  wholly  uncontrolled  speculation,  if  we  are  bent 
on  knowing  whence  Theophrastus  derived  the  assertions 
he  makes  here. 

The  important  words  of  the  passage  are  found  in  the 
casual  phrase  are  </)tAoo-o^ot  to  yeVos  ovres,  ''  inasmuch  as 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  83 

they  are  philosophers  by  race."  The  phrasing  indicates 
that  this  aspect  of  the  Jews  is  not  wholly  new.  Word 
had  come  to  Theophrastus,  and  to  others  before  him, 
of  a  Syrian  people  not  far  from  the  coast,  whose  ritual 
in  some  respects — though  the  transmission  is  confused 
as  to  what  respects — differed  from  that  of  their  neigh- 
bors, but  whose  customs  were  strikingly  different,  in^ 
one  particular,  that  part  of  their  divine  observance 
was  some  form  of  theologic  discussion.  That,  as  we 
know,  was  a  fact,  since  ''  houses  of  prayer  " — we  may 
call  them  synagogues — already  existed.  This  reference 
to  them  is  the  one  kernel  of  observed  fact  in  this  whole 
description,  however  indirectly  obtained. 

Now  the  Greeks  of  the  fourth  century  knew  of 
esoteric  religious  communities,  and  they  knew  of 
nations  that  professed  to  be  especially  attached  to 
religious  practices.  But  groups  of  mystae  engaged  in 
rapt  spiritual  converse  were  never  coextensive  with 
entire  nations.  And  ''  religious  "  nations  might  be  sim- 
ply those  among  whom  an  elaborate  state  cult  was 
punctiliously  performed.  Even  theocracies  were  no 
unheard-of  thing.  Sidon  was  such  a  theocracy ;  i.  e. 
theoretically  ruled  by  the  god  and  administered  by  his 
priest."  But  that  too  was  largely  formal,  not  strikingly 
different  from  the  patronage  of  Athena  over  Athens. 
The  Jewish  theocracy  was  a  more  intensely  real  matter 
than  this,  but  that  fact  could  not  have  been  apparent  to 
either  merchant  or  traveler,  from  whom  in  the  last 
analysis  the  information  about  Jews  before  300  b.  c.  e. 
must  have  come.     If,  therefore,  Greeks  found  some- 


84     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

thing  in  the  religious  customs  of  the  Jews  that  aroused 
immediate  attention,  it  was  the  very  general  interest 
and  participation  of  the  masses  in  the  theological  dis- 
cussion as  it  was  carried  on  in  the  synagogues. 

This  fact  alone  would  justify  the  use  of  the  term 
(f)LX6(TO(j>oL,  ''philosophers."  Theology,  the  knowledge  of 
the  high  gods,  was  an  accredited  branch  of  wisdom 
which  the  Platonic  Socrates  strove  with  a  little  too 
palpable  irony  to  elicit  from  Euthyphro.  Those  who 
busied  themselves  with  it  were  properly  termed  philos- 
ophers,  whatever  may  have  been  the  conclusions  they 

reached!    If  we  venture  to  assume  that  the  conclusions 

« — . 

which  the  Jews  had  long  reached  were  actually  known, 
Theophrastus'  phrase  could  only  have  been  confirmed. 
An  exclusive  monotheism  was  in  every  sense  a  philo- 

_ .^ ,rier~ — ————————  '  " 

sophic  and  not  a  popular  concept. 

A  contemporary  of  Theophrastus  was  Clearchus  of 
Soli  in  Cyprus.  Of  his  writings  none  whatever  has 
survived,  except  quotations  in  other  books.  Among 
other  works  he  wrote  dialogues  more  or  less  after  the 
Platonic  manner,  in  which  his  master  Aristotle  is  inter- 
locutor in  place  of  Socrates.  One  of  these  dialogues 
was  marked,  no  doubt  as  a  subtitle,  Trepl  vttvov,  "  On 
Sleep,"  and  in  this  dialogue  an  encounter  of  Aristotle 
with  a  Hellenized  Jew  is  described. 

We  need  not  seriously  consider  the  question  whether 
such  an  encounter  actually  occurred.  It  is  not  in  the 
least  likely  that  it  did.  The  only  inferences  that  may 
be  drawn  from  this  passage  are  those  that  concern 
Clearchus. 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  85 

Aristotle  is  the  narrator,  and  tells  his  story,  as  he 
takes  pains  to  say,  according  to  the  rules  formulated  in 
Rhetoric."  He  had  met  a  man  in  Asia,  a  Jew  of  Coele- 
Syria  by  birth,  but  Grecized  in  speech  and  in  soul.  This 
Greek  or  Jew  voluntarily  sought  out  Aristotle  and 
his  associates,  ttci/ow/acvo?  avrwv  T^?  (7o<^ta9,  **  to  find  out 
whether  they  were  really  as  wise  as  their  reputation." 
On  the  whole,  however,  he  had  given  rather  than 
received  edification." 

What  it  was  in  this  man's  conversation  that  so 
strongly  aroused  the  approval  of  Clearchus  we  are  not 
told.  Josephus,  in  whose  Contra  Apionem  we  find  the 
passage,  ends  here,  to  tell  us  briefiy  that  the  rest  of 
Aristotle's  story  described  the  man's  great  strength  of 
character  and  the  admirable  self-control  of  his  habits  of 
life.  It  may  be  suspected  that  Clearchus'  Jew  is  little 
more  than  a  mouthpiece  for  his  own  ethical  doctrines, 
a  sort  of  fourth  century  Ingenu,  or  Candide.^^  But 
what  he  does  actually  say  is  of  great  interest. 

We  have  here  the  first  mention  of  the  capital  in  the 
form  Jerusaleme,  introduced,  it  may  be  noted,  for  its 
outlandish  sound.  And  we  have  the  statement,  curious 
enough  to  our  ears,  that  the  Jews  are  descendants  of 
Hindu  philosophers,  who  bear  the  name  of  Jews  in 
Syria  and  Calani  in  India.  Elsewhere  Clearchus  asserts 
an  exactly  similar  connection  between  the  Persian  magi 
and  the  Hindu  gymnosophists."  It  is  obvious  that 
Clearchus  has  the  caste  organization  of  the  magi  in 
mind,  and  that  his  knowledge  of  Jews  is  as  mediate  and 
remote  as  that  of  Theophrastus. 


86     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

The  connection  of  the  Jews  with  India  was  evidently 
a  hasty  conclusion,  arrived  at  when  knowledge  came  to 
the  Greeks  of  the  existence  of  castes  whose  function 
was  principally  religious.  The  statement  is  repeated 
by  a  man  who  should  have  known  better — Megasthenes, 
Seleucus'  ambassador  to  India.  ''  All  that  has  been 
written  on  natural  science  by  the  old  Greek  philoso- 
phers," he  tells  us,  ''  may  also  be  found  in  philos- 
ophers outside  of  Greece,  such  as  the  Hindu  Brahmans 
and  the  so-called  Jews  of  Syria."  ^  He  is  of  course 
quite  wrong  as  to  the  facts.  But  his  statement  is 
evidence  of  the  wide  currency  of  the  opinion  that  the 
Jews  possessed  a  very  special  and  very  profound  lore. 
Megasthenes,  it  may  be  noted,  does  not  state  or  imply 
that  the  Greeks  were  borrowers.  If  he  had  done  so, 
the  writer  in  whose  book  we  find  the  citation,  Clemens 
of  Alexandria  (about  180  c.  e.),  would  have  pounced 
upon  it.  Clemens  was  eagerly  searching  for  demonstra- 
tion of  the  thesis  set  up  by  many  Jews  and  most  early 
Christians,  that  all  Greek  science  and  philosophy  were 
derived  from  an  imagined  early  communication  between 
Moses  and  the  first  Asiatic  philosophers."^ 

Theophrastus,  Clearchus,  and  Megasthenes,  all  of 
them  belonging  to  the  generation  of  or  immediately 
after  Alexander,  hold  largely  the  same  views.  Influ- 
ence of  one  of  them  upon  the  others  is  practically 
excluded.  We  may  find  in  them  accordingly  such 
knowledge  of  the  Jews  as  at  about  300  b.  c.  e.  had 
reached  educated  Greeks. 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  87 

If  we  try  to  imagine  how  this  information  reached 
them,  we  are  reduced  to  pure  speculation.  It  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  a  common  Hterary  source,  although  it 
is  likely  enough  that  in  the  numerous  histories  of  the 
East,  now  lost,  casual  and  inaccurate  references  were 
made  to  the  Jews.  And  again  it  is  not  likely  that  the 
vastly  increased  communication  that  followed  Alex- 
ander's campaign,  at  once  brought  the  Jews  much  more 
prominently  within  the  circle  of  Greek  interest.  In 
those  days,  the  land-passage  hugged  the  sea  as  closely 
as  the  sea-passage  hugged  the  land.  Judea  was  a  little 
inland  country,  somewhat  out  of  the  line  of  direct  com- 
munication between  the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile.  If 
then  the  current  views,  expressed  as  they  are  by 
Theophrastus  and  his  contemporaries,  had  neither  a 
literary  source  nor  one  of  direct  report,  it  can  only  have 
spread  as  an  indirect,  filtered  rumor,  perhaps  by  way  of 
Phoenicians,  Syrians,  and  Egyptians. 

As  far  as  Phoenicians  and  Syrians  are  concerned, 
immediate  contact  with  the  Jews  must  have  existed. 
Tyrians  and  Sidonians  and  Philistines  are  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  post-Exilic  books  of  the  Bible."  This 
contact  was  not  wholly  hostile,  though  it  was  often  so ; 
but  if  these  nations  were  the  sources  of  Greek  informa- 
tion about  the  Jews,  the  hostility  is  not  apparent.  Per- 
haps in  the  generations  between  Zechariah  and  Alex- 
ander it  had  disappeared.  At  all  events,  it  would  appear 
that  the  Canaanite  neighbors  of  the  Jews  really  knew 
very  little  about  them,  except  that  the  Jews  were  the 
residents  of  the  hills  about  Jerusalem,  and  that  they 


88     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

had  highly  characteristic  rehgious  rites — characteristic 
principally  in  the  earnestness  with  which  they  were 
performed. 

In  Egypt,  a  country  that  had  never  ceased  to  be 
in  communication  with  Greece  from  very  early  times, 
and  particularly  since  the  founding  of  a  Greek  city 
at  Naucratis,  in  Egypt  itself,  about  the  middle  of 
the  sixth  century  b.  c.  e.,  there  had  been  communities  of 
Jews  from  times  that  antedated  the  Persian  conquest. 
Into  the  situation  here,  newly  discovered  papyri  at 
Assuan  and  Elephantine  allow  us  a  glimpse,  but  only  a 
glimpse.  Even  the  little  we  know  includes  one  case 
of  bitter  conflict  between  Jews  and  Egyptians."  No 
doubt  it  was  not  the  only  case  of  its  kind.  Egyptians, 
we  may  be  sure,  knew  of  the  Jews  in  the  communities 
in  which  Jews  lived,  and  one  might  suppose  that  Greek 
visitors  to  Egypt  would  at  some  time  stumble  across 
Jews  there.  However,  our  extant  sources,  which  speak 
of  Egyptians  often  enough,  do  not  seem  to  have  recog- 
nized the  presence  of  foreign  elements  in  the  Egyptian 
population.  It  was  reserved  for  the  papyri  to  show  us 
Persians,  Syrians,  Babylonians,  and  Jews  established  in 
the  land  as  individuals  and  in  groups. 

The  view  of  the  Jews  that  represented  them  as  a 
mystical  sect  did  not  cease  when  Judea  became  an 
important  political  factor  in  the  East.  One  Greek 
thinker  particularly  had  professed  so  strange  and 
esoteric  a  doctrine  that  his  biographers  and  critics 
inevitably  looked  for  the  source  of  it  in  non-Greek 
tribes    and    especially    in    those    who    had    otherwise 


CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW  89 

obtained  a  reputation  for  wisdom  of  various  kinds. 
This  was  Pythagoras.  Some  seventy-five  years  after 
Theophrastus,  Hermippus  of  Smyrna,  in  his  Life  of 
Pythagoras,  ascribed  certain  definite  doctrines  of  the 
latter  to  the  Jews  and  Thracians/^  Pythagoras  as  a 
matter  of  fact  had  traveled  extensively,  and  had 
brought  to  his  Italian  home  little  fragments  of  exotic 
lore  variously  derived.  That  his  philosophy  was  influ- 
enced by  them,  there  is  no  sufficient  proof,  much  less 
based  upon  them,  and  the  general  belief  that  he  was  so 
influenced  had  probably  no  sounder  foundation  than  the 
indubitable  strangeness  of  the  rites  he  instituted  and  his 
personal  mannerisms.  But  in  later  times  Pythagoras 
was  a  name  to  conjure  with  for  those  who  were  bent  on 
establishing  a  connection  between  the  Jews  and  the 
Greeks.  Hermippus  had  numerous  imitators  among 
later  Jewish  and  Christian  writers. 

We  shall  of  course  never  be  able  to  discover  the 
particular  moment  that  marked  the  first  meeting  of 
Jew  and  Greek.  The  contact  that  is  indicated  in  the 
words  of  Theophrastus  or  Megasthenes  is  already  of 
some  duration.  The  term  'lovSato?  has  a  definite  mean- 
ing for  educated  Greeks.  It  denoted  a  Syrian  sect,  liv- 
ing together  about  their  rock-citadel  and  akin  in  doc- 
trine and  probably  in  blood  to  the  Persian  Magi  and 
Hindu  gymnosophists.  More  exact  information  was 
scarcely  available.  The  two  non-Judean  sections  where 
Jews  were  to  be  found,  Babylon  and  Egypt,  were  them- 
selves strange  and  only  partially  understood  regions  to 
Greeks  in  spite  of  their  long  acquaintance  with  both  of 
them. 


CHAPTER  VII 
EGYPT 

In  the  relations  that  subsisted  between  Jews  and 
Greeks  after  Alexander,  Egypt  plays  an  important 
part,  so  that  particular  attention  must  be  directed  to  that 
country. 

The  influence  of  Egypt  upon  Palestine  is  no  new 
thing  in  its  history.  For  century  after  century  the 
mighty  empire  across  Sinai  had  been  the  huge  and 
determining  fact  in  the  political  destiny  of  all  Pales- 
tinian nations.  Indeed  Palestine  is  much  more  properly 
within  the  Egyptian  sphere  of  culture  than  the  Baby- 
lonian. The  glamor  lasted  even  when  the  Pharaoh  had 
become  a  broken  reed.  Men's  minds  instinctively 
turned  in  that  direction,  and  the  vigor  of  the  relatively 
youthful  Assyria  could  not  hold  imaginations  with  half 
the  force  of  the  remembered  glories  of  Thutmose  and 
Ramses. 

Egypt  had  been  in  Persian  times  a  turbulent  province, 
subdued  with  difficulty  and  demanding  constantly 
renewed  subjugation.  Shortly  before  Alexander's  con- 
quest, Artaxerxes  Ochus  had  reconquered  it  with  brutal 
severity.  It  offered  no  resistance  to  the  victorious 
Macedonians.  Upon  Alexander  himself  it  exercised  an 
undoubted  attraction.  The  ancient  gods  of  this  most 
ancient  of  countries  were  those  best  fitted  to  confirm  his 


EGYPT  91 

rather  raw  divinity.  From  none  else  than  Amon  him- 
self, in  his  isolated  shrine  in  the  desert,  he  claimed  to 
have  received  revelation  of  his  divine  lineage.  And 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Nile  he  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
greatest  monument  he  was  destined  to  have,  the  city  of 
Alexandria. 

When  Alexander's  satraps  proceeded  to  carve  out 
portions  for  themselves,  Egypt  was  seized  by  Ptolemy, 
whose  quick  brain  had  grasped  at  once  the  advantages 
accruing  from  the  possession  of  an  inexhaustible 
granary  and  from  the  relative  remoteness  of  his  posi- 
tion. The  first  contests  would  have  to  be  fought  in  Asia. 
To  attack  Egypt  meant  a  costly  and  carefully  planned 
expedition,  with  the  hazards  of  a  rear  attack.  It  was 
attempted,  and  it  failed.  Egypt  might,  as  far  as  the 
country  itself  was  concerned,  breathe  freely  for  a  while, 
and  give  itself  the  opportunity  of  developing  its  extra- 
ordinary resources. 

One  of  Ptolemy's  first  aggressive  campaigns  was  the 
seizure  of  Palestine,  the  natural  geographical  extension. 
Judea  and  Jerusalem  fell  into  his  hands.  It  is  probable, 
as  will  be  later  discussed,  that  the  story  of  the  capture 
of  the  city  on  the  Sabbath  is  apocryphal.  But  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  one  of  the  immediate  conse- 
quences of  the  annexation  of  Palestine  was  a  greatly 
increased  emigration  of  Jews,  and  doubtless  of  Pales- 
tinians generally,  to  Egypt.  There  is  the  tradition  of  a 
deportation,  but  it  is  feebly  supported.  However,  the 
emigration  was  unquestionably  vigorously  encouraged 
and   stimulated  by  the  king.     The  new  city  needed 


92     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

inhabitants,  and  Egyptians  were  as  yet  looked  at 
askance  by  their  Macedonian  rulers. 

From  the  beginning,  a  great  number  of  Greeks,  Jews, 
Persians,  Syrians,  and  Egyptians  dwelt  side  by  side  in 
Alexandria.  Greeks  who  now  spoke  of  Jews  could  do 
so  at  first  hand,  and  they  could  also  obtain  at  first  hand 
accounts  of  Jews  from  other  nations,  especially  from 
the  Egyptians.  When,  therefore,  at  about  this  time, 
Hecataeus  of  Abdera,  a  Greek  living  in  Egypt,  wrote  a 
history  of  that  country,  he  had  more  to  say  of  the  Jews 
than  that  they  were  a  Syrian  caste  of  strange  ritual. 
Indeed  his  account  of  them  is  so  important  that  it  will 
be  briefly  summarized. 

A  pestilence  broke  out  in  Egypt,  which  was  popularly 
attributed  to  the  neglect  of  the  national  cult  owing  to 
the  presence  of  foreign  elements  in  the  population.  To 
propitiate  the  gods,  the  strangers  (dAAd</)i;AAot)  were 
expelled.  The  most  distinguished  and  energetic,  as 
some  say,  arrived  in  Greece  led  by  famous  chieftains,  of 
whom  Danaus  and  Cadmus  are  the  best  known.  The 
mass  of  the  population  settled  in  the  neighboring  Pales- 
tine, which  was  then  a  desert. 

This  colony  (aTroiKia)  was  led  by  a  certain  Moses, 
famous  for  his  wisdom  and  valor.  He  founded  several 
cities,  of  which  lerosolyma  is  now  the  best-known. 
Having  organized  cult  and  government,  he  divided  the 
people  into  twelve  tribes,  because  he  considered  that 
number  the  absolutely  perfect  one,  and  because  it  cor- 
responded to  the  number  of  months  in  the  year. 


EGYPT  93 

He  made  no  statues  of  gods,  because  he  regarded  as 
God  and  Ruler  of  all  things  the  heavens  that  encircled 
the  earth,  and  accordingly  did  not  believe  that  the  Deity- 
resembled  man  in  form.  The  sacrifices  he  instituted, 
the  manner  of  life  he  prescribed,  were  different  from 
those  of  surrounding  nations.  This  was  due  to  the 
expulsion  they  had  suffered,  which  induced  Moses 
to  ordain  an  inhospitable  (/Ltio-o^evov)  and  inhuman 
(aTrdv6p(t)7rov)  form  of  living. 

Since  the  nation  was  to  be  directed  by  priests,  he 
chose  for  that  purpose  men  of  the  highest  character  and 
ability.  These  he  instructed,  not  merely  for  their  sacer- 
dotal functions,  but  also  for  their  judicial  and  govern- 
mental duties.  They  were  to  be  the  guardians  of  law 
and  morality. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  Jews  have  never  had  a 
king,  but  appoint  as  ruler  the  wisest  and  ablest  of  their 
priests.  They  call  him  high  priest  (apxiepev^),  and 
regard  him  as  bearer  of  the  divine  commands,  which  he 
announces  at  the  public  assemblies  and  other  meetings. 
In  this  matter  the  Jews  are  so  credulous  that  they  fall  to 
the  ground  and  adore  {irpoaKovdv)  the  high  priest  when 
he  interprets  the  divine  message.  At  the  end  of  their 
laws  is  written,  "  These  words,  which  Moses  heard  from 
God,  he  states  to  the  Jews." 

Moses  showed  much  foresight  in  military  matters, 
since  he  compelled  the  young  men  to  train  themselves 
by  exercises  that  involved  courage  and  daring  and 
endurance  of  privations.  In  his  campaigns  he  con- 
quered most  of  the  surrounding  territory,  which  was 


94     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

divided  equally  among  all  citizens,  except  that  the 
priests  received  larger  shares,  so  that  they  might  enjoy 
greater  leisure  for  their  public  duties.  These  allot- 
ments the  possessors  were  forbidden  to  sell,  in  order 
to  prevent  depopulation  by  the  creation  of  great  estates. 
As  an  additional  means  to  that  end  he  compelled  every 
one  to  rear  his  children,  an  arrangement  that  involved 
little  expense  and  made  the  Jews  at  all  times  a  very 
populous  nation.  Marriage  and  funeral  rites  were 
likewise  quite  dififerent  from  those  of  their  neighbors. 

However,  many  of  these  ancient  customs  were  modi- 
fied under  Persian,  and  more  recently  under  Mace- 
donian, supremacy.'' 

So  far  Hecataeus  of  Abdera.  The  fragment  is  inter- 
esting, not  merely  as  the  first  connected  account  of 
Jews  by  a  Greek,  but  also  from  a  number  of  facts  that 
are  contained  implicitly  in  his  narrative. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  previous  chapter,  what  general 
knowledge  of  the  Jews  educated  Greeks  had  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  fourth  century.  Hecataeus  could 
scarcely  avoid  being  familiar  with  that  version  before 
he  came  to  Egypt.  That  he  ever  was  in  Judea  there  is 
no  evidence.  If  he  followed  his  master  Ptolemy,  he 
might  easily  have  been  there.  But  the  information  he 
gives  was  almost  certainly  obtained  in  Egypt,  and 
the  sources  of  that  information  will  be  more  closely 
examined. 

It  is  evident  at  once  that  some  of  his  facts  must  have 
come  from  contemporary  Jewish  sources.  His  state- 
ment of  conditions  among  the  Jews  is  markedly  accurate 


EGYPT  95 

for  the  time  in  which  he  wrote,  although  to  be  sure  these 
conditions  do  not  date  to  Moses.  The  absence  of  a  king, 
the  presence  of  a  priestly  nobility,  the  judicial  functions 
of  the  priests,  the  compulsory  military  service,  the 
supremacy  of  the  high  priest,  and  the  veneration 
accorded  to  him,  are  all  matters  of  which  only  a  resident 
of  Judea  can  have  been  cognizant. 

Was  the  source  a  literary  one  ?  Did  Hecataeus,  writ- 
ing at  about  300  b.  c.  e.,  have  before  him  a  translation 
of  the  Bible  or  of  the  Pentateuch  or  a  part  of  it  ?  In  the 
first  place  there  is  very  little  reason  to  believe  that  such 
a  translation  was  current  or  was  needed  at  this  time. 
Secondly,  the  matters  mentioned  are  just  those  that  do 
not  stand  out  at  all  in  such  a  rapid  reading  of  the  Bible 
as  a  curious  Greek  might  have  given  it.  To  obtain  even 
approximate  parallels,  single  verses  of  the  Bible  must 
be  cited.  But  the  statements  of  Hecataeus  do  corre- 
spond to  actual  conditions  in  the  Judea  of  his  time.  We 
may  therefore  plausibly  suppose  that  Hecataeus'  infor- 
mant was  a  Greek-speaking  Jew,  perhaps  a  soldier. 
Certain  inaccuracies  in  the  account  would  not  militate 
against  such  a  supposition.  Whoever  it  was  from 
whom  the  information  came,  cannot  himself  have 
been  especially  conversant  with  his  national  history. 
The  glorious  period  of  Jewish  history  was  that  of  the 
kings,  of  David  and  Solomon.  For  any  Jew  to  have 
asserted  that  no  king  ever  reigned  over  them  is  scarcely 
conceivable.  But  that  may  be  an  inference  of  the  Greek 
and  not  a  statement  of  the  Jew,  and  that  in  Egypt  there 


96     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


were  Jews  crassly  ignorant  of  everything  but  the  facts 
of  their  own  time,  we  can  readily  enough  imagine.' 

Was  there  any  other  source  of  information?  Ob- 
viously no  Jew  told  Hecataeus  that  his  people  were 
descendants  of  Egyptian  outcasts,  at  least  in  the  way  in 
which  they  are  here  described ;  no  Jew  qualified  the 
institutions  of  his  people  as  "  inhospitable  and  in- 
human "  ;  no  Jew  represented  his  kinsmen  as  credulous 
dupes.  Plainly  these  stories  are  told  from  the  Egyptian 
point  of  view.  The  first  almost  surely  is.  It  constitutes 
in  outline  what  has  often  been  called  the  "  Egyptian 
version  of  the  Exodus." 

As  to  that  version  this  question  at  once  arises :  What 
are  its  sources?  Is  it  a  malicious  distortion  of  the 
Biblical  story,  or  has  it  an  independent  origin  in  Egyp- 
tian traditions? 

The  former  supposition  is  the  one  generally  accepted. 
We  have  seen  that  there  is  little  likelihood  that  a  Greek 
translation  of  the  Pentateuch  existed  as  early  as  300  b. 
c.  E.  If  then  the  Egyptian  version  is  consciously  based 
upon  the  Jewish  story,  that  story  must  have  been  known 
to  the  Egyptians  by  oral  transmission  only.  Until 
recently,  imagined  difficulties  in  the  way  of  assuming 
such  a  transmission  seemed  weighty  objections,  but  all 
these  difficulties  have  disappeared  in  the  light  ot  the 
Assuan  and  Elephantine  papyri.  The  existence  of 
Jewish  communities  in  Egypt  from  pre-Persian  times 
is  established  by  them,  and  particular  interest  centers 
upon  one  of  them,  which  alludes  to  the  Passover  cele- 


EGYPT  97 

bration  and  represents  the  Egyptian  Jewries  as  refer- 
ring certain  questions  to  the  Palestinian  community/ 

It  must  be  clear  that  if  Passover  had  been  celebrated 
in  Egyptian  surroundings  for  two  centuries,  the 
Egyptian  neighbors  of  the  Jews  knew  of  the  feast's 
existence  and  of  the  occasion  it  was  intended  to  cele- 
brate. In  those  two  centuries  the  elements  that  make 
this  version  an  Egyptian  one  may  easily  have  arisen. 
Indeed,  it  would  have  been  strange  if  stories  repre- 
senting the  Exodus  as  anything  but  the  Jewish  triumph 
it  is  depicted  in  the  Pentateuch  had  not  circulated 
widely  among  Egyptians. 

The  mere  celebration  of  Passover  was  apt  to  make 
permanent  a  certain  hostility  between  the  two  nations. 
When  we  compare  Deut.  xxiii.  7,  ''  Thou  shalt  not 
abhor  an  Egyptian,"  with  Ezra  ix.  i,  where  the  customs 
of  the  Egyptians  are  classed  as  abominations,  and  where 
Egyptian,  Moabite,  and  Edomite  are  added  to  the  list  of 
peoples  (Deut.  vii.  i)  to  be  shunned  and  avoided,  it  is 
plain  that  the  attitude  toward  Egyptians  had  undergone 
considerable  change  in  the  intervening  centuries.  It 
requires  a  long  period  of  antagonism  to  explain  the  later 
Alexandrian  anti-Semitism. 

At  the  same  time  the  papyri  show  other  phases  of 
life  as  well.  They  offer  instances  of  amicable  relations, 
even  of  intermarriage,  as  well  as  instances  of  hostility, 
such  as  that  which  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the 
shrine  of  Yahu  at  Elephantine.  The  latter  incident  is 
too  obscure  to  permit  us  to  draw  inferences  from  it. 
But  it  is  clear  that  it  can  no  more  be  considered  typical 

7 


98     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

than  the  other  examples,  which  show  perfectly  free  and 
friendly  intercourse. 

The  story  as  it  appears  in  Hecataeus,  however,  does 
not  imply,  even  in  its  unflattering  aspects,  hostility  on 
the  part  of  the  Egyptians.  It  may  be  remembered  that 
the  founders  of  several  Greek  nations  as  well  as  the 
Jews  were  expelled  from  Egypt  on  the  occasion  men- 
tioned. It  is  easy  to  see  how  Egyptians,  learning  of 
Greek  and  Jewish  legends  that  ascribed  the  origin  of 
those  nations  to  themselves,  would  accept  the  ascription, 
and  make  it  a  part  of  their  own  stories  in  a  way  to 
flatter  the  national  vanity. 

While  therefore  the  supposition  that  Egyptians 
based  their  version  on  the  Jewish  story  of  the  Exodus 
as  it  became  known  to  them  is  much  the  more  probable 
view,  the  possibility  of  an  independent  Egyptian  tradi- 
tion on  the  subject  is  not  to  be  dismissed  cavalierly. 

The  Egyptian  records  that  have  come  down  to  us 
do  not  often  mention  Jews.  Careful  study  has  made  it 
plain  that  the  Pharaoh  of  the  oppression  or  the  Exodus 
cannot  be  identified  so  readily  as  was  formerly  done, 
but  they  have  shown  that  the  popular  traditions  about 
the  Hyksos  had  at  least  so  much  foundation  in  fact,  that 
about  1580  B.  c.  E.  Ahmose  I  did  actually  drive  out  the 
Semitic  or  half-Semitic  conquerors  of  the  country,  and 
these  conquerors  are  quite  plausibly  identified  with  the 
Hyksos.  Now  during  the  Hyksos  period  we  hear  of 
a  ruler  named  Jacob-Her,  or  Jacob-El,  and  a  few  cen- 
turies after  the  inscriptions  of  Mer-ne-ptah  show  Israel 
already  established  in  Palestine.    If,  in  the  casual  selec- 


EGYPT  99 

tion  of  inscriptions  that  has  been  made  by  the  lapse 
of  thirty-five  centuries,  these  facts  appear,  it  is  surely 
not  impossible  that  in  300  b.  c.  e.  a  great  many  more 
facts  were  known.  It  is  not  likely  that  every  Egyptian 
priest  could  read  the  hieroglyphics,  but  some  could,  and 
the  knowledge  of  a  few  could  easily  become  common 
possession. 

When  Greeks  came  to  Egypt  in  the  train  of  Alex- 
ander and  Ptolemy,  they  not  only  brought  Jews  there, 
but  they  found  them,  as  well  as  the  story  just  discussed, 
whether  two  hundred  or  twelve  hundred  years  old. 

When  we  meet  the  Egyptian  version  again,  it  is  in  a 
form  unmistakably  malevolent.  A  very  few  years  after 
Hecataeus,  an  Egyptian  priest  named  Manetho  wrote 
the  history  of  his  people  in  Greek.  His  sources  were 
popular  traditions  much  more  than  the  monuments,  but 
they  were  at  least  partly  documentary.  Manetho's  book 
has  been  lost,  and  its  ''  fragments,"  as  usual,  appear  in 
the  form  of  quotations  in  much  later  books,  where  we 
must  estimate  the  probabilities  of  wilful  and  careless 
error. 

The  fragments  of  especial  interest  to  us  are  con- 
tained in  Josephus'  apologetic  work  known  as  Contra 
Apionem  (§1,  26-27),  where  unfortunately  one  cannot 
always  distinguish  between  the  statements  of  Josephus 
and  those  of  Manetho. 

The  essential  part  of  Manetho's  story,  as  far  as  we 
can  piece  it  together,  is  that  the  Exodus  of  the  Jews 
from  Egypt  was  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  defeat 
and  expulsion  of  certain  rebellious  Egyptians.    These 


100     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


latter  had  been  isolated  from  their  fellow-men  as  lepers 
and  criminals,  and  had  treasonably  summoned  to  their 
aid  the  Bedouin  Hyksos  from  Jerusalem.  The  Egyp- 
tian outcasts  were  led  by  a  Heliopolitan  priest  named 
Osarsiph,  who  afterwards  changed  his  name  to  Moses. 
After  a  short  domination  over  Egypt,  they  were 
defeated  and  expelled,  and  pursued  to  the  frontiers  of 
Syria. 

If  the  very  indefinite  words  of  Josephus  are  to  be 
trusted  {Contra  Apioncm,  i.  26),  Manetho  expressly 
asserts  that  this  account  is  based  upon  what  is  popularly 

told    of    the    Jews     (ra   fxvOevofxeva   Kal   Xeyo/xeva   Trepl   twv 

'lovSaiwv).  Whether  Manetho  really  said  so  or  not,  it 
is  extremely  unlikely  that  it  was  the  case.  The  account 
seems  too  finished  and  detailed  to  have  such  an  origin. 
It  is  much  more  likely  that  it  is  a  deliberate  invention  of 
Manetho  himself,  following  the  Jewish  story  with  a 
certain  amount  of  care.  As  has  been  suggested,  the 
name  Osarsiph  is  simply  an  Egyptian  version  of  Joseph, 
the  name  of  Osiris  (which  often  appears  as  Osar-  or 
Osor-  in  names)*  being  substituted  for  the  assumed 
theophoric  element  Jo-,  a  syllable  that  would  be  familiar 
to  all  Egyptians  in  such  very  common  Jewish  names  as 
Johanan  and  Jonathan. 

The  "  Egyptian  version  "  as  we  found  it  in  Hecataeus 
is  far  from  malevolent.  In  Manetho  it  is  plainly 
inspired  by  hatred.  The  Jews  are  represented  as  the 
mongrel  offspring  of  Egyptian  outcasts  and  half -civil- 
ized Bedouins.  The  vice  of  unsociability  is  reasserted, 
coupled  with  a  charge  of  "  atheism,"  a  term  we  shall 


EGYPT  loi 

have  to  deal  with  later  in  detail.  Moses,  or  Osarsiph, 
forbade  the  Jews  "  to  have  any  dealings  with  anyone 
whatsoever  except  their  confederates  (o-vi/w/Aoa/xeVot). 
That  is,  of  course,  more  precise  than  the  words  ''  inhos- 
pitable and  inhuman  manner  of  life  "  of  Hecataeus,  and 
formed  in  ancient  times  a  more  serious  indictment  than 
in  our  own. 

Now  Josephus,  of  course,  is  roused  to  considerable 
heat  by  the  "  silly  lies  "  of  Manetho,  although  as  testi- 
mony to  the  antiquity  of  his  people  the  story  is  grist 
to  his  mill.  He  points  out  very  clearly  and  correctly 
that  many  of  the  incidents  are  admissions  that  the  cor- 
responding incidents  of  the  Jewish  story  are  essentially 
true.  These  admissions  do  not  prove  that  Manetho 
read  these  matters  from  the  hieroglyphic  records,  but 
merely  that  he  knew  the  Jewish  story,  and,  except  for 
the  confusion  of  Moses  and  Joseph,  that  he  knew  it 
well. 

Nearly  all  Manetho's  details  are  suggested  in  some 
way  by  the  Biblical  story.  The  leprosy  of  Osarsiph  is 
probably  derived  from  the  story  of  Moses  (Exodus  iv. 
7)  ;  the  convicts  in  the  quarries  (ot  h  rah  AaoTo^Liiats), 
from  the  bondage  which  the  Jews  acknowledged  of 
themselves  (Exodus  i.  12-14).  Manetho  cannot  accept 
Joseph's  rule  nor  Pharaoh's  discomfiture  at  the  Red 
Sea,  but,  as  many  other  ancient  and  modern  writers  did, 
he  will  not  absolutely  deny  what  he  wishes  to  avoid,  but 
prefers  to  present  it  in  a  form  less  galling  to  his  pride. 
Osarsiph  did  rule  over  Egypt,  but  his  rule  was  a  chas- 
tisement of  the  Egyptians   for  the  impiety  of  King 


102     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Amenophis,  and  was  effected  only  by  the  aid  of  foreign 
mercenaries.  Pharaoh  did  advance  to  "  the  river  "  with 
a  picked  army  and  then  withdraw  before  the  enemy, 
but  it  was  a  voluntary  withdrawal,  impelled  by  his  fear 
of  the  offended  gods/ 

It  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  all  the  facts  implied 
may  have  been  learned  by  Manetho  through  oral 
acquaintance  with  the  Jewish  story  of  the  Exodus.  But 
if  Manetho  acquired  his  information  so,  we  should 
expect  confusion  in  the  sequence  of  events.  We  should 
find  anachronisms  of  various  sorts.  It  is  therefore  more 
likely  that  he  had  an  actual  book  before  him.  Tradition 
of  strong  intrinsic  probability  assigns  the  translation  of 
the  Pentateuch  into  Greek  to  the  reign  of  Philadelphus. 
Writing  at  about  270  b.  c.  e.,  Manetho  may  well  have 
read  the  Pentateuch,  at  least  cursorily.  Indeed  it  would 
be  easy  to  suppose  that  it  was  the  circulation  in  Greek 
of  stories  so  offensive  to  Egyptians  that  specially  moved 
him  to  publish  his  own  interpretation  of  those  stories. 
He  was  hardly  likely  to  have  made  so  much  of  them,  if 
they  were  merely  legends,  scarcely  known  except  to  the 
Jews  themselves  and  their  closest  neighbors. 

The  ''Egyptian  version  "  may  be  said  to  have  been 
the  more  successful.  The  leprosy  of  Moses,  the  founder 
of  the  nation,  was  constantly  girded  at  by  later  writers. 
Tacitus  repeats  Manetho  faithfully  in  the  matter,"  and 
one  of  the  latest  pagan  writers  of  whom  we  have  frag- 
ments concerning  the  Jews,  Helladius,  makes  allusion 
to  the  same  thing.^  The  point  does  not  seem  to  us  of 
capital  importance,  but  among  peoples  that  regarded 


EGYPT  103 

bodily  defects  as  obvious  signs  of  divine  displeasure  in 
the  person  afflicted,  it  was  likely  to  have  weight. 

It  may,  however,  be  well  to  remember  that  both  ver- 
sions were  in  equal  circulation.  To  many  the  Jewish 
story  seemed  the  more  probable.  But  it  is  significant 
that  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  period  when  the  Jews 
took  a  larger  share  in  the  life  of  the  Mediterranean 
world  we  find  Jews  and  Egyptians  distinctly  in  conflict. 
That  conflict  was  destined  to  become  embittered,  but  it 
must  not  be  taken  as  an  epitome  of  Jewish  relations 
generally  with  other  nations. 


CHAPTER  VTTI 
JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT 

Greek  civilization  was  essentially  urban.  The  city- 
state,  or  polis,  was  its  highest  governmental  achieve- 
ment. When,  therefore,  under  Alexander  and  Ptolemy, 
Egypt  was  to  be  transferred  wholly  within  the  sphere  of 
Greek  culture,  it  was  by  means  of  a  polis  that  this  was 
to  be  effected. 

The  same  was  still  more  largely  true  for  the  other 
parts  of  Alexander's  empire.  In  Asia  and  Syria  the 
**  Successors "  were  busy  founding,  wherever  con- 
venient, cities  diversely  named.  However,  in  these 
regions  they  were  merely  continuing,  in  a  somewhat 
accelerated  fashion,  a  practice  begun  long  before.  In 
Egypt,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  plain  that  a  modification 
of  that  policy  was  necessary.  There  was,  to  be  sure, 
an  ancient  Greek  city  at  one  of  the  western  mouths  of 
the  Nile,  the  city  of  Naucratis.  But  that  had  been 
founded  as  an  emporium,  and  due  care  was  taken  that 
it  should  be  essentially  nothing  more,  that  it  should 
acquire  no  supporting  territory  in  Egypt.  And  how- 
ever important  and  wealthy  Naucratis  became,  it  re- 
mained confined  to  its  foreign  trade  for  its  subsistence.* 
Besides,  it  had  considerably  dwindled  in  330  b.  c.  e.,  so 
that  its  claims  could  never  have  been  seriously  con- 
sidered by  Alexander,  in  comparison  with  his  desire  to 


JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  105 

found  a  new  city  and  in  comparison  with  the  much 
superior  location  of  Alexandria. 

It  is  not  likely  that  Alexander  himself  completed  the 
plans  for  the  organization  of  the  city.  That  was  left  to 
Ptolemy,  and  it  was  accomplished  with  a  modification 
of  the  Greek  system  that  illustrates  both  the  wariness 
and  the  foresight  of  this  most  astute  of  Alexander's 
officers. 

The  essential  part  of  the  polis  was  its  organization  as 
a  commonwealth,  i.  e.  as  a  group  of  citizens,  each  of 
whom  had  a  necessary  function  to  perform  in  the  state. 
From  time  immemorial  the  administration  of  affairs 
was  assigned  to  a  boule,  or  senate,  the  actual  executives 
being  little  more  than  committees  of  the  boule;  but  at 
all  times  an  essential  element  of  the  constitution  was  the 
confirmation,  real  or  constructive,  of  all  acts  of  the 
boule  by  the  demos,  or  mass  of  citizens.  The  manner  in 
which  the  boule  was  selected,  as  well  as  the  extent  to 
which  the  check  exercised  by  the  demos  was  real,  deter- 
mined the  measure  of  democracy  each  polis  obtained. 
However,  even  in  cities  which,  like  Sparta,  were  in 
theory  permanent  camps,  the  same  view  was  held  of  the 
necessity  of  these  parts  and  of  their  respective  func- 
tions, so  that  everywhere,  in  legal  contemplation, 
sovereignty  resided  in  the  demos.* 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  all  men  who  lived  within 
the  walls  of  the  city  were  members  of  the  demos.  That 
is  a  conception  of  democracy  wholly  alien  to  ancient 
ideas.  The  participation  of  the  individual  in  the  state 
was  a  privilege,  acquired  in  the  first  instance  by  birth. 


io6     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Side  by  side  with  the  citizens  was  the  slave,  who  was 
wholly  devoid  of  legal  rights,  and  the  metic,  or  resident 
foreigner,  who  had,  as  a  result  of  a  direct  compact  with 
the  state,  acquired  the  right  of  residence  and  personal 
protection  upon  the  payment  of  certain  specified  taxes. 

The  privilege  of  citizenship  was  a  complex  of  rights, 
to  which  were  attached  certain  very  definite  and  sharply 
emphasized  obligations.  What  those  rights  were 
depended  upon  the  constitution  of  the  given  polis. 
Where  they  were  fullest,  as  at  Athens,  they  included 
voting  in  the  public  assembly,  the  holding  of  public 
office,  service  on  the  jury,  and  a  claim  for  certain  per- 
sonal privileges,  such  as  admission  to  the  dramatic  per- 
formances at  the  Dionysiac  festivals.  In  other  states 
they  were  not  quite  so  extensive,  but  the  obligations 
were  everywhere  the  same,  i.  e.  payment  of  taxes  and 
military- service.  The  state  was  in  the  habit  of  remitting 
from  time  to  time  certain  or  all  of  these  taxes  and  other 
compulsory  services,  so  that  we  may  say  that  various 
grades  of  citizens  and  metics  generally  existed. 

Now  Naucratis  was  just  such  a  polis  as  this.  So 
were  the  various  Apameas,  Antiochias,  Seleucias, 
Laodiceas,  established  in  Asia  and  Syria.  It  is  true 
that  the  boule  and  demos  of  these  cities  were  the  merest 
shadows;  and  actually  the  despotism  of  the  monarch 
was  as  undoubted  as  it  had  been  in  Persian  times.  But 
the  shadows  were  at  least  a  concession  to  the  Hellenic 
spirit,  and  as  such  were  immensely  treasured ;  nor  can 
it  be  denied  that  as  long  as  they  remained  the  remem- 
brance   of    free    institutions    remained    as   well.      At, 


JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  107 

Pergamon,  which  the  AttaHds  created,  no  pubHc  act 
was  done  except  as  the  dehberate  choice  of  senate  and 
people.^ 

But  when  Ptolemy  constituted  Alexandria,  he  delib- 
erately departed  from  this  plan.  As  has  been  said, 
Naucratis  had  boule  and  demos  and  all  the  other 
appurtenances  of  a  well-regulated  polis.  So  had  Ptole- 
mais  somewhat  later ;  and  many  years  later,  when  the 
emperor  Hadrian  founded  an  Antinois  in  memory  of  his 
dead  minion,  he  likewise  made  it  a  full  and  complete 
Greek  city.  In  x\lexandria,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
no  trace,  till  late  in  Roman  times,  of  a  boule ;  and  of  a 
demos  as  little.  In  the  great  mass  of  Greek  papyri 
that  have  come  from  Egypt  there  is  nowhere  any  indica- 
tion that  a  senate  ever  met,  or  a  people  ever  assembled, 
to  parody  the  deliberations  of  the  Athenian  ecclesia. 
In  other  words  Alexandria  was  much  less  a  polis  than  it 
was  a  royal  residence,  i.  e.  the  site  of  the  king's  palace 
amidst  a  more  densely  gathered  group  of  his  subjects.* 

In  externals  Alexandria  was  every  inch  a  city.  It 
had  the  high  walls,  which,  as  Alcaeus  tells  us,  do  not 
constitute  a  state.  It  had  the  tribe  and  deme,  or  district 
division,  and  it  had  its  various  grades  of  citizens,  deter- 
mined by  the  duties  and  imposts  to  which  they  were 
subjected. 

Of  its  tribe  and  district  division  we  know  some 
details.  There  were  probably  five  tribes,  each  of  which 
consisted  of  twelve  demes,  or  districts,  which  in  turn 
had  twelve  phratries,  or  wards.  The  tribes  were  known 
by  the  first  five  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet.     In  the 


io8     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

absence  of  even  formal  political  rights,  this  division 
can  have  been  made  simply  in  the  interests  of  the  census 
and  the  police.  The  obligations  to  pay  taxes  and  per- 
form military  service  were  very  real  ones,  and  their 
proper  enforcement  necessitated  some  such  organiza- 
tion of  the  city/ 

Different  classes  of  citizenship  were  at  once  created 
by  the  establishment  of  special  taxes  and  special  exemp- 
tions. The  peculiar  Greek  fiscal  arrangement  known 
as  the  liturgy,  which  made  the  performance  of  certain 
services  to  the  state  a  means  of  compounding  for  taxes, 
was  also  in  vogue.  We  have  records  of  certain  of  these 
classes  of  citizens,  or  inhabitants,  and  it  is  at  least  prob- 
able that  there  were  other  classes  of  which  we  know 
nothing. 

First  of  all,  there  were  the  Macedones,  or  Mace- 
donians. These  form  a  specially  privileged  group, 
whose  residence  was  probably  by  no  means  confined  to 
Alexandria.  Just  what  their  privileges  were  we  do  not 
know,  but  that  they  lay  chiefly  in  fiscal  exemptions  of 
one  sort  or  another,  is  almost  certain. 

Then  there  were  the  Alexandreis,  or  Alexandrians 
We  know  that  there  were  at  least  two  groups — those 
that  were  enrolled  in  a  given  tribe,  or  deme,  and  those 
not  so  enrolled.    We  can  only  conjecture  the  purpose  of 
this  division,  and  one  conjecture  will  be  mentioned  later. 

Besides  these,  there  were  other  men  whose  legal  right 
to  residence  was  unquestioned.  They  were  variously 
designated.  We  find  Persians,  Jews,  and  other  nationali- 
ties, qualified  with  the  phrase  r^s  eTrtyov^s    which  means 


lElVS  TM  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  109 

literally  "  of  the  descent,"  but  the  exact  force  of  which 
is  unknown.  This  classification  procured  for  those  so 
termed  certain  very  much  valued  exemptions.  Native 
Egyptians  also  were  present,  paying  a  special  poll-tax, 
and  no  doubt  a  very  large  number  of  metics  and 
transient  foreigners.  Greek  publicists  regarded  the 
presence  of  a  large  number  of  metics  and  foreign 
merchants  as  a  sign  of  great  prosperity.*  We  may  be 
sure  that  no  burdensome  restrictions  made  the  settling 
of  these  classes  difficult  at  Alexandria. 

Were  the  Jews  in  Alexandria  citizens  ?  A  great  many 
heated  controversies  have  been  fought  on  this  subject, 
some  of  which  would  surely  not  have  been  entered  into 
if  a  clearer  analysis  had  been  available  of  what  con- 
stituted Alexandrian  "  citizenship."  As  we  have  seen, 
the  question  can  only  be  framed  thus  :  Did  the  Jews  of 
that  city  appear  on  the  census  books  as  "  Alexandreis," 
with  or  without  the  deme  and  tribe  adjective  after  them, 
or  were  they  classified  as  Jews,  and  did  they  form  a  dis- 
tinct fiscal  class  by  themselves  ? 

The  denial  of  their  citizenship  is  principally  based 
upon  distrust  of  Josephus,  who  asserts  it.  But  distrust 
of  Josephus  may  be  carried  to  an  extravagant  degree. 
Modern  writers  with  pronounced  bias  may,  of  course, 
be  disregarded,  but  saner  investigators  have  equally 
allowed  themselves  to  be  guided  by  disinclination  to 
credit  Josephus,  and  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  Jews  were  not  citizens  of  Alexandria. 

There  were  of  course  very  many  Jews  in  Alexandria 
who  were  not  legally  Alexandrians.  Josephus'  assertion 


no     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

did  not  and  could  not  mean  that  every  Jew  in  the  city 
was,  by  the  very  fact  of  his  residence,  an  Alexandrian. 
Nowhere  in  the  ancient  world  could  citizenship  be 
acquired  except  by  birth  or  by  special  decree.  Jews 
who  emigrated  from  Palestine  to  Alexandria,  and  were 
permitted  to  remain  there,  were  metics,  and  became 
Alexandrians  only  if  they  were  specially  awarded  that 
designation.  But  that  was  just  as  true  for  a  foreign 
Greek  or  a  foreign  Macedonian,  since  at  Alexandria 
"  Macedonian  "  was  a  class  of  citizenship,  not  an  ethnic 
term.  Those  who  assisted  in  the  founding  of  the  city 
were  undoubtedly  classified  either  as  '*  Macedones  "  or 
"  Alexandreis,"  and  the  tradition  that  Jews  were  among 
them  is  based  upon  other  authority  than  Josephus.  It 
is  not  enough,  therefore,  if  one  desires  to  refute 
Josephus,  to  show  that  there  were  Jews  in  Egypt  who 
were  not  "  Alexandreis."  Undoubtedly  there  were 
thousands  of  them.  But  if,  in  the  papyri,  we  do  find 
Jews  among  the  *'  Macedones  "  and  others  among  the 
"  Alexandreis,"  the  statements  of  Josephus  on  the  sub- 
ject are  strikingly  confirmed,  for  he  says  no  more  than 
that  there  were  Jews  in  both  these  categories.' 

Of  the  two  classes  of  Alexandrians,  those  enrolled  in 
demes  and  those  not  so  enrolled,  it  is  likely  that  the 
Jewish  ''  Alexandreis  "  belonged  to  the  latter  class. 
The  former  either  paid  a  special  district  tax,  or,  more 
likely,  were  charged  with  the  performance  of  certain 
district  duties,  either  religious  in  their  nature,  such  as 
the  burying  of  the  pauper  dead,  or  of  police  character. 
When  Alexandrians  were  constituted,  not  registered  in 


JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  iii 

denies,  the  purpose  can  only  have  been  to  secure  exemp- 
tion from  these  local  duties,  and  the  example  quoted 
would  of  itself  indicate  why  the  Jews  may  have  been  so 
exempted. 

It  was  not,  however,  merely  in  Alexandria  that  the 
Jews  settled,  precisely  as  it  was  not  merely  in  Greek 
cities  that  Greeks  were  to  be  found.  That  part  of 
Egypt  which  lay  outside  the  definite  civic  communities 
as  they  were  founded  from  time  to  time,  was  organized 
in  nomes,  in  large  agricultural  districts  containing  many 
villages  or  even  cities.  In  every  instance,  however,  the 
administrative  unit  was  the  nome. 

These  nomes  had  themselves  a  history  of  immemorial 
antiquity.  Some  of  them  were  surely  in  boundary  co- 
incident with  the  petty  nationalities  that  antedated  the 
first  dynasties.  The  mass  of  the  population  in  them  had 
practically  always  been  peasant-serfs,  and  continued  to 
be  so.  Beside  them,  in  the  villages  and  towns,  there 
lived  in  Greek  times  motley  groups  of  men,  whose  legal 
status  was  determined  in  a  number  of  ways.  Some 
were  citizens  of  Alexandria,  Ptolemais,  etc.,  and  merely 
resident  in  the  nome.  Others  enjoyed  certain  mili- 
tary and  fiscal  privileges,  which  involved  the  right  of 
residence.  But  in  all  circumstances,  in  the  elaborate 
financial  organization  of  Egypt  every  resident  had  cer- 
tain precise  dues  to  pay,  and  was  marked  by  a  certain 
designation. 

The  military  and  other  settlers  whom  the  Greeks 
found  in  Egypt,  whether  they  were  Persians,  Jews, 
Syrians,  or  Babylonians,  retained  their  status,  i.  e.  they 


112      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

paid  taxes  and  performed  services  differing  from  those 
of  the  native  Egyptians  in  part,  although  no  doubt  cer- 
tain taxes  were  levied  upon  all."  The  foreigners  whom 
Ptolemy  invited  or  brought  into  Egypt  must  have  been 
settled  either  in  the  cities  or  the  nomes,  and  were  given 
a  definite  fiscal  status.  And  besides  all  these  various 
grades,  there  were  metics — a  term  which  may  have 
included  emancipated  slaves,  and  of  course  slaves  as 
well — in  huge  numbers.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Jews  were  to  be  found  in  all  classes,  from  the  highly 
privileged  nobility  of  ''  Macedones  "  to  the  slaves.* 

In  most  large  Greek  cities  metics  of  foreign  birth  or 
ancestry  existed.  There  were  Phoenicians  and  Egyp- 
tians in  Athens  in  very  early  times.  But  they  were  all, 
together  with  non-Athenian  Greeks,  gathered  into  the 
general  group  of  metics,  and  no  one  group  ever  became 
numerically  so  preponderant  that  a  special  class  had  to 
be  legally  constituted  of  them.  In  Egypt,  however,  the 
general  term  metic  was  rarely  used.  For  the  nome 
organization  of  the  country  it  seemed  scarcely  appli- 
cable. Instead,  those  foreigners  who  had  acquired 
legal  residence  and  other  rights  were  known  by  their 
national  name.  So  there  was  a  group  of  Egyptian 
residents  known  as  'lovhaloi,  as  '*  Jews,"  which  was 
in  their  case  a  legal  designation,  whereas,  when 
the  *'  Macedones,"  '*  Alexandreis,"  etc.,  of  the  same 
nationality  were  referred  to  as  'lovhaloi  the  term  was 
merely  descriptive. 

We  do  not  know  whether  the  louSatot  that  had  no 
other  classification  were  more  numerous  or  less  numer- 


JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  113 

ous  than  those  who  had.  But  it  was  shortly  found  advis- 
able to  organize  the  Jewish  metics  to  the  extent  of 
superadding  upon  their  own  cult-organizations  certain 
royal  officers  responsible  to  the  king.  Of  these  the 
chief  was  the  ethnarch,  and  it  is  evident  that  the 
ethnarch  would  assume  an  importance  in  proportion  to 
the  number  under  his  jurisdiction.  The  right  to  have  an 
ethnarch  seems  to  have  been  a  prized  privilege  and  was 
not  confined  to  the  Jews.  What  the  relation  of  the  later 
alabarch  ^  was  to  the  ethnarch  is  not  clear.  The  two 
terms  may  perhaps  designate  the  same  office. 

But  a  complete  understanding  of  the  condition  of  the 
Jews  in  Egypt  and  Alexandria  necessitates  some 
account  of  the  synagogue  organization. 

There  is  no  reason  to  question  the  Jewish  tradition 
that  the  synagogue  was  Exilic  or  pre-Exilic  in  origin. 
In  fact,  it  is  not  easily  conceivable  that  it  could  have 
been  otherwise.  Worship  was  a  social  act  in  the  ancient 
world,  and  properly  to  be  performed  in  concert.  It  was 
inevitable  therefore  that  just  as  soon  as  the  Jews  were 
removed  from  those  places  where  the  ancestral  and 
traditional  ritual  was  performed  without  any  conscious 
organization  for  that  purpose,  they  would  combine 
themselves  in  groups  in  order  to  satisfy  the  strongly 
marked  religious  emotion  that  characterized  them. 

Corporate  organization,  based  upon  the  performance 
in  common  of  some  religious  act,  characterized  the 
whole  ancient  world.  The  state  was  itself  a  large 
corporation  of  this  kind,  and  the  local  divisions 
rapidly  assumed,  or  always  possessed,  the  same  form. 
8 


114     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Obviously  members  of  the  same  nationality  residing  in 
a  foreign  city  would  be  specially  prone  to  organize 
themselves  into  such  corporations,  and  as  a  rule  make 
the  religious  bond,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  formal 
requisite,  the  common  worship  of  one  of  their  own  gods. 
The  merchants  of  Citium  at  Athens  formed  a  guild  for 
the  worship  of  the  Cyprian  Aphrodite.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  Egyptian  merchants  and  artisans  made  Isis 
known  to  the  Roman  world."* 

It  has  been  said  that  the  state  itself  was  such  a  cor- 
poration, of  which  the  formal  basis  was  the  common 
performance  of  a  certain  ritual  act.  When  new  states 
were  founded  or  new  men  admitted  into  old  states,  a 
great  deal  was  made  of  the  act.  It  follows  therefore 
that  when  Jews  were  admitted  into  the  newly  founded 
civic  communities  of  Asia,  as  we  know  they  were,  some 
relation  would  have  to  be  entered  upon  between  them- 
selves and  the  religious  basis  of  the  state.  In  most 
cases,  special  exemption  from  participation  in  these 
religious  acts  seems  to  have  been  sought  and  obtained. 

In  Egypt  the  conflict  between  the  exclusive  worship 
of  Jehovah  and  the  less  intolerant  worship  of  the  Nile- 
gods  had  been  in  existence  for  centuries  before  the 
Greeks.  The  pre-Greek  Jewish  immigrants  were  per- 
haps not  of  the  sort  that  sought  to  accentuate  the  con- 
flict, though  friction  was  unavoidable.  At  the  Greek 
conquest,  it  must  be  remembered,  no  great  disposition 
was  shown  by  the  first  Ptolemies  to  accept  the  native 
institutions  or  the  native  gods.  The  new  god  of 
Alexandria,  the  mighty  Sarapis,  was  not,  as  has  been 


JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  iig 

generally  supposed,  a  composite  of  Osiris  and  Apis, 
but  an  out  and  out  Greek  god,  imported  from  his 
obscure  shrine  in  direct  opposition  to  the  indigenous 
gods."  Membership  in  the  civic  communities,  or  resi- 
dence in  the  country  districts,  can  have  involved  no 
obligation  to  share  the  ritual  localized  there.  Every 
group  of  foreigners  might  freely  disregard  it,  and 
maintain  unimpaired  their  own  ancestral  forms. 

We  accordingly  find  Jewish  synagogues — in  the 
sense  of  cult-organizations,  each  having  its  own 
meeting-house,  schola,  or  proseucha,  and  organized 
with  magistrates  and  council,  like  miniature  states — 
not  only  in  Alexandria  but  in  insignificant  little  towns 
of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt.^''  Nor  was  the  legal  basis 
of  such  organization  wanting,  i.  e.  the  corporate  per- 
sonality, since  we  find  these  synagogues  enjoying 
the  rights  of  property  and  subject  to  the  imposts 
levied  upon  it.^^  The  extent  of  each  synagogue  was 
limited  by  the  physical  capacity  of  the  schola.  There 
must  have  been  in  Alexandria  very  many  of  them. 

Who  were  members  of  them?  The  various  classes 
of  Jews  in  the  city  and  country  were  divided  by  social 
and  legal  lines.  In  the  synagogue  social  distinctions 
cannot  have  disappeared,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
in  many,  if  not  in  all,  there  would  be  found  Jews  repre- 
senting every  class  of  the  community.  In  other  parts 
of  the  Greek  world  it  was  no  strange  thing  to  see  citi- 
zens, metics,  foreigners,  slaves,  claiming  membership  in 
the  same  cult-organization,  and  jointly  worshiping  a 
native  or  foreign  god.     The  synagogue  likewise  con- 


.A^'^ 


/^' 


ii6     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

tained  among  its  members  nobles  and  slaves.  The 
tendency  for  the  wealthier  classes  to  become  completely 
Hellenized,  and  so  completely  to  abandon  the  syna- 
gogue, did  not  show  itself  prominently  for  some  time. 

We  may  readily  suppose  that  the  native  Egyptians 
regarded  all  the  foreign  invaders  with  scarcely  dis- 
criminating hatred.  In  most  cases,  when  Greeks  and 
Jews  dwelt  in  the  nomes,  they  were  both  exempt  from 
local  dues,  and  both  paid  the  same  special  tax.  What 
the  attitude  of  the  Egyptians  was  to  their  Greek  and 
Macedonian  masters,  we  have  no  need  to  conjecture." 
As  under  Persian  rule,  they  rose  in  bloody  riots ;  and 
after  a  century  of  Greek  domination,  they  were  so  far 
successful  that  a  complete  change  in  the  policy  of  the 
Ptolemies  was  effected.  The  house  had  very  rapidly 
degenerated — a  process  perhaps  hastened  by  the  Egyp- 
tian custom  of  brother  and  sister  marriage,  which  they 
adopted.  From  the  weaker  kings  of  the  close  of  the 
third  century  b.  c.  e.,  the  Egyptian  priests  received  a 
complete  surrender.  Continuity  with  the  Pharaohs  was 
consciously  sought.  The  ancient  titles  in  a  modified 
form  were  adopted  in  Greek  as  well  as  Egyptian  for  the 
rulers.  The  hieroglyphics  represented  Ptolemy  as  the 
living  god,  sprung  from  Ra,  just  as  they  had  done  for 
Amen-hem-et  thousands  of  years  before.^' 

But  a  Hellenizing  process  had  gone  on  as  well  as  an 
Egyptizing  process.  The  irresistible  attractions  of  Greek 
culture  had  converted  even  the  fiercest  nationalists  into 
Greeks  outwardly,  and  in  the  horde  of  Greek  names 
that  the  papyri  exhibit  we  have  sometimes  far  to  seek, 


JEIVS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT  117 

if  we  wish  to  discover  unmistakably  Greek  stock.  Inter- 
marriage and  concubinage  must  have  given  Egypt  a 
large  mixed-blood  population,  which  no  doubt  called 
itself  Greek.  Evidences  of  Greek  aloofness  on  the 
subject  of  marriage  have  been  sought  in  the  denial  of 
connubium  by  the  city  of  Ptolemais  to  foreigners."  But 
that  applied  to  foreign  Greeks  as  well,  and  was  a  com- 
mon regulation  in  most  Greek  cities. 

'  The  Hellenizing  process  affected  the  Jews  even  more. 
In  Alexandria  the  Jewish  community  had  begun  to  show 
signs  of  the  most  active  intellectual  growth,  and  the 
results  of  that  growth,  naturally  enough,  wore  a  Greek 
dress.  But  that  process  had  been  active  in  Palestine 
as  well,  where  the  consequences  were  somewhat  more 
important.     It  is  there  that  we  shall  turn  for  a  study 

'  of  the  first  conflicts  between  Judaism  and  Hellenism. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE 

IN  PALESTINE 

While  Palestine  was  a  Greco-Egyptian  province,  the 
influences  at  work  over  the  whole  Levant  had  been  as 
effectually  operative  there. 

In  the  matter  of  government  no  change  had  been 
made  that  was  at  all  noticeable.  The  internal  auton- 
omy of  Persian  times  had  been  maintained;  the  claims 
of  the  tax-collector  and  recruiting  sergeant  were  dealt 
with  by  the  whole  community,  not  by  the  individual. 

Socially  and  economically,  relative  peace  had  per- 
mitted considerable  progress.  At  the  close  of  this 
period  the  work  of  Ben  Sira  is  the  best  of  all  possible 
evidence,  both  of  the  literary  productivity  out  of  which 
the  book  arose  and  of  the  society  which  it  implies.  We 
are  given  glimpses  of  settled  and  comfortable  life, 
which  could  scarcely  have  been  attained  unless  the  pre- 
ceding century  had  been  one  of  constantly  increasing 
well-being.  It  is  a  well-equipped  table  at  which  Ben 
Sira  bids  us  sit.  The  graces  and  little  luxuries  of  life 
are  present,  and  equally  the  vices  that  went  with  these 
luxuries.* 

Nor  had  the  character  of  the  whole  spiritual  culture 
essentially  changed.  The  language  of  daily  intercourse 
was  Aramaic,  the  lingua  franca  of  the  whole  region. 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  119 

But  the  literary  language  was  still  Hebrew.  It  must 
have  been  constantly  spoken  among  educated  men,  for 
the  changes  it  continued  to  exhibit  are  not  such  as  would 
occur  if  it  had  been  quite  divorced  from  life.  And  the 
literary  activity,  which  took  its  forms  from  the  estab- 
lished and  already  canonical  literature,  took  its  sub- 
stance from  the  life  about  it.  That  this  life  had  been 
impregnated  with  Greek  elements,  there  can  of  course 
be  no  manner  of  doubt. 

Not  only  the  old  Philistian  and  Phoenician  cities 
of  the  coast  had  acquired  a  Greek  varnish,  but  Judea 
was  being  surrounded  by  a  closer  and  closer  network  of 
new  Greek  foundations.  Ptolemais,  Anthedon,  Apol- 
lonia,  Arethusa,  and  the  cities  of  the  Decapolis  across 
the  Jordan,  brought  the  external  forms  of  Greek  culture 
so  near  that  even  the  peasant  who  went  no  great  dis- 
tance from  his  furrow  must  have  encountered  them. 

What  made  up  the  fascination  of  Greece  for  the 
nations  she  dominated?  In  the  first  place  it  must  be 
insisted  upon  that  there  was  a  national  resistance, 
whether  or  not  it  took  the  form  of  insurrection.  Indeed, 
insurrection  was  a  thing  quite  apart  from  resistance  to 
Hellenism.  As  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Egypt, 
national  resistance  to  the  political  domination  of  Greeks 
did  not  by  any  means  imply  national  resistance  to  the 
spread  of  Greek  culture.  The  latter  resistance  gener- 
ally took  the  form  of  a  dull  and  obstinate  clinging  to 
ancestral  ritual  and  language.  At  Antioch  in  the  fourth 
century  c.  e.,  some  men  and  women  still  spoke  Aramaic, 
and  knew  no  Greek."    It  is  only  within  the  rather  narrow 


120     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

limits  set  by  wealth  and  education  that  the  Hellenization 
was  really  effective.  Unfortunately  most  of  our  avail- 
able evidence  is  concerned  with  this  class. 

Among  these  men,  who  were  naturally  open  to  cul- 
tural impressions,  the  attraction  of  Hellenism  was 
undoubted,  and  had  been  growing  slowly  for  years 
before  Alexander,  and  it  had  meant  for  them  all  the 
charm  of  an  intellectual  discovery.  The  mere  fact  that 
what  the  Greeks  had  was  new  and  different  could  have 
been  of  no  real  influence.  There  must  have  been  an 
actual  and  evident  superiority  in  Greek  life  or  culture 
to  have  drawn  to  itself  so  quickly  the  desires  and  long- 
ings of  alien  peoples. 

In  one  field  that  superiority  was  evident,  in  the 
field  oi_^\..  Whatever  may  have  been  the  origins  of 
Greek  art,  from  the  seventh  century  on  no  one  seriously 
questioned  that  Greek  workmen  could  produce,  in  any 
material,  more  beautiful  objects  than  any  other  people. 
Artistic  apprecjation  is  no  doubt  a  plant  of  slow  growth, 
but  the  pleasure  in  gorgeous  coloring,  in  lifelike  model- 
ing, in  fine  balances  of  light  and  shade,  in  grouping  of 
masses,  is  derived  immediately  from  the  visual  sensa- 
tion. No  peasant  of  Asia  could  fail  to  be  impressed 
by  his  first  glimpse  of  such  a  city  as  the  Ephesus  and 
Miletus  of  even  the  sixth  or  fifth  century.  After  the 
extraordinary  artistic  progress  of  the  fifth  century  had 
vastly  increased  the  beauty  of  Greek  cities,  every 
foreigner  who  visited  them  must  have  found  greater 
and  greater  delight,  as  his  knowledge  grew  broader 
and  deeper. 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  121 


In  other  branches  of  art,  in  music,  poetry,  dancing, 
the  wealthier  Asiatic  had  a  training  of  his  own.  But 
it  is  likely  that  even  a  slight  acquaintance  with  Greek 
taught  him  to  depreciate  the  achievements  of  his  own 
people.  Doubtless,  in  poetic  capacity  and  imagination, 
Phrygian,  Lydian,  or  Lycian  was  the  equal  of  Greek. 
Yet  we  have  no  choice  but  to  believe  that  in  sheer 
sensuous  beauty  of  sound,  which  made  a  direct  appeal 
to  any  partly  cultivated  ear,  no  one  of  the  languages 
could  compare  with  Greek.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  any 
written  literature  existed  in  Asia  that  could  be  ranked 
with  Greek. 

With  the  appeal  to  eye  and  ear  there  went  an  appeal 
to  the  intellect.  Greek  mental  capacity  was  not  demon- 
strably greater  than  that  of  the  Asiatic  peoples  to  whom 
the  Greeks  were  perhaps  akin,  but  both  imagination  and 
reflection  had  framed  their  results  in  systematic  form. 
The  rich  narrative  material  found  in  every  race  was 
available  in  Greek  in  dramatic  and  finished  pieces. 
The  philosophic  meditation  in  which  others  had  long 
anticipated  the  Greeks  was  among  the  latter  set  forth 
in  clearer  and  simpler  phrasing. 

The  allurement  of  all  these  things  was  intensified 
by  a  franker  and  fuller  exploitation  of  all  physical 
instincts,  and  the  absence  of  many  tabus  and  forms 
of  asceticism  that  existed  among  non-Greek  peoples.  A 
vastly  increased  freedom  over  one's  body  seemed  a 
characteristic  of  Greek  life,  and  a  vastly  greater  free- 
dom of  political  action  was  characteristic  of  the  Greek 
polis. 


^ 


122     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

It  is  small  wonder  therefore  that  the  upper  classes  of 
Asia  and  Syria  had  for  two  or  three  centuries  before 
the  conquest  succumbed  to  a  culture  that  possessed  so 
visible  a  sorcery.  Then,  with  the  conquest,  came  a  new 
factor.  To  be  a  Greek  was  to  be  a  Herrenmensch,  a 
member  of  the  rulmg  caste,  a  blood-kinsman  of  the 
monarch.  Syrians,  Asiatics,  and  Egyptians  found 
themselves  under  the  direct  sway  of  a  Greek  dynasty, 
supported  by  a  Greek  court  and  army.  All  the  ten- 
dencies that  had  made  Greek  cultural  elements  attrac- 
tive for  certain  classes  were  intensified  by  the  eager 
desire  of  the  Greeks  to  identify  themselves  with  the 
dominant  race,  and  this  identification  seemed  by  no 
means  impossible  of  achievement. 

What  had  to  be  given  up?  As  far  as  language  was 
concerned,  a  smattering  of  Greek  was  the  common 
possession  of  many  men.  Every  trading-post  had  for 
generations  swarmed  with  Greek  merchants.  Greek 
mercenaries  were  to  be  found  in  most  armies.  It  was 
no  especially  difficult  matter  for  those  classes  which 
knew  a  little  Greek  to  increase  their  familiarity  with  it, 
to  multiply  the  occasions  for  its  use,  to  sink  more  and 
more  the  soon  despised  vernacular.  The  latter,  we  must 
repeat,  was  not  and  could  not  be  suppressed,  but  it 
became  the  language  of  peasants.  In  the  cities  men 
spoke  Greek. 

But  there  were  other  things — the  ancestral  god  and 
the  ancestral  ritual.  These  were  not  so  readily  dis- 
carded. However,  the  attitude  of  the  Greeks  in  this 
matter  made  it  unnecessary  to  do  so.     The  gods  of 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  123 

Greece  were  often  transplanted,  but  rarely  more  than 
the  name.  In  Syria  and  Asia  particularly  it  was  only 
in  wholly  new  foundations  that  Greek  gods  and  Greek 
forms  were  really  established.  Generally  the  sense  of 
local  divine  jurisdiction  was  keenly  felt.  Greeks  had  a 
wholesome  awe  of  the  deity  long  in  possession  of  a 
certain  section,  and  in  many  cases  erected  shrines  to 
him,  invoking  him  by  the  name  of  some  roughly  corre- 
sponding Hellenic  god.  Frequently  the  old  name  was 
retained  as  an  epithet.  Thus  Greek  and  Syrian  might 
approach  the  ancient  lord  of  the  soil  in  the  ancient  man- 
ner and  so  perpetuate  a  bond  which  it  was  aae/Seia, 
"  impiety,"  to  break. 

Since  the  essentials  were  maintained,  the  only  step 
necessary  to  turn  a  Syrian  into  a  Greek  was  to  purchase 
a  himation,  change  his  name  of  Matanbal  to  Apol- 
lodorus,  and  the  transformation  was  complete.  He 
might  be  known  for  several  years  as  "  6  Kal  Matanbal " 
— "  alias  Matanbal  " ;  he  might  suffer  a  little  from  the 
occasional  snobbishness  of  real  Greeks,  but,  especially 
if  he  was  wealthy,  such  matters  would  be  of  short  dura- 
tion. The  next  generation  would  probably  escape  them 
altogether,  and  their  children,  the  young  Nicanors, 
Alexanders,  Demetriuses,  would  talk  glibly  of  the 
exploits  of  their  ancestors  at  Marathon  or  under  the 
walls  of  Troy. 

But  there  was  also  no  inconsiderable  group  that  com- 
bined adoption  of  the  new  with  loyalty  or  attempted 
loyalty  to  the  old.  Many  Syrians,  Egyptians,  Phoeni- 
cians, and  others,  conscious  of  a  history  not  without 


124     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


glory,  desired  to  acquire  the  undeniably  attractive  Hel- 
lenic culture,  while  maintaining  their  racial  ties,  of  which 
they  felt  no  real  reason  to  be  ashamed.  That  was  par- 
ticularly true  of  the  Seleucid  dominions  where  Alex- 
ander's assimilative  policy  was  consistently  pursued. 
Persian  or  Lydian  or  Phoenician  descent  was  a  thing 
many  men  boasted  of.  It  was  with  a  sense  of  adding 
something  to  the  culture  of  the  world  that  natives  with 
Greek  training  prepared  to  transmit  in  Greek  forms  the 
history  of  their  people  to  Greeks  and  to  interpret  their 
institutions  to  them.  And  they  found  a  ready  enough 
audience.  On  many  points,  especially  in  religion  and 
philosophy,  the  Greeks  w^ere  willing  enough  to  concede 
a  more  profound  acquaintance  to  barbarians  than  they 
themselves  possessed  ;  and  often  the  weariness  of  civili- 
zation made  Greeks  search  among  fresher  peoples  for  a 
sound  social  life,  since  that  life  was  tainted,  in  Greek 
communities,  by  many  grave  diseases. 

But  people  of  this  class  found  themselves  in  a  delicate 
situation,  an  unstable  equilibrium  constantly  disturbed. 
It  was  hard  to  remain  a  Grecized  Syrian.  Generally 
the  temptation  to  suppress  the  Syrian  was  well-nigh 
irresistible.  Now  and  then,  the  rise  of  national  political 
movements  would  claim  some  of  the  younger  men,  so 
that  the  fall  was  on  the  native  side.  In  general,  the 
older  conservative  attitude  expressed  itself  naturally  in 
avoidance  of  Greeks  as  far  as  possible,  and  precisely  in 
proportion  to  the  value  set  upon  the  national  and 
indigenous  culture. 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  125 

The  situation  of  the  Jews  was  only  in  so  far  unique 
that  there  could  be  no  question  among  them  of  gradual 
steps  in  the  acquisition  of  Greek  culture,  but  only  of 
partial  acceptance  of  it.  The  final  step  of  interchang- 
ing gods — of  accepting  the  Greek  name  and  maintain- 
ing the  old  rite  and  of  exercising  that  reciprocity  of 
religious  observance  which  was  a  seeming  necessity 
for  those  who  lived  in  the  same  region — that,  as  every 
Jew  was  aware,  could  never  be  taken.  The  religious 
development  among  the  Jews  had  been  fuller  than  else- 
where, and  had  resulted  in  a  highly  specialized  form, 
which  by  that  fact  had  none  of  the  elasticity  of  other 
cult-forms.  It  was  easy  to  make  any  one  of  the 
Baalim  of  local  Syrian  shrines  into  Zeus  Heliopoli- 
tanus,  Zeus  Damascenus,  etc.  It  was  not  possible  to 
turn  the  Lord  Zebaoth  of  Zion,  the  awful  and  holy  God 
of  psalm  and  prophecy,  into  an  epithet  of  Zeus  or  of 
another. 

Consequently  Jews  who  felt  the  pull  of  Greek  art 
cind  literature,  who,  like  other  subjects  of  Greek  sov- 
ereigns, were  eager  to  gain  the  favor  of  their  masters, 
had  to  realize  to  themselves  the  qualifications  of  their 
Hellenism,  or  determine  to  discard  wholly  their  Juda- 
ism. And  this  latter  step,  even  to  enthusiastic  Philhel- 
Wenes,  was  intensely  difficult.  For  so  many  generations 
"  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  "  had  been  inculcated 
into  men's  hearts  that  it  was  no  simple  thing  to  under- 
take in  cold  blood  to  bow  before  the  abominations  of  the 
heathen. 


126     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

He  who  could  not  do  that — and  there  were  many — 
might  feel  free  to  adopt  Greek  language  and  dress  and 
name  ;  but,  even  more  than  Babylonian  and  Egyptian,  he 
was  conscious  of  making  a  contribution  of  his  own  to 
the  civilization  of  the  East.  An  inherited  wisdom,  which 
was  in  effect  closer  communion  with  the  Absolute,  he 
believed  he  had,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was  generally 
credited  with  having.  He  felt  no  need  therefore  of 
yielding  unreservedly  to  the  claims  of  Greeks,  but  might 
demand  from  them  the  respect  due  to  an  independent 
and  considerable  culture. 

Barriers  to  mutual  comprehension  were  created  by 
the  Jewish  dietary  regulations  as  well  as  b}^  ritual 
intolerance.  Courtesy  and  good  breeding  however 
might  soften  and  modify  what  they  could  not  remove, 
and  social  intercourse  between  Greek  and  Jew  certainly 
existed.  Nor  need  we  exaggerate  the  embarrassments 
these  relations  would  suffer  from  the  fact  that  while  a 
Greek  might,  and  doubtless  would,  assist  at  the  little 
ceremonies  of  his  Jewish  neighbor's  household,  the 
Jew  might  not  without  sin  reciprocate.  By  judicious 
absence  on  occasion — perhaps  by  little  compromises — 
the  average  easy-going  Jewish  citizen  of  an  Asiatic  or 
Egyptian  community  need  not  have  found  himself  in 
constant  conflict. 

As  in  the  case  of  other  nations,  the  first  Greek- 
speaking  Jews  that  desired  to  emphasize  their  origin 
while  accepting  the  all-pervading  Greek  culture,  wished 
primarily  to  convey  to  Greeks  the  facts  of  their  history 
and  institutions.     The  Septuagint,  at  least  the  Penta- 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  127 

teuch,  was  probably  written  in  the  early  part  of  the 
third  century  b.  c.  e.,  and  although  primarily  intended 
for  Jews,  no  doubt  came  within  the  knowledge  of 
Greeks  as  well.  But  its  purpose  was  utilitarian.  The 
Greek-speaking  synagogues  absolutely  needed  it.  If 
others  were  to  be  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the 
Jews,  some  other  means  had  to  be  devised. 

About  225  B.  c.  E.,  an  Egyptian  Jew  named  Demetrius 
wrote  the  history  of  his  people  in  Greek.  Unfor- 
tunately we  have  only  such  fragments  of  his  work  as 
Eusebius,  the  church  historian,  and  Josephus  have 
chosen  to  quote ;  but  what  we  have,  permits  the  con- 
jecture that  he  wrote  in  a  concise  and  simple  style,  with- 
out oratorical  embellishment,  and  obviously  without 
apologetic  motives.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  sober  and 
dignified  narrative,  the  loss  of  which  is  a  serious  gap  in 
our  records.^ 

The  name  of  this  man,  Demetrius,  is  not  without; 
significance.  It  contains  the  name  of  a  Greek  deity, 
Demeter,  so  that  religious  precisians  might  find  in  it  an 
honor — even  if  only  a  verbal  one — to  the  Abomination. 
But  Alexandrian  Jews  were  not  likely  to  be  religious 
precisians,  and  we  may  readily  suppose  that  these 
names,  attrited  by  constant  use,  did  not  immediately 
convey  the  suggestion  of  being  theophoric.  In  238 
B.  c.  E.,  an  Arsinoite  slave  is  named  Apollonius  or 
Jonathas,  and  about  the  same  time  a  Jewess  is  found 
with  the  name  of  Heraclea.* 

In  the  case  of  Demetrius  it  was  rather  the  redoubt- 
able Besieger  than  the  goddess  that  was  honored,  just 


128     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


as  the  very  first  Jew  whom  we  know  by  a  Greek  name, 
Antigonus  of  Socho,  is  probably  named  after  Deme- 
trius' father,  the  one  of  Alexander's  officers  who  be- 
came so  nearly  a  real  Successor.  It  is  to  be  noted  that 
Antigonus  of  Socho  is  one  of  the  earliest  doctors  of 
the  law,  whose  fine  saying  is  recorded  in  Abot  i.," 
and,  although  we  know  no  Hebrew  name  for  him,  there 
can  be  no  question  here  of  Hellenizing  or  partly  Hel- 
lenizing  tendencies. 

Otherwise  Jews  in  adopting  Greek  names  were  prone 
to  translate  them  approximately.  The  common  Jona- 
than and  Nathaniel  became  Theodotus,  Dositheus, 
Theodorus,  and  the  like.  Phoenicians  had  long  done 
the  same,  but  there  would  be  of  course  no  difficulty  in 
the  case  of  the  latter  if  they  chose  to  turn  Meherbal 
into  Diodorus.  That  the  Jews  were  scarcely  more 
scrupulous  in  this  matter  is  a  little  surprising.  It  fits  in 
well  however  with  the  conclusion  that  friction  in  unes- 
sential was  rather  avoided  than  invited  by  the  average 
Jew.' 

The  conflict  that  was  preparing  itself  in  Palestine 
was  not  one  between  Greek  and  Jew,  but  between 
Hellenizing  and  reactionary  elements  among  the  Jews 
themselves.  And  the  term  reactionary  is  chosen  ad- 
visedly. In  the  many  centuries  that  had  witnessed  the 
slow  spread  of  Hellenism,  and  the  hundred  years  or 
so  in  which  that  progress  had  been  immensely  acceler- 
ated by  the  political  domination  of  Greeks,  a  resistance 
was  also  preparing  itself.  In  the  early  years  of  the 
movement,  before  and  after  Alexander,  the  numbers 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  129 

affected  had  been  too  few  to  justify  active  opposition. 
But  the  number  became  constantly  greater,  and  the 
imminence  of  a  real  peril  became  vividly  present  to 
thinking  men.  The  method  of  opposition  was  at  once 
indicated.  It  could  be  only  a  conscious  restoration  of 
such  national  institutions  as  had  lapsed  into  compara- 
tive disuse,  a  recultivation  of  ancient  national  practices, 
and  a  more  intense  and  active  occupation  with  the  tradi- 
tional sacred  literature. 

In  just  this  way  opposition  to  the  orientalizing  of  the 
imperial  religion  produced  the  reactionary  reforms  of 
Augustus,  and  much  later  opposition  to  an  excessive 
clerical  interference  with  life  expressed  itself  in  the 
very  real  paganism  of  the  Italiam  Renaissance.  In  all 
these  instances  the  attempt  was  deliberately  made  to 
rebuild  with  material  still  present,  even  if  largely  dis- 
carded, a  structure  that  had  fallen  into  ruins.  The  suc- 
cess of  such  movements  depends  wholly  on  the  amount 
of  material  still  present.  If  it  has  to  be  painfully 
gathered  and  swept  together  from  forgotten  corners, 
success  is  more  than  problematic.  The  Jewish  reac- 
tionaries were  fortunate  in  that  the  ancient  institutions 
still  held  their  ground,  and  in  having  no  huge  gap  of 
disuse  to  fill. 

They  were  also  fortunate  that  the  actively  Hellen- 
izing  party  was  limited  in  numbers,  and  the  line  of 
demarcation  was  the  easily  noticeable  one  of  wealth  and 
position.  Not  all  men  of  wealth  were  in  this  class. 
Such  a  man  as  Ben  Sira,  in  whose  book  some  have 
detected  Greek  elements,  betrays  no  Hellenizing  ten- 

9 


130     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

dencies/  He  is  Jew  to  the  marrow,  and  he  can  be  no 
isolated  phenomenon.  But  there  had  been  a  rapid 
growth  of  a  moneyed  class,  and  this  not  so  much  com- 
posed of  great  landowners  as  of  the  newer  class  of 
capitalists,  who  grew  rich  through  the  various  forms  of 
financial  speculation  then  open,  particularly  the  tax- 
farmers,  of  whom  that  magnificent  vulture,  the  Tobiad 
Joseph,  is  a  permanent  type/  The  life  of  these  men 
involved  such  an  association  with  king  and  court  that 
marked  discrepancies  of  social  custom,  such  as  dietary 
regulations,  or  any  form  of  abstinence,  as  well  as  dif- 
ferences in  dress,  were  not  to  be  thought  of. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  any  discussion  of  the  nature 
and  character  of  the  opposition  involves  a  controversial 
question  of  the  first  magnitude,  that  which  concerns  the 
Hasidim,  or  'Assidaei.  It  were  idle  to  enumerate,  much 
less  to  examine  critically,  the  theories  that  have  been 
advanced.  Our  evidence  is  so  scanty  that  it  can  be  made 
to  fit  into  many  different  schemes,  all  of  which  can  be 
shown  to  be  conceivable.  The  simplest  interpretation 
of  the  extant  sources  however  is  by  far  the  best,  and  it 
has  further  the  merit  of  being  the  longest-established 
and  most  widely  current. 

Now  concerning  the  Hasidim  we  have  only  three 
passages  that  can  be  considered  even  approximately 
contemporary,  two  in  the  First  Book  of  Maccabees  and 
one  in  the  Second. 

The  first  passage,  I  Mace.  ii.  41,  states  that  after  the 
martyrdom  of  the  loyal  Jews  who  had  taken  refuge  in 
the  desert,  there  united  with  Mattathias  the  cnwayiayr) 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  131 

'Ao-crtSatW,  "  the  congregation  of  Hasidim,  a  body  of 
great  power  and  influence  in  Israel,  containing  all  those 
who  were  devoted  to  the  Law."  In  the  second  passage, 
I  Mace.  vii.  12,  we  read  that  when  the  renegade  high 
priest  Alcimus  and  the  Greek  prefect  Baeehides  entered 
Judah  with  peaceful  overtures,  they  were  met  by  the 
congregation  of  scribes,  who  brought  their  lawsuits  to 
him,  and  then  recognized  his  authority.  ''  And  the 
'Asidaei  were  the  first  among  the  children  of  Israel,  and 
they  also  sought  peace  from  them.  For  they  said,  "  A 
priest  has  come  of  the  seed  of  Aaron  with  a  powerful 
army,  and  he  will  not  injure  us." 

Taken  together,  these  passages  are  best  understood  to 
mean  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  Hasmonean  revolt 
an  already  existing  and  powerful  group,  known  as  the 
''  'Asidaei,"  or  ''  Hasidim,"  gave  their  official  support  to 
the  Modin  rebels,  but  that  upon  the  arrival  of  the  duly 
ordained  high  priest  they,  or  at  any  rate  their  officials, 
put  themselves  under  his  authority,  to  their  own  un- 
doing. The  author  of  I  Maccabees  speaks  in  terms  of 
the  highest  respect  of  them,  and  applies  to  the  treacher- 
ous murder  of  their  leaders  the  words  of  Psalm  Ixxix. 

In  II  Mace.  xiv.  6,  Alcimus  replies  to  the  question  of 
King  Demetrius  as  follows :  ''  The  so-called  "Asidaei 
among  the  Jews,  of  whom  Judas  Maccabeus  is  the 
leader,  maintain  the  war  and  sedition,  and  will  not  per- 
mit the  realm  to  secure  peace."  It  will  be  seen  that  this 
passage  is  not  necessarily  in  contradiction  with  those  of 
I  Maccabees,  since  it  is  here  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Alcimus,  and  is  meant  to  be  a  wilful  misrepresentation 


132     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

of  the  facts  on  his  part.  Like  the  other  passage,  it 
impHes  that  such  a  definite  body  with  a  distinct  name 
existed  before  the  Hasmonean  revolt. 

To  find  in  Psalms  xii.,  Ixxxix.,  cxlix.,  and  others 
references  to  the  same  group  of  men  is  quite  gratuitous. 
The  ordinary  sense  of  ''  righteous  "  or  "  saintly  "  amply 
satisfies  every  one  of  the  occurrences  of  the  word  Hasid 
in  the  Psalms.  And  the  figurative  Dn^Dn  hT\p  (Ps. 
cxlix.  i)  no  more  implies  an  organized  body  than 
D'r'^D  ^np  of  Psalm  xxvi.  5  implies  a  formal  association 
of  evil-doers,  a  Camorra.  We  shall  be  compelled  to  rely 
wholly  on  the  passages  in  Maccabees  for  any  informa- 
tion about  the  *Assidaei,  or  Hasidim,  in  the  sense  of  a 
definite  organization  bearing  that  title. 

Who  were  these  'Assidaei?  That  admirable  writer 
and  sturdy  patriot,  the  author  of  I  Maccabees,  says  they 
were  a  body  of  great  power  and  influence  in  Israel, 
hxvpa,  Svvdfiei,  the  leaders  of  the  Jews,  and,  as  has  been 
seen,  organized  before  the  revolt.  Nothing  is  clearer 
than  that  they  are  not  identical  with  the  '*  scribes,"  with 
whom  they  are  grouped  in  I  Mace,  vii.,  among  those  who 
acknowledged  Alcimus.  It  is  equally  clear  that  they 
are  not  at  all  the  same  as  the  Hasmonean  partisans,  for 
they  join  Mattathiah  later,  and  abandon  Judah,  at  least 
temporarily,  early  in  the  struggle.  They  are  char- 
acterized by  their  zeal  for  the  Law,  a  zeal  which  natur- 
ally manifested  itself  in  strong  opposition  to  Hellenism. 

In  Palestine,  accordingly,  for  at  least  a  generation 
before  the  revolt,  the  disintegrating  tendencies  of  Hel- 
lenism, as  evidenced  in  the  apostasy  of  many  wealthy 


STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  133 

Jews  and  in  the  neglect  of  many  traditional  customs  on 
the  part  of  others,  provoked  an  organized  opposition. 
Forming  themselves  into  a  fraternity  or  groups  of 
corporate  bodies,  to  which  they  applied  the  name  of 
"  saints,"  the  opponents  of  the  Greeks  directed  their 
efforts  to  the  exact  fulfilment  of  the  Torah,  and  no 
doubt  carried  on  a  violent  polemic  against  Greek  inno- 
vations, however  harmless  and  valuable.  At  about  the 
same  time  an  exactly  similar  movement  among  Egyp- 
tians had  brought  the  Ptolemies  to  terms.  It  was  not 
of  course  to  be  expected  that  a  single  province  of  the 
Syrian-Babylonian  monarchy  would  accomplish  the 
same-result.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Antiochene  court  their 
programme  was  no  doubt  treasonable  fanaticism.  But 
it  was  not,  as  in  the  case  of  Egypt,  directly  political  in 
its  scope,  and  it  might  never  have  led  to  armed  conflict. 
According  to  Jewish  tradition  a  pupil  of  Antigonus 
of  Socho,  Jose  ben  Joezer,  was  a  member  of  this  sect  of 
"  saints."  °  And  it  is  significant  that,  although  he  is 
represented  as  especially  rigorous  in  all  religious 
requirements  that  had  a  separatist  tendency,  he  was 
strikingly  liberal  in  all  matters  of  what  might  be  called 
internal  religious  practice.  It  is  likely  enough  that  the 
tradition  is  accurate  and  the  *'  saints "  were  not  at 
all  precisians  or  fanatics,  but  that  their  cohering  bond 
was  simply  opposition  to  Hellenism.  As  has  been  said, 
it  was  against  the  Hellenizing  Jews  more  than  the 
Greeks  that  their  attack  was  directed.  These  latter 
had  on  their  side  the  advantages  of  wealth  and  social 
position,  but  they  lacked  just  that  which  made  their 


134      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

opponents  strong,  a  compact  organization.  There  was 
no  ovvayinyy)  'EAAt^vwi^,  no  congregation  or  fraternity  of 
Philhellenes.  They  included  all  shades  of  Greek  sym- 
pathizers, from  out  and  out  apostates  to  parvenus,  to 
whom  speaking  Greek  was  a  mark  of  fashion.  No 
doubt  the  feeling  between  the  two  groups  ran  high,  and 
neither  side  spared  bitter  abuse  and  invective. 

The  conflict  was  finally  precipitated  by  an  act  that 
was  one  of  the  commonest  occurrences  of  ancient  poli- 
tical struggles.  The  party  defeated,  or  in  danger  of 
defeat,  does  not  scruple  to  invite  foreign  intervention. 
In  this  case  the  irreconcilable  Hellenists,  evidently  los- 
ing ground  in  face  of  the  rapid  growth  of  Hasidic  con- 
venticles, appeal  to  the  Greek  king,  whose  policies  their 
own  efforts  were  furthering,  and  of  whose  sympathy 
they  were  assured.  That  king  happened  to  be  the 
bizarre  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 


CHAPTER  X 
ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD 

''  And  there  arose  from  them  [the  companions  of 
Alexander]  a  root  of  sin,  to  wit,  Antiochus  Epiphanes, 
son  of  King  Antiochus,  he  who  had  been  hostage  in 
Rome."  That  to  the  writer  of  I  Maccabees  is  a  com- 
plete characterization  of  the  king  whose  reign  was 
to  be  of  fateful  consequences  to  the  Jews,  a  pt^a 
a/Aa/3TojAo?,  an  ill  sapling  of  a  noble  tree.  Perhaps  the 
writer  had  in  mind  the  njr^i  t^'t^i  niD  tJ'iSJ^  (Deut. 
xxix.  17),  ''a  root  bearing  gall  and  wormwood."  And 
he  had  been  a  hostage  in  Rome ;  a  man,  that  is,  of  no 
usual  character  and  no  usual  career. 

Except  in  this  general  way,  he  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  have  a  personality  at  all  to  the  writers  of  the  Books 
of  Maccabees.  He  is  merely  the  type  of  tyrant,  proud 
and  presumptuous,  unduly  exalting  himself  above  God 
because  of  his  vain  and  transitory  successes,  and  dying 
in  agony,  after  an  edifying  deathbed  repentance.  No 
more  than  the  Nebuchadnezzar  of  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
is  he  anything  other  than  an  instrument  of  the  wrath  of 
God.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  there  was  any  real  feel- 
ing on  the  writer's  part. 

But  Antiochus  had  a  real  personality  and  an  espe- 
cially interesting  one.  Both  in  modern  and  in  ancient 
times  characterization  of  this  strange  figure  has  been 


136     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


attempted,  and  the  verdicts  have  been  so  widely  dif- 
ferent that  the  summary  may  be  given  in  Livy's  words : 
Uti  nee  sibi  nee  aliis,  quinam  homo  esset,  satis  eonstaret, 
"  So  that  neither  he  himself  nor  anyone  else  could 
clearly  state  what  manner  of  man  he  was." 

The  freakish  outbursts,  which  amazed  and  scandal- 
ized his  contemporaries,  amply  justified  the  common 
parody  of  his  title  Epiphanes  by  Epimanes,  ''  the  mad- 
man." *  Some  there  were — perhaps  his  royal  nephew 
and  biographer,  Ptolemy  of  Egypt,  among  them — who 
regarded  him  as  unqualifiedly  demented.''  It  is  likely 
enough,  if  the  stories  about  him  are  even  partly  true, 
that  he  had  periods  of  real  derangement.  But  it  seems 
evident  that  he  was  a  right  royal  personage,  of  unusual 
charm  of  manner,  of  undoubted  military  capacity,  quick 
and  decisive  in  action,  fostering  a  dream  of  empire 
whose  rude  shattering  must  have  been  an  important 
contributing  cause  to  his  death. 

His  was  a  strange  blend.  Various  epochs  met  in  him, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  many  incongruities  resulted 
from  that  fact.  First  of  all  he  was  in  every  sense  a 
Macedonian  despot.  Macedonians  had  always  been 
accustomed  to  the  concentration  of  supreme  power  in 
the  hands  of  a  single  individual.  For  four  or  five  gen- 
erations Antiochus'  immediate  ancestors  had  wielded 
such  power  over  a  rabble  of  nations  stretching  from 
the  Aegean  to  the  frontiers  of  India."  The  emotional 
reactions  which  the  existence  and  the  possession  of  this 
power  must  have,  were  present  in  him.  One  constant 
result  of  it,  the  absence  of  any  real  social  life,  is  an 


ANTIOCHUS  (IV)  EPIPHANES 

AFTER  A  COIN 
(From  a  drawing   by  Ralph  lligan) 


ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD  137 

especially  fertile  source  of  deterioration,  but  the  worst 
effects  are  noticed  chiefly  in  those  born  to  the  purple. 
Antiochus'  exile  saved  him  from  them.  Yet  nothing 
could  save  him  from  the  consciousness  that  he  might, 
if  he  chose,  gratify  every  whim,  and  yield  to  every 
impulse,  and  his  associates  found  quickly  enough  that 
his  bonhomie  and  engaging  simplicity  were  moods, 
which  might  be  succeeded  by  bursts  of  quite  incalcu- 
lable and  murderous  rage. 

There  was  the  additional  fact  that  the  monarchy 
founded  by  Alexander  was  in  legal  contemplation  the 
reign  of  a  god  made  flesh.  Seleucus,  we  may  remem- 
ber, entered  almost  at  once  into  the  titularies  of  Sumer 
and  Akkad."  The  second  Antiochus  was  styled  '*  the 
God,"  0eos,  tout  simple.  Our  Antiochus  called  himself 
Epiphanes — which,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  is  to  be 
translated  ''  the  Manifest  Deity,"  and  not  "  the  Illus- 
trious." ^  And,  at  any  rate  at  certain  moments,  the 
designation  was  doubtless  a  real  one  to  him  and  not  a 
conscious  pose.  Worship  of  the  king,  the  foundation  of 
the  later  Augustus-cult,  was  an  apparent  unifying 
element  in  the  hopeless  jumble  of  gods  and  rituals.  For 
that  purpose  it  might  be  encouraged  even  by  hard- 
headed  peasants  like  Vespasian,  or  philosophers  like 
Marcus,  who  had  no  illusions  about  the  character  of 
their  divinity.  But  that  Alexander  in  all  sincerity 
believed  himself  to  be  god  can  scarcely  be  questioned, 
and  Epiphanes  may  often  have  similarly  impressed 
himself. 


138     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Secondly,  he  was  a  Greek.  Hellenism  was  to  him  a 
real  and  profomid  enthusiasm.  His  early  life  as  a 
Roman  hostage  must  have  immensely  stimulated  this 
side  of  his  character.  At  Rome  his  associates  were  the 
Scipionic  circle,  to  whom  Greek  culture  had  come  as  a 
revelation.  The  distinguished  Roman  families  with 
whom  the  young  prince  lived  read  Greek,  spoke  Greek, 
discussed  Greek,  and  were  eager  to  act  as  the  interpre- 
ters of  Hellenism  to  their  slower-witted  countrymen.  In 
these  surroundings  anyone  boasting  not  only  Greek  but 
regal  blood  must  have  found  his  racial  self-esteem  flat- 
tered to  an  extraordinary  degree.  Antiochus'  first  act 
on  his  release  was  to  betake  himself  to  the  intellectual 
capital  of  Greece,  to  Athens,  in  whose  citizenry  he 
eagerly  enrolled  himself.  In  fact,  he  was  an  Athenian 
magistrate — o-r/oarTyyo?  liri  ra  oirXa — when  news  came  to 
him  of  the  assassination  of  his  brother  Seleucus  and  of 
the  opportunities  waiting  one  who  could  act  quickly. 

When  he  was  king,  so  much  of  his  policy  as  did  not 
look  to  the  aggrandizement  of  his  empire  was  directed 
to  the  rehabilitation  of  Greek  cities  and  temples. 
Megalopolis,  Tegea  in  Arcadia,  Delos,  Rhodes,  were 
the  beneficiaries  of  his  Philhellenic  enthusiasm.  The 
truckling  Samaritans — at  least  the  Hellenizing  party 
among  them — knew  that  nothing  would  make  a  quicker 
appeal  to  him  than  to  rename  the  sanctuary  on  Gerizim 
in  honor  of  Zeus  Hellenius.^  He  would  probably  have 
found  it  difficult  to  understand  that  anyone  could 
seriously  maintain  the  claims  of  any  other  culture 
against  that  of  the  Greeks,  and  no  doubt  received  as  a 


ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD  139 

matter  of  course  the  representations  of  the  Jewish  Hel- 
lenizers  that  a  Httle  impetus  would  greatly  expedite  the 
Hellenizing-  process  in  Palestine. 

When  we  find  Antiochus,  king  of  kings,  Manifest 
God,  soliciting  the  suffrages  of  the  Antiochene  burghers 
for  the  office  of  "  market-commissioner,"  or  of  '*  district 
mayor,"  *  we  are  not  to  regard  it  as  an  eccentricity  of 
the  same  sort  that  set  him  wrangling  in  the  public 
squares  with  Hob  and  Dick,  or  pouring  priceless  oint- 
ments on  his  fellow-bathers  in  the  public  baths.^  The 
maintenance  of  the  structure  of  the  Greek  polis  was  an 
expression  of  Hellenic  pride  in  a  characteristically  Hel- 
lenic institution.  No  one,  to  be  sure,  was  deceived  by  it 
into  thinking  that  Citizen  Antiochus  could  not  incon- 
tinently change  into  an  irresponsible  master  at  will,  but, 
comedy  as  it  was,  it  had  a  real  significance,  which  did 
not  escape  even  the  scoffers  and,  least  of  all,  the  king. 

Finally  there  was  an  ultra-modern  side  in  him. 
Antiochus  was  also  a  cultivated  gentleman,  to  whom 
skepticism  was  an  index  of  education  and  sacrilege  a 
concrete  instance  of  skepticism.  He  lived  in  a  very 
unsettling  age.  As  has  been  said  before,  the  Greek 
culture  that  found  its  way  into  Rome  after  the  Hanni- 
balic  wars  was  a  sophisticated,  disintegrating  culture, 
to  which  the  ancient  institutions  had  at  best  a  practical 
utility,  and  which  acknowledged  theoretically  no  bind- 
ing principles  in  the  physical  or  moral  world.  It  was 
in  this  culture  that  the  young  Antiochus  was  reared. 
He  was  not  alone  in  it.  Many  of  the  incidents  of  this 
period  show  a  revolting  cynicism  on  the  part  of  the 


140     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

actors.  One  Greek  commander  erected  altars  to 
"  Impiety  and  Illegality."  A  Spartan  brigand  called 
himself  "  Hybristas,"  "the  Outrager."'" 

Indeed  it  was  as  a  wanton  desecrater  of  shrines  that 
Antiochus  gained  an  unenviable  notoriety.  His  pillag- 
ing of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  was  only  one  of  a  series 
of  similar  acts.  At  Hierapolis,  as  well  as  at  many  other 
Syrian  shrines,  and  finally  at  Elymaea,  he  coolly  appro- 
priated the  temple  treasures,  which  in  most  cases 
involved  violence  on  his  part.  But  it  needed  his  out- 
rageous "  marriage  "  to  Diana  to  set  the  seal  upon  his 
derisive  attitude  toward  his  fellow-gods.  The  sober 
Polybius  attributes  his  death  to  his  impiety,  a  conclusion 
which  naturally  is  warmly  supported  by  Josephus." 

It  is  idle  to  attempt  to  reconcile  this  sort  of  cynicism 
with  the  pretensions  to  actual  divinity  which  he  prob- 
ably made  in  all  seriousness.  The  two  are  of  course 
quite  irreconcilable,  and  represent  merely  the  shifting 
moods  of  a  complex  and  slightly  abnormal  personality. 
Under  almost  any  king  such  an  outbreak  as  the  Has- 
monean  revolt  might  have  taken  place.  Perhaps  the 
conflict  was  inevitable.  But  the  form  the  conflict  took, 
the  high  degree  of  religious  and  national  enthusiasm 
which  it  evoked,  and  the  powerful  aid  that  enthusiasm 
gave  to  the  propaganda  which  was  preparing  itself, 
were  directly  consequent  upon  the  character  of  Anti- 
ochus the  God  Manifest.  The  rigor  and  thoroughness 
with  which  he  strove  to  suppress  the  Jewish  cult  were 
characteristic  of  him.  His  indifference  to  sarred  tradi- 
tions made  his  violation  of  the  temple  almost  a  casual  act 


ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD  141 

on  his  part,  his  Hellenism  justified  his  plans,  and  his 
despotic  nature,  raging  under  the  humiliating  rebuff  he 
had  received  from  Rome,  found  an  outlet  in  the  punish- 
ment of  a  disobedient  province. 

The  writer  of  I  Maccabees  places  the  responsibility , 
for  the  persecution  by  Antiochus  directly  upon  the  Jews 
themselves.  Many,  he  tells,  were  persuaded  to  identify, 
themselves  wholly  with  the  Greeks."  The  first  offense' 
to  Jewish  religious  sentiment  did  not  come  from  the 
king  at  all.  The  men  who  waited  upon  Antiochus,  and 
obtained  permission  to  set  up  a  gymnasium  at  Jeru- 
salem, acted  quite  of  their  own  volition.  Antiochus' 
direct  action  in  the  matter  begins  with  his  return  from 
Egypt.  "  Embittered  and  groaning,"  Polybius  says,  he 
left  Egypt  and  returned  to  Syria.  Now,  just  what  hap- 
pened in  Judea  is  not  quite  clear.  First  Maccabees  tells 
of  an  unprovoked  pillage  of  the  temple  and  a  massacre  of 
the  people.  Second  Maccabees  reports  a  furious  struggle 
between  the  two  pretenders,  Menelaus  and  Jason,  upon 
a  rumor  of  the  king's  death.  In  all  likelihood  the  fight 
ended  with  the  discomfiture  of  Antiochus'  appointee, 
Menelaus,  and  the  king  immediately  proceeded  to 
rescue  him.  The  sack  of  Jerusalem  and  a  massacre  fol- 
lowed. No  doubt  the  massacre  was  no  worse  than 
befell  any  captured  city,  since  of  a  special  policy  of 
extermination  there  can  as  yet  have  been  no  question. 

Menelaus  was  restored,  the  temple  treasures  were 
surrendered  to  the  king,  and,  either  directly  or  after  an 
interval  of  two  years,  the  pro^^ramme  of  forcible  sup- 
pression of  the  Jewish  cult  was  announced. 


142     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

It  is  for  this  programme  that  an  adequate  explana- 
tion is  wanting.  There  is  nothing  really  quite  like  it 
in  Greek  history.  Not  that  religious  persecution,  or  the 
suppression  of  an  obnoxious  cult,  was  an  unheard-of 
undertaking.  The  establishment  of  the  worship  of 
Dionysus  had  encountered  vigorous  opposition  in  con- 
tinental Greece.  A  probable  tradition  recounts  the 
attempts  at  thorough  repression  with  which  several 
Greek  communities,  notably  Thebes,  met  the  intruder." 
But  this  movement  had  as  its  object  the  preservation 
of  an  ancestral  religion,  not  its  destruction.  To  com- 
pel anyone  to  abjure  his  national  customs,  to  forsake 
TO.  irarpia,  must  have  seemed  monstrous  to  all  people  in 
whom  the  sense  of  kinship  with  the  deity,  and  the 
belief  in  the  god's  local  jurisdiction,  were  as  strong  as 
they  were  among  the  Greeks. 

Somewhat  later,  among  the  Romans,  a  successful 
attempt  was  made  to  extirpate  the  Druidic  ritual  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul.  As  far  as  this  was  an  effort  to  destroy 
root  and  branch  an  ancient  and  established  form  of 
worship,  it  presents  many  analogies  to  the  project  of 
Antiochus.  But  the  persecution  of  the  Druids  was 
based  on  specific  charges  of  immoral  and  anti-social 
practices  associated  with  their  ritual,  especially  that  of 
human  sacrifices.  That  may  have  been  a  pretext.  The 
Druids  may  not  after  all  have  been  guilty  of  these 
enormities.  However,  the  pretext  was  at  least  ad- 
vanced, and  the  exile  of  Druidic  brotherhoods  and  the 
destruction  of  their  sanctuaries  were  publicly  justified 
only  by  that." 


ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD  .  14*3 


In  the  case  of  the  Jews  no  such  assertions  are  to  be 
discovered.  Antiochus,  instigated  by  renegade  Jews,  * 
sets  about  a  systematic  obHteration  of  the  distinctively 
Jewish  ritual.  The  synagogue  services  were  to  be  't 
checked  by  the  destruction  of  the  Torah.  Perhaps 
periodic  reunions  in  the  synagogue  were  forbidden  alto- 
gether, since  meetings  of  citizens  were  proverbially 
looked  at  askance  in  monarchies.^^  The  temple  was 
rededicated  to  the  Olympian  Zeus,  and  the  ceremony  of 
circumcision  was  made  a  capital  offense.  Observance  of 
the  Sabbath  was  construed  as  treason.  No  detail  was 
overlooked. 

This  complete  scheme  is  not  to  be  explained  by  the 
existence  of  a  strong  animosity  toward  the  Jews.  There 
is,  in  the  first  place,  none  of  the  evidence  that  was 
met  with  in  Egypt,  that  such  animosity  existed.  And, 
secondly,  animosity  between  racial  groups  expressed 
itself  in  bloody  riots,  not  in  a  carefully  prepared  plan 
for  extirpating  a  religion  while  sparing  its  professors. 
Nor  can  we  find  in  the  personal  character  of  Antiochus 
a  sufficient  cause  for  the  persecution.  He  undoubtedly 
exhibited  the  gusts  of  passion  common  enough  among 
those  who  wield  irresponsible  power,  but  the  sustained 
and  bloody  vindictiveness  of  such  a  programme  is  a 
very  different  thing. 

It  has  been  frequently  suggested  that  his  cherished 
policy  was  the  thorough  Hellenization  of  his  empire, 
that  among  the  Jews  only  was  there  a  determined 
resistance,  that  upon  learning  that  the  basis  of  their 
resistance  was  a  devoted  attachment  to  their  ancestral 


144     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


superstition,  he  determined  to  root  out  the  latter.  The 
difficulties  with  this  view  are,  first,  that  opposition  was 
not  confined  to  the  Jews,  but  was  met  with  everywhere 
— a  dull  and  voiceless  opposition,  which,  however, 
unmistakably  existed.     Secondly,  among  the  Jews  a 

.,  very  large  number,  we  are  told, ''  were  persuaded  "  ;  and 
it  is  highly  likely  that  Antiochus  came  in  direct  contact 
wholly  with  the  latter,  or  almost  wholly,  so  that  the 
situation  in  Judea  cannot  have  impressed  him  as  radi- 
cally different  from  that  of  Syria  or  Babylonia. 

But,  above  all,  it  is  the  conclusion  that  the  obstacles 
to  his  policy  would  lead  to  persecution  on  his  part,  which 

^  is  more  than  doubtful.  No  one  could  have  known  better 
than  he  did  himself  that  ancestral  religious  customs  are 

^  not  to  be  eradicated  by  violence.  The  Egypt  which  was 
so  nearly  in  his  grasp  might  have  taught  him  that,  if 
nothing  else  could.  There  the  indigenous  religion  had 
triumphed.  He  himself,  upon  his  entry  into  the  king- 
dom, had  crowned  himself  more  Aegyptico,  ''  after  the 
Egyptian  fashion,"  "  that  is,  with  full  acknowledgment 
of  the  sovereignty  of  Ptah  and  Isis  over  their  ancient 
demesnes. 

We  shall  probably  have  to  look  to  the  Hellenizing 
Jews  not  only  for  the  initiation,  but  for  the  systematic 
carrying  out,  of  the  policy  of  persecution.  And,  as  has 
been  suggested,  it  is  one  of  the  commonest  phenomena 
of  ancient  life.  There  was  scarcely  a  Greek  city  in 
which  a  defeated  faction  had  not  at  some  time  sum- 
moned the  public  enemy  into  the  city,  and  by  their  aid 
taken  a  cruel  vengeance  on  their  opponents.     If  the 


ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD  145 

Hellenizing  faction  in  Judea  found  its  influence  wan- 
ing, its  action  was  from  the  point  of  view  of  ancient 
times  natural  enough.  It  appealed  to  foreign  aid  and 
strove  systematically  to  stamp  out  the  institutions  it 
opposed,  just  as  at  Athens  the  Athenian  oligarchs, 
placed  in  power  by  Spartan  arms,  tried  to  maintain 
themselves  by  wholesale  proscription  and  by  system- 
atically removing  all  the  democratic  institutions  that 
had  developed  since  Clearchus  " 

It  is  likely  too  that  the  impelling  motive  was  not 
solely  the  rancor  which  apostates  feel  for  the  faith  or 
nation  they  have  quitted.  They  saw  themselves  in  the 
presence  of  a  real  danger.  Among  them  was  to  be 
found  most  of  the  wealth  of  the  community,  and  no 
doubt  a  great  deal  of  the  intellectual  culture.  Many  of 
them  were  already  in  the  third  or  fourth  generation  of 
Hellenistic  Jews.  The  ancient  ritual  had  for  these  men 
no  personal  associations  whatever.  In  the  various  com- 
munes they  enjoyed  the  position  which  wealth  neces- 
sarily, and  in  those  days  especially,  brought.  That 
there  was  any  virtue  in  poverty  or  privation  in  them- 
selves had  not  yet  been  preached  to  the  world,  and 
would  have  seemed  a  wild  paradox ;  and  although  the 
vanity  of  wealth  without  wisdom  was  a  philosophic 
truism,  ordinary  wits  would  not  always  trust  themselves 
to  make  the  distinction. 

When  these  men,  who  formed  almost  a  hereditary 

nobility,  and  already  cherished  a  superb  aloofness  from 

the  mass,  felt  their  influence  and  power  challenged, 

perhaps   saw   themselves   outvoted   in   the   governing 

10 


146     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

councils  of  the  synagogues  and  communes,  and  the 
foundations  of  their  petty  glory  sapped,  they  were 
roused  to  a  counter-effort,  of  which  the  results  have 
been  indicated.  The  danger  in  which  they  found  them- 
selves came  from  the  Hasidim,  the  group  of  brother- 
hoods that  made  a  conscious  opposition  to  Hellenism 
their  bond  of  union.  In  Egypt  the  opposition  had  found 
its  organs  in  the  caste-like  corporations  of  priests.  In 
Judea  the  organs  had  to  be  created.  And  that  they  were 
successful,  the  words  of  I  Maccabees  testify.  They 
contained  the  leaders  of  the  nation ;  their  position  was 
already  one  of  dominating  influence. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  detail  the  course  of  the  Has- 
monean  revolt.  Even  the  brilliant  successes  of  Judas  in 
the  field,  and  the  less  splendid  but  equally  solid  triumphs 
of  his  brothers,  would  have  had  fewer  political  conse- 
quences than  they  had  except  for  the  chaos  in  the 
Seleucid  succession.  But  of  the  permanent  triumph  of 
the  movement  there  was  never  any  doubt.  If  the  revolt 
had  ended  with  the  death  of  Judas,  the  discomfiture  of 
the  Hellenists  would  have  been  complete.  No  Mace- 
donian king  would  ever  be  tempted  to  provoke  another 
revolt  by  a  similar  project.  It  could  never  be  a  part  of  a 
sane  ruler's  policy  to  sacrifice  valuable  military  material 
in  order  to  gratify  a  local  faction.  And  it  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  the  Greek  rule  of  the  Syrian  kingdom 
was  the  domination  of  a  military  class.  Every  diminu- 
tion of  the  army  was  a  dead  loss. 

The  suggestion  may  be  hazarded  that  not  merely  the 
Hellenistic  Jews,  but  also  the  Greeks  themselves,  viewed 


ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD  147 

the  progress  of  the  Hasidim  with  real  alarm.  We  are 
far  as  yet  from  the  epoch  of  real  propaganda,  but  to 
some  extent  it  may  already  have  begun.  Where  and 
when  we  can  only  speculate.  Perhaps  the  fervor  of 
Hasidic  preaching  had  touched  non-Jewish  Syrians; 
perhaps  some  of  the  yotmger  men  of  the  Hellenists 
*'  relapsed  "  under  Hasidic  stimulation  into  Judaism. 
However  the  case  may  be,  Greeks  of  influence  may  have 
noted  that  the  Grecizing  of  Coele-Syria  was  not  merely 
hindered  by  obstacles  in  Judea,  but  that  the  Judaizing 
of  portions  already  won"  was  a  possibility  that  w^as 
attaining  a  constantly  greater  vividness.  If  this  was 
the  case,  the  persecution  by  Antiochus  was  a  precaution, 
insensate  and  futile,  but  less  at  variance  with  Greek 
methods  than  it  seems  in  the  usual  interpretation  of 
the  facts  we  know. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA 

The  preaching  of  a  gospel  seems  to  us  as  natural  as 
the  existence  of  a  religion.  That  is  because  the  religions 
we  know  best  are  universal  ones,  of  which  the  God  is  a 
transcendent  being,  in  whose  sight  human  distinctions 
are  negligible.  But  for  the  Mediterranean  world  that 
was  not  the  case.  The  religions  were  not  universal; 
many  of  the  gods  were  concretely  believed  to  be  the 
ancestors  of  certain  groups  of  men,  and  not  always 
remote  ones.  Local  associations  played  a  determining 
part.  If  we  find  an  active  propaganda  here,  it  cannot 
be  because  the  spread  of  a  ritual  or  faith  is  an  inherent 
characteristic.  On  the  contrary,  in  normal  circum- 
stances there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  one  com- 
munity should  change  its  gods  or  forms  of  worship  for 
those  of  another. 

But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  did  change  them.  And 
the  change  was  often  effected  consciously  by  the 
planned  efforts  of  a  group  of  worshipers,  and  in  all  the 
ways  that  have  been  used  since — preaching,  emotional 
revivals,  and  forcible  conquest.  One  such  carefully 
planned  effort  was  that  of  the  Jews,  but  only  one  of 
them.  The  circumstances  in  which  this  propaganda 
was  carried  out  need  close  investigation. 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  149 

In  discussing  Greek  religion  (above,  p.  34)  it  has 
been  suggested  that  there  was  in  every  community  a 
large  number  of  men  who  found  no  real  satisfaction  in 
the  state  cult,  and  that  it  was  chiefly  among  them  that 
the  proselytes  of  new  and  foreign  religions  were  to  be 
found.  But  that  does  not  make  us  understand  why  these 
foreign  religions  should  have  sought  proselytes,  why 
they  should  have  felt  themselves  under  obligations  to 
assume  a  mission.  The  stranger  within  the  gates  might 
reasonably  be  expected  to  do  honor  to  the  divine  lord  of 
the  city :  if  he  remained  permanently,  his  inclusion  in  the 
civic  family  in  some  way  is  natural.  But  what  was  it 
that  impelled  Isis  to  seek  worshipers  so  far  from  the 
Nile,  where  alone  she  could  be  properly  adored,  or  the 
mysterious  Cabiri  to  go  so  far  from  the  caves  where 
their  power  was  greatest  and  most  direct?* 

The  movement  of  which  these  special  missions  are 
phases  was  old  and  extensive.  It  covered  the  entire 
Eastern  Mediterranean,  and  went  perhaps  further  west 
and  east  than  we  can  at  present  demonstrate.  Its  begin- 
nings probably  antedated  the  Hellenes.  The  religious 
unrest  of  which  Christian  missionaries  made  such  excel- 
lent use  was  a  phenomenon  that  goes  back  very  far 
in  the  history  of  Mediterranean  civilization.  At  cer- 
tain periods  of  that  history  and  in  different  places  it 
reached  culminating  waves,  but  it  is  idle  to  attempt  to 
discover  a  sufficient  cause  for  it  in  a  limited  series  of 
events  within  a  circumscribed  area  of  Greece  or  of  Asia. 

The  briefest  form  in  which  the  nature  of  this  unrest 
can  be  phrased  is  the  following — the  quest  for  personal 
salvation. 


150      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

We  shall  do  well  to  remember  that  the  ancient  state 
was  a  real  corporation,  based  not  upon  individuals  but 
upon  smaller  family  corporations.  The  rights  of  these 
corporations  were  paramount.  It  was  only  gradually 
that  individuals  were  recognized  at  all  in  law.^  The 
desire  for  personal  salvation  is  a  part  of  the  growing 
consciousness  of  personality,  and  must  have  begun 
almost  as  soon  as  the  state  corporation  itself  became 
fixed. 

Within  a  state  only  those  individuals  can  have  rela- 
tively free  play  who  are  to  a  certain  extent  the  organs 
of  the  state ;  that  is,  those  individuals  who  by  conquest, 
wealth,  or  chance  have  secured  for  themselves  political 
predominance  in  their  respective  communities.  But 
these  could  never  be  more  than  a  small  minority.  For 
the  great  majority  everyday  life  was  hemmed  in  by 
conventions  that  had  the  force  of  laws,  and  was 
restricted  by  legal  limits  drastically  enforced.  And  this 
narrow  and  pitifully  poor  life  was  bounded  by  Sheol, 
or  Hades,  by  a  condition  eloquently  described  as  worse 
at  its  best  than  the  least  desirable  existence  under  the 
face  of  the  insufferable  sun.^ 

The  warrior  caste,  for  whom  and  of  whom  the 
Homeric  poems  were  written,  were  firmly  convinced  that 
the  bloodless  and  sinewless  life  in  the  House  of  Hades 
was  the  goal  to  which  existence  tended.  But  they  found 
their  compensation  in  that  existence  itself.  What  of 
those  who  lacked  these  compensations,  or  had  learned 
to  despise  them?  In  them  the  prospect  of  becoming 
lost    in    the    mass    of    flitting    and    indistinguishable 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  151 

shadows  must  have  produced  a  profound  horror,  and 
their  minds  must  have  dwelt  upon  it  with  increasing 
intensity. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  behefs  of  men  in  this 
region  that  all  the  dead  become  disembodied  spirits, 
sometimes  with  power  for  good  or  evil,  so  that  their  dis- 
pleasure is  to  be  deprecated,  sometimes  without  such 
power,  as  the  Homeric  nobles  believed,  and  the  mass 
of  the  Jews  in  the  times  of  the  monarchy.  These  spirits 
or  ghosts  had  of  themselves  no  recognizable  personality, 
and  could  receive  it  only  exceptionally  and  in  ways  that 
violated  the  ordinary  laws  of  the  universe.  Such  a 
belief  is  not  strictly  a  belief  in  immortality  at  all,  since 
the  essence  of  the  latter  is  that  the  actual  person  of  flesh 
and  blood  continues  his  identity  when  flesh  and  blood 
are  dissolved  and  disappear,  and  that  the  characteristics 
which,  except  for  form  and  feature,  separated  him  from 
his  fellows  in  life  still  do  so  after  death.  The  only 
bodiless  beings  who  could  be  said  to  have  a  person- 
ality were  the  gods,  and  they  were  directly  styled  "  the 
Immortals." 

However,  the  line  that  separated  gods  and  men  was 
not  sharp.  The  adoration  offered  to  the  dead  m  the 
Spartan  relief "  is  not  really  different  from  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Olympians.  From  the  other  side,  in  Homer, 
the  progeny  of  Zeus  by  mortal  women  are  very  emphat- 
ically men.^  Whether  the  Homeric  view  is  a  special 
development,  it  is  demonstrably  true  that  a  general 
belief  was  current  in  Greece  not  long  after  the  Homeric 
epoch,   which   saw   no   impossibility   in    favored   men 


152     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

securing  the  gift  of  immortality ;  that  is,  continuing 
without  interruption  the  personal  life  which  alone  had 
significance.  This  was  done  by  the  translations — the 
removal  of  mortal  men  in  the  flesh  to  kinship  with  the 
gods." 

This  privilege  of  personal  immortality  was  not  con- 
nected, in  the  myths  that  told  of  it,  with  eminent  ser- 
vices. It  was  at  all  times  a  matter  of  grace.  In  the 
form  of  bodily  translation  it  always  remained  a  rare  and 
miraculous  exception.  But  the  mere  existence  of  such 
a  belief  must  have  strongly  influenced  the  beliefs  and 
practices  that  had  long  been  connected  with  the  dead. 

We  cannot  tell  where  and  when  it  was  first  suggested 
to  men  that  the  shadow-life  of  Hades  might  by  the 
grace  of  the  gods  be  turned  into  real  life,  and  a  real 
immortality  secured.  It  may  be,  as  has  been  supposed, 
that  the  incentive  came  from  Egypt.  More  likely,  how- 
ever, it  was  an  independent  growth,  and  perhaps  arose 
in  more  than  one  place.  The  favor  and  grace  of  the 
gods,  which  were  indispensable,  could  obviously  be 
gained  by  intimate  association,  and  in  the  eighth  and 
perhaps  even  the  ninth  pre-Christian  century  we  begin 
to  hear  in  Greece  of  means  of  entering  into  that  asso- 
ciation. One  of  these  means  was  the  "  mystery,"  of 
which  the  Eleusinian  is  the  best-known.  In  these  cult- 
societies,  of  the  origin  of  which  we  know  nothing,  a 
close  and  intimate  association  with  the  god  or  gods  was 
offered.  The  initiated  saw  with  their  own  eyes  the 
godhead  perform  certain  ceremonial  acts  ;  perhaps  they 
sat  cheek  by  jowl  with  him.     It  is  obvious  that  such 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  153 

familiarity  involved  the  especial  favor  of  the  gods,  and 
it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  final  and  crowning  mark 
of  that  favor  would  not  be  always  withheld.  The  com- 
munion with  the  god  begun  in  this  life  would  be  con- 
tinued after  it.  To  the  mystae  of  Eleusis,  and  no  doubt 
elsewhere,  and  to  them  only,  was  promised  a  personal 
immortality.^ 

It  may  not  have  been  first  at  Eleusis.  It  may  have 
been  in  the  obscure  corners  of  Thrace  where  what  later 
appeared  as  Orphic  societies  was  developed.  But  there 
were  soon  many  mysteries,  and  there  was  no  lack  of 
men  and  women  to  whom  the  promise  was  inexpressibly 
sweet.  The  spread  of  Orphism  in  the  sixth  and  fifth 
centuries  b.  c.  e.  bears  witness  to  the  eagerness  with 
which  the  evangel  was  received. 

Outside  of  Greece,  in  Persia,  India,  and  Egypt,  per- 
haps also  in  Babylonia,  there  were  hereditary  groups  of 
men  who  claimed  to  possess  an  arcanum,  whereby  the 
supreme  favor  of  the  gods,  that  of  eternal  communion 
with  them,  was  to  be  obtained.  These  hereditary  castes 
desired  no  extension,  but  jealously  guarded  their 
privileges.  But  among  them  there  constantly  arose 
earnest  and  warm-hearted  men,  whose  humanity  im- 
pelled them  to  spread  as  widely  as  possible  the  boon 
which  they  had  themselves  obtained  by  accident.  Per- 
haps many  attempts  in  all  these  countries  aborted.  Not 
all  Gotamas  succeeded  in  becoming  Buddhas. 

The  Jews  seemed  to  the  Greeks  to  possess  just  such 
an  arcanum,  and  whatever  interest  they  originally 
excited  was  due  to  that  fact.    The  initiatory  rite  of  cir- 


154     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

cumcision,  the  exclusiveness  of  a  ritual  that  did  not 
brook  even  the  proximate  presence  of  an  uninitiate,  all 
pointed  in  that  direction,  even  if  we  disregard  the 
vigorously  asserted  claims  of  the  Jews  to  be  in  a  very 
special  sense  the  people  of  God. 

The  Jews  too  had  as  far  as  the  masses  were  concerned 
developed  the  belief  in  a  personal  immortality  during 
the  centuries  that  followed  the  Babylonian  exile  (comp. 
p.  70),  and  as  far  as  we  can  see  it  developed  among 
them  at  the  same  time  and  somewhat  in  the  same  way 
as  elsewhere.  That  is  to  say,  among  them  as  among 
others  the  future  life,  the  Olam  ha-ho,  was  a  privilege 
and  was  sought  for  with  especial  eagerness  by  those  to 
whom  the  Olam  ha-zeh  was  largely  desolate.  Not 
reward  for  some  and  punishment  for  others,  but  com- 
plete exclusion  from  any  life  but  that  of  Sheol  for  those 
who  failed  to  acquire  the  Olam  ha-bo,  was  the  doctrine 
maintained,  just  as  the  Greek  mystae  knew  that  for 
those  who  were  not  initiated  there  was  waiting,  not  the 
wheel  of  Ixion  or  the  stone  of  Sisyphus,  but  the  bleak 
non-existence  of  Hades.* 

But  there  was  a  difference,  and  this  difference  became 
vital.  Conduct  was  not  disregarded  in  the  Greek  mys- 
teries, but  the  essential  thing  was  the  fact  of  initiation. 
Those  who  first  preached  the  doctrine  of  a  personal 
salvation  to  the  Jews  were  conscious  in  so  doing  that 
they  were  preaching  to  a  society  of  initiates.  They  were 
all  mystae ;  all  had  entered  into  the  covenant :  all 
belonged  to  the  congregation  of  the  Lord,  nin^  "7r{\).  To 
whom  was  this  boon  of  immortality,  the  Olam  ha-bo,  to 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  155 

be  given?  The  first  missionaries,  whether  they  did  or 
did  not  constitute  a  sect,  had  a'  ready  answer.  To  those 
to  whom  the  covenant  was  real,  who  accepted  fully  the 
yoke  of  the  Law. 

The  sects  of  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  whose  dis- 
putes fill  later  Jewish  history,  joined  issue  on  a  number 
of  points.  No  doubt  there  was  an  economic  and  social 
cleavage  between  them  as  well.  But  perhaps  the  most 
nearly  fundamental  difference  of  doctrine  related  to  the 
Olam  ha-bo.  The  Pharisees  asserted,  and  the  Sad- 
ducees denied,  the  doctrine  of  resurrection.  It  is 
stated  by  Josephus,^  that  the  Sadducees  called  in  ques- 
tion the  Olam  ha-bo  itself.  When  and  where  these  sects 
took  form  is  uncertain.  The  Pharisees  at  least  are  fully 
developed,  and  form  a  powerful  political  party  under 
John  Hyrcanus."  It  is  very  unlikely  that  they  are  re- 
lated to  the  Hasidim  or  are  a  continuation  of  them.  The 
latter  were  a  national,  anti-Hellenic  organization,  and 
contained  men  of  all  shades  of  beliefs  and  interests. 
But  the  Pharisees,  like  the  Hasidim,  began  as  a  brother- 
hood or  a  group  of  brotherhoods,  however  political  their 
aims  and  actions  were  in  later  times.  The  fact  is 
indicated  by  the  name  Haber,  ''  comrade,"  which  they 
gave  themselves,  and  the  contemptuous  Am  ha-aretz, 
**  clod,"  ot  TToAAot,  with  which  they  designated  those 
who  were  not  members  of  their  congregations. 

Now  the  Habermi,  who  preached  the  World-to-Come, 
were  not  in  a  primitive  stage  of  culture,  but  in  a  very 
advanced  one.  Their  God  was  not  master  of  a  city,  but 
Lord  of  the  whole  earth.     And  they  had  long  main- 


IS6     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

tained  the  principle  that  merit  in  the  eyes  of  God  was 
determined  by  conduct,  both  formal  and  moral,  a  dis- 
tinction less  profoundly  separating  than  seems  at  first 
to  be  the  case.  If  that  were  so,  anyone,  Jew  or  Gentile, 
might  conceivably  acquire  that  merit.  How  was  the 
Olam  ha-bo  to  be  refused  to  anyone  who  had  taken  upon 
himself  the  yoke  of  the  Law,  who  did  all  that  the  Lord 
required  at  his  hands  ?  Jewish  tradition  knew  of  several 
eminently  righteous  gentiles,  such  as  Job,  in  whom  God 
was  well  pleased.  It  was  an  untenable  proposition  to 
men  whose  cardinal  religious  doctrine  had  for  centuries 
been  ethical  and  universal  that  all  but  a  few  men  were 
permanently  excluded  from  the  beatitude  of  life  after 
death.^^ 

Since,  however,  the  promises  of  the  sacred  literature 
were  addressed  primarily  to  Israel,  those  who  were  not 
of  Abraham's  seed  could  become  '^  comrades  "  only  by 
first  becoming  Jews.  That  conception  involved  no 
difficulty  whatever.  The  people  of  the  ancient  world 
had  empirically  learned  some  of  the  more  elementary 
facts  of  biological  heredity;  but  membership  in  a  com- 
munity, though  determined  by  heredity  in  the  first 
instance,  was  not  essentially  so  determined.  In  earlier 
times,  when  the  communities  were  first  instituted,  not 
even  the  pretense  of  kinship  was  maintained.  The 
essential  fact  was  the  assumption  of  common  sacra. 

That  a  man  might  by  appropriate  ceremonies — or 
without  ceremonies — enter  into  another  community, 
was  held  everywhere.  If,  as  has  been  suggested  (above, 
p.   147),  the  Hasidim  found  some  of  their  members 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  157 

among  the  non- Jewish  population  of  Syria,"  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  process  of  becoming  Jews  was  rendered 
either  difficult  or  long.  Abraham,  a  late  tradition  stated, 
brought  many  gentiles  under  the  wings  of  the  Shekinah, 
the  Effulgence.  If  this  tradition  is  an  old  one,  it  indi- 
cates that  proselytizing  was  in  early  times  held  to  be 
distinctly  meritorious." 

The  first  conquests  of  the  Hasmonean  rulers  brought 
non-Jewish  tribes  under  immediate  political  control  of 
the  Jews.  Most  of  them,  notably  the  Idumeans,  were 
forcibly  Judaized,  and  so  successfully  that  we  hear  of 
only  one  attempted  revolt."  There  can  of  course  have 
been  no  question  here  of  elaborate  ceremonies  or 
lengthy  novitiates.  The  Idumeans  were  dealt  with  as 
shortly  as  Charlemagne's  Saxons,  and  gave  the  most 
convincing  demonstration  of  their  loyalty  in  the  time  of 
the  insurrections." 

This  drastic  way  of  increasing  the  seed  of  Abraham 
must  have  been  viewed  differently  by  different  classes 
of  Jews.  To  the  Haberim  the  difference  between  a 
heathen  and  a  Jewish  aspirant  to  their  communion  lay 
in  the  fact  that  the  heathen  had  undergone  the  fearful 
defilement  of  worshiping  the  Abomination,  while  the 
Jew  had  not.  For  the  former  there  was  accordingly 
necessary  an  elaborate  series  of  purgations,  of  cere- 
monial cleansing ;  and  until  this  was  done  there  was  no 
hope  that  he  could  be  admitted  into  the  congregation  of 
the  Lord.  But  it  might  be  done,  and  it  began  to  be  done 
in  increasing  numbers.  It  would  have  been  strange  if, 
among  the  many  gentile  seekers  for  salvation,  Greek, 


is8     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Syrian,  Cappadocian,  and  others,  some  would  not  be 
found  to  take  the  path  that  led  to  the  conventicles  of 
the  Jewish  Haberim.  This  was  especially  the  case 
when,  instead  of  an  obscure  Syrian  tribe,  the  Has- 
moneans  had  made  of  Judea  a  powerful  nation,  one 
of  the  most  considerable  of  its  part  of  the  world. 

All  the  mysteries  welcomed  neophytes,  but  none  made 
the  entrance  into  their  ranks  an  easy  matter.  In  some 
of  them  there  were  degrees,  as  in  those  of  Cybele,  and 
the  highest  degree  was  attained  at  so  frightful  a  cost 
as  practically  to  be  reserved  for  the  very  few.'"  In  the 
case  of  the  Jews,  one  of  the  initiatory  rites  was 
peculiarly  repellent  to  Greeks  and  Romans,  in  that  it 
involved  a  bodily  mutilation,  which  was  performed  not 
in  the  frenzy  of  an  orgiastic  revel,  but  in  the  course  of  a 
solemn  ritual  of  prayer.  That  fact  might  make  many 
hesitate,  but  could  not  permanently  deter  those  who 
earnestly  sought  for  the  way  of  life. 

The  Jewish  propaganda  was  not  confined  to  receiving 
and  imposing  conditions  on  those  who  came.  Some  at 
least  sought  converts,  although  it  is  very  doubtful  that 
the  Pharisaic  societies  as  a  class  planned  a  real  mission 
among  the  heathen.  The  methods  that  were  used  were 
those  already  in  vogue — methods  which  had  achieved 
success  in  many  fields.  Books  and  pamphlets  were 
published  to  further  the  purpose  of  the  missionaries; 
personal  solicitation  of  those  deemed  receptive  was 
undertaken.  Actual  preaching,  such  as  the  diatribe 
commenced  by  the  Cynics,  and  before  them  by  Socrates, 
was  probably  confined  to  the  synagogue,  or  meeting 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  159 

within  the  proseucha,  and  reached  only  those  who  were 
there  assembled/' 

The  literary  form  of  the  propaganda  was  especially 
active  in  those  communities  in  which  Jews  and  Greeks 
spoke  a  common  language  and  partly  shared  a  common 
culture.  Even  books  intended  primarily  for  Jewish 
circulation  contain  polemics  against  polytheism  and 
attacks  upon  heathen  custom,  which  the  avowed  pur- 
pose of  the  book  would  not  justify. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  literary  propaganda 
was  the  most  effective.  It  was  limited  by  the  very  field 
for  which  it  was  intended.  Such  a  book  as  the  Wisdom 
of  Solomon  was  both  too  subtle  and  too  finished  a 
product  to  appeal  to  other  than  highly  cultivated  tastes, 
and  men  of  this  stamp  are  not  readily  reached  by 
propagandizing  religions.  The  chief  object  of  attack 
was  the  Greek  polytheism.  ''  Wisdom  "  ventures  even 
on  an  historical  explanation  of  polytheism,  which  is 
strangely  like  that  of  Herbert  Spencer.'*  Now,  just  for 
the  Greeks,  who  might  read  and  understand  such  a 
book,  to  refute  polytheism  was  destroying  a  man  of 
straw.  No  one  of  them  seriously  believed  in  it.  Those 
who  were  not  agnostics  or  atheists  believed  in  the 
unity  of  the  Divine  essence,  and  at  most  maintained  the 
existence  of  certain  subordinate  ministerial  beings,  who 
might  or  might  not  be  identical  with  the  names  of  the 
actors  in  the  myths.  But  many  Jews  would  be  ready  to 
admit  so  much.  Indeed  that  there  were  subordinate 
daemonia,  helpful  and  harmful,  was  a  widespread  belief 
in  Judea,  even  if  without  authoritative  sanction.    Very 


i6o     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

often  the  heathen  gods  were  conceived  to  be  not 
absokite  nulHties,  but  demons  really  existing  and  evil — 
a  belief  which  the  early  Christian  church  firmly  held 
and  preached." 

Accordingly  the  polished  society  of  a  Greek  city  did 
not  need  the  literary  polemics  against  polytheism  to  be 
convinced  that  monotheism  was  an  intellectually  more 
developed  and  morally  preferable  dogma.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  a  very  difficult  task  to  convince  it  that 
the  ceremonies  of  the  official  cult,  granting  even  their 
philosophic  absurdity,  were  for  that  reason  objection- 
able. To  make  them  seem  so,  there  would  have  to  be 
present  the  consciousness  of  sin,  and  that  was  not  a 
matter  which  argumentation  could  produce. 

One  other  point  against  which  Jewish  writers  of  that 
time  address  themselves  is  the  assumed  viciousness  of 
Greek  life.  How  much  one  people  has  with  which  to 
reproach  another  in  that  respect  in  ancient  or  in  modern 
times  need  not  be  considered  here.  The  fact  remains  that 
in  many  extant  books  sexual  excesses  and  perversions 
are  made  a  constant  reproach  to  the  heathen — which 
generally  implies  the  Greek — and  the  extant  Greek  and 
Latin  literature  gives  a  great  deal  of  color  to  the 
charge."*  This  is  due  not  so  much  to  the  actual  life  de- 
picted as  to  the  attitude  with  which  even  good  men 
regarded  these  particular  incidents.  It  is  true  that  we 
have  contemporary  evidence  that  many  Jews  in  Greek 
communities  were  no  paragons  of  right  living  or  self- 
restraint.  But  it  is  at  least  significant  that  this  accusa- 
tion, continually  repeated  by  the  Jews,  is  not  met  by 


THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA  i6i 

a  retort  in  kind.  The  anti-Jewish  writings  are  not 
especially  moderate  in  their  condemnations.  But  with 
viciousness  in  their  lives  they  do  not  charge  the  Jews, 
and  they  cannot  have  been  unaware  of  what  the  Jews 
wrote  and  said. 

Polytheism  and  immorality,  the  two  chief  counts  in 
the  indictment  which  Jewish  writers  bring  against 
heathendom,  were  not  things  Greeks  were  disposed  to 
defend.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  books  that 
inveighed  against  them  were  valuable  weapons  of 
propaganda.  We  have  practically  no  details  of  how 
the  movement  grew.  In  the  last  century  before  the 
Christian  era  it  had  reached  the  extraordinary  pro- 
portions that  are  evidenced  by  the  satire  of  Horace  as 
well  as  by  the  opposition  which  it  encountered.  Jewish 
apocalyptic  literature  confidently  expects  that  all  the 
heathen  on  the  rapidly  approaching  Judgment  Day  will 
be  brought  within  the  fold.^^  The  writers  may  be  for- 
given if  the  success  of  their  proselytizing  endeavors 
made  them  feel  that  such  a  result  was  well  within  the 
range  of  possibility. 

Within  the  same  period  the  worships  of  Cybele,  of 
Sabazios,  and  of  Isis,  had  perhaps  even  greater  success 
in  extending  themselves  over  the  Greek  and  Roman 
world.  The  communities  they  invaded  only  rarely  wel- 
comed them.  Even  at  Rome  the  official  introduction  of 
Cybele  was  the  last  desperate  recourse  of  avowed  super- 
stition, and  it  was  promptly  restricted  when  success  and 
prosperity  returned  to  the  Roman  arms.  But  in  all  the 
communities  great  masses  of  men  were  thoroughly  pre- 


1 62     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

pared  in  mind  for  the  doctrines  the  Asiatic  religions 
preached.  A  pubHc  preaching,  such  as  the  Cynics  used, 
was  rarely  permitted.  But  if  we  recall  how  many  slaves 
and  ex-slaves  as  well  as  merchants  and  artisans  were  of 
Asiatic  stock,  the  spread  of  these  cults,  including  that 
of  the  Jews,  by  the  effective  means  of  personal  and 
individual  conversion  is  nothing  to  be  wondered  at. 
The  state  was  perforce  compelled  to  notice  this  spread. 
Individuals  had  noticed  it  long  before. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  OPPOSITION 

The  ancient  state  was  based  on  community  of  sacra, 
of  cult-observances.  Anything  that  tended  to  destroy 
them  or  impair  general  belief  in  their  necessity,  went  to 
the  very  roots  of  the  state,  was  therefore  a  form  of 
treason,  and  was  punished  as  such.  The  state  rarely 
was  interested  in  the  honor  of  the  gods  themselves. 
Roman  law  had  a  maxim,  which  was  very  seriously 
stated,  but  which  makes  upon  us  the  impression  of  a 
cynical  witticism  :  Deorimi  ininriae  dis  ciirae,  *'  Let  the 
gods  attend  to  their  own  wrongs."  Since  the  kinship 
of  members  of  the  state  was  generally  known  to  be  a 
legal  fiction,  the  bond  that  took  its  place  was  common 
worship.  The  state  could  not  look  without  concern 
upon  anything  that  threatened  to  weaken  its  formal 
structure. 

Most  Greek  states  made  aai/Seta,  "  impiety,"  a  crim- 
inal oflfense.  But  just  what  acts  or  omissions  consti- 
tuted impiety  was  in  each  case  a  question  of  fact,  to  be 
determined  specially  in  every  instance.  At  Athens  vari- 
ous persons  of  greater  and  less  distinction  were  pros- 
ecuted under  that  indictment — Socrates,  Theophras- 
tus,  Phryne.  In  every  one  of  these  cases,  the  gravamen 
of  the  charge  was  that  the  defendant  did  not  regard  as 
gods  those  whom  the  state  so  regarded    (/at)  vofxt^av 


1 64     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Oeov^  ors  r)  ttoAi?  vofiiUi,  Plat.  Apol.  24B  and  26b),  and 
taught  so.  In  general,  individual  prosecutions  such  as 
these  were  deemed  sufficient  to  repress  the  spread  of 
dangerous  doctrines.  It  was  not  believed  necessary 
to  consider  membership  in  any  sect  or  community  as 
prima  facie  evidence  of  such  impiety,  punishable  with- 
out further  investigation.  In  later  times,  however,  even 
this  step  was  taken.  Certain  philosophic  sects — which, 
we  may  remember,  were  corporately  organized — were 
believed  to  be  essentially  impious.  The  city  of  Lyctos 
in  Crete  forbade  any  Epicurean  to  enter  it  under  penalty 
of  the  most  frightful  tortures.^ 

We  shall  have  to  distinguish  these  police  measures, 
which,  when  aimed  at  religious  bodies,  constitute  an 
undoubted  religious  persecution,  from  the  mutual  ani- 
mosity with  which  hostile  races  in  any  community 
regarded  each  other  and  the  bloody  riots  that  resulted 
from  it.  In  the  new  city  of  Seleucia  in  Babylonia,  the 
Syrians,  Jews,  and  Greeks  that  lived  there  were  very 
far  from  realizing  the  purpose  of  the  city's  founder  and 
coalescing  into  a  single  community.  Sanguinary  con- 
flicts, probably  on  very  slight  provocation,  frequently 
took  place.  Sometimes  the  Jews  and  Syrians  combined 
against  the  Greeks ;  sometimes  the  Greeks  and  Syrians 
against  the  Jews,  as  recounted  by  Josephus.'  The  sit- 
uation in  Alexandria,  where  Egyptians  hated  Greeks, 
Jews,  and  doubtless  all  foreigners  with  a  scarcely  dis- 
criminating intensity,  is  peculiar  only  because  we  are 
well  informed  of  conditions  there  by  the  papyri.  When 
any  one  of  these  nationalities  gained  the  upper  hand, 


THE  OPPOSITION  165 


there  was  likely  to  be  a  bloody  suppression  of  its  foes, 
often  followed  by  equally  bloody  reprisals.  Salamis,  in 
Cyprus,  is  a  grim  witness  of  the  frenzy  with  which 
neighbors  could  attack  each  other,  when  years  of 
hostility  culminated  in  a  violent  outbreak.^ 

The  attitude  of  Greek  states  toward  the  Jewish  con- 
gregations in  their  midst  was  certainly  not  uniformly 
hostile.  But  in  many  cases  there  could  not  help  being  a 
certain  resentment,  owing  to  the  fact  that  these  congre- 
gations were  by  special  grant  generally  immune  from 
prosecution  for  impiety,  although  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  very  emphatically  "  did  not  regard  as  gods  those 
whom  the  state  so  regarded."  Of  itself  this  circum- 
stance might  have  been  neglected,  but  the  active  and 
successful  propaganda  they  undertook  made  them  a 
source  of  real  danger  to  the  state.  We  therefore  hear  of 
attempts  made  sporadically  to  abrogate  the  immunity, 
to  compel  the  Jewish  corporations  to  conform  to  the 
local  law  of  ao-e/Saa.  Nearly  always,  however,  the  im- 
munity was  a  royal  grant,  and  therefore  unreachable 
by  local  legislation,  a  fact  that  did  not  tend  to  alleviate 
friction  where  it  existed.* 

At  Rome  police  measures  to  suppress  irreligion 
were  long  in  existence.  However,  the  Roman  attitude 
toward  any  form  of  communion  with  gods  or  daemonia 
was  so  uniformly  an  attitude  of  dread,  that  prohibition 
of  religious  rites  and  punishment  of  participants  in  them 
were  not  a  task  lightly  assumed  by  a  Roman  magis- 
trate. The  suppression  of  the  Bacchanalia  in  186  b.  c. 
E.  was  nothing  short  of  a  religious  persecution,  but  the 


i66     THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Utmost  care  was  taken  to  make  it  appear  to  be  directed 
against  certain  licentious  practices  alleged  against  the 
Bacchae,  and  the  senate's  decree  expressly  authorizes 
the  Bacchic  rites,  under  certain  restrictions  deemed 
necessary  to  insure  their  harmlessness/  Very  early  the 
Isiac  mysteries  and  other  Eastern  cults  came  within 
the  animadversion  of  the  urban  police.^  Here  too  the 
theory  was  that  the  crimes  and  immorality  of  the 
communicants  were  the  sole  objects  of  punishment, 
especially  that  species  of  fraud  which  took  the  form  of 
magic  and  unofficial  fortune-telling.  In  reality,  how- 
ever, all  these  pretexts  covered  the  fact  that  the  Romans 
felt  their  state  ritual  endangered,  not  by  the  presence, 
but  by  the  spread,  of  such  rituals  among  Romans;  and 
in  this  their  alarm  was  very  well  grounded  indeed.  But 
to  proceed  openly  and  boldly  against  any  manifestation 
of  a  divine  numen,  was  more  than  the  average  Roman 
board  of  aediles  ventured  to  do. 

If  the  official  attitude  of  various  communities  toward 
outside  cults  and  toward  the  Jews  in  particular  can  be 
brought  under  no  general  rule,  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
personal  attitude  of  individual  Greeks  toward  them 
varied  from  enthusiastic  veneration  to  indifference  and 
determined  antagonism.  In  certain  cities  the  Jews  as 
foreigners  could  not  hope  to  escape  odium  nor  the 
jealousy  of  competing  individuals  and  organizations. 
In  Egypt  particularly,  the  feud  between  Egyptians  and 
Jews  existed  before  the  coming  of  the  Greeks  there, 
and  grew  in  intensity  as  time  went  on.  As  far  as  definite 
attacks  upon  the  Jews  and  their  institutions  went,  many 


THE  OPPOSITION  167 


of  them  had  an  Egyptian  origin,  and  many  others  were 
wholly  confined  to  that  country. 

These  attacks  are  not  essentially  different  from  the 
methods  that  generally  obtained  when  one  group  of 
men  found  itself  in  frequent  opposition  to  another 
group  on  the  field  of  battle  or  otherwise.  The  populace 
needs  no  rhetorical  stimulation  to  represent  its  enemies 
as  wicked,  cowardly,  and  foolish.  That  is  a  human 
weakness  which  exists  to-day  quite  as  it  has  existed  for 
many  centuries.  However,  even  for  the  populace,  such 
phrases  were  accepted  conventions.  They  were  not 
quite  seriously  meant,  and  could  be  conveniently  for- 
gotten whenever  the  former  foe  became  an  ally. 

Among  professional  rhetoricians  this  particular 
method  of  argumentation  formed  a  set  rhetorical 
device,  one  of  the  forms  of  vituperatio  ^  as  classified  in 
the  text-books.  Certain  roVot,  "  commonplaces,*'  were 
developed  concerning  all  nations,  and  used  as  occasion 
required.  Historical  facts,  popular  gossip,  freely  imag- 
ined qualities,  were  all  equally  used  to  support  the 
statements  made  or  to  illustrate  them.  Now  it  is  in 
the  works  of  professional  rhetoricians  that  most  of  the 
attacks  on  the  Jews  are  to  be  found.  Further,  we  have 
their  works  wholly  in  the  form  of  citations  taken  from 
the  context.  We  cannot  even  be  sure  to  what  extent 
the  authors  themselves  were  convinced  of  what  they 
said.  Wherever  we  meet  what  is  plainly  a  rhetorical 
TOTTos,  we  have  little  ground  for  assuming  that  it  corre- 
sponds to  any  feeling  whatever  on  the  writer's  part. 
Often  it  was  mechanically  inserted,  and  has  all  the  effect 
of  an  exercise  in  composition. 


1 68      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

With  a  laughter-loving  people  one  of  the  first 
resources  in  controversy  is  to  render  the  opponent 
ridiculous.  It  was  especially  on  the  side  of  religion  that 
the  Jews  maintained  their  difference  from  their  neigh- 
bors, and  claimed  a  great  superiority  to  them.  A  Greek 
enemy  would  be  much  inclined  to  heap  ridicule,  first  on 
the  pretensions  to  superiority,  and  then  on  the  religious 
form  itself.  That  may  be  the  basis  of  a  story,  which 
soon  became  widely  current,  to  the  effect  that  the  Jews 
worshiped  their  god  in  the  form  of  an  ass. 

The  story  is  of  Egyptian  origin.  Just  where  and 
when  it  began,  cannot  be  discovered.  Josephus  in  com- 
bating Apion  refers  to  a  writer  whose  name  the  copyists 
have  hopelessly  jumbled.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  he  was 
a  certain  Mnaseas,  perhaps  of  Patara  in  Lycia,  or 
Patras  in  the  Peloponnesus,  a  highly  rhetorical  his- 
torian of  the  second  century  b.  c.  e.  ^  He  wrote  therefore 
before  the  establishment  of  the  Maccabean  state.  Wher- 
ever he  was  born,  he  was  a  pupil  of  Eratosthenes,  and 
therefore  a  resident  of  Alexandria.^ 

We  have  his  words  only  at  third  hand,  in  Josephus' 
account  of  Apion's  reference.  Each  citation  is  of  sub- 
stance, not  the  ipsissirna  verba;  and,  besides,  of  this  part 
of  Josephus  we  have  only  a  Latin  translation,  not  the 
original.  The  story,  whether  it  is  Mnaseas'  or  Apion's, 
is  to  the  effect  that  a  certain  Idumean,  named  Zabidus, 
duped  the  Jews  into  believing  that  he  intended  to 
deliver  his  god,  Apollo,"  into  their  hands,  and  con- 
trived to  get  into  the  temple  and  remove  ''  the  golden 
head  of  the  pack-ass. '* 


THE  OPPOSITION  169 


The  uncertainty  and  indirectness  of  the  citation 
makes  it  dubious  whether  Mnaseas  understood  this  ass 
to  be  the  actual  divine  symbol  or,  as  others  said,  merely 
one  of  the  figures  of  a  group.  The  absurdity  of  the 
story  seems  so  patent  that  its  existence  is  almost 
incredible.  It  indicates  the  extreme  strictness  with 
which  gentiles  were  excluded  from  even  the  approach 
to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  that  the  baselessness  of  the 
ass-legend  was  not  immediately  discovered." 

Josephus'  indignation  and  his  frequent  reference  to 
the  ''  pretended  wit "  of  Apion  or  of  Mnaseas  make 
the  tone  and  intention  of  the  story  quite  plain.  It  can 
have  had  no  other  purpose  than  that  of  holding  the 
Jews  up  to  ridicule.  But  just  what  the  point  of  the  jest 
is,  is  by  no  means  quite  so  easy  to  discover.  We  cannot 
reconstruct  even  approximately  the  words  of  Mnaseas. 
It  is,  however,  at  least  likely  that  if  he  had  attributed 
the  adoration  of  an  ass  to  the  Jews,  a  somewhat  less 
equivocal  statement  to  that  effect  would  appear.  Other 
writers  do  make  that  statement  plainly  enough.  The 
point  of  Mnaseas'  raillery  seems  rather  to  be  the  easy 
credulity  of  the  people,  a  characteristic  that  was  at 
all  times  attributed  to  them  in  the  ancient  world,  from 
the  earliest  references,  as  they  are  found  in  Hecataeus, 
to  the  latest.  It  is  curious  that  this  quality,  which  to 
Greeks  and  Romans  seemed  the  most  striking  trait  of 
the  Jews,  is  the  very  last  that  modern  observers  would 
ascribe  to  them. 

If  we  follow  the  story  as  it  appears  in  later  writers, 
we  shall  meet  it  next  in  the  history  of  the  Syrian  Posi- 


170      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

donius,  who  lived  about  lOO  b.  c.  e.  Again,  we  have  his 
statement  only  in  quotation,  this  time  in  a  fragment  of 
the  work  of  Diodorus,  a  Sicilian  contemporary  of 
Augustus.  Posidonius  does  no  more  than  make  the 
assertion  that  the  innermost  shrine  of  the  temple  con- 
tained the  statue  of  a  long-bearded  man,  assumed  to 
be  Moses,  riding  on  an  ass  {XWivov  ayaXfxa  avSp6<i 
/SaOvTTMyMvo'i  Ka6r]ix€vov  [sic  |  eV  oi/ov) /"  This  is  very  far 
from  accusing  the  Jews  of  worshiping  an  ass.  Indeed 
it  is  likely  enough  that  nothing  was  further  from  the 
mind  of  the  writer.  Perhaps  Mnaseas  too  told  the  same 
or  a  very  similar  story,  since  his  anecdote  would  fit  in 
just  as  well  with  the  account  of  Posidonius  as  with  the 
later  version. 

The  story  appears  again  in  the  writings  of  Molo,  the 
tutor  of  Caesar  and  Cicero ;  but  Molo's  statement  is 
wholly  lost.  In  the  next  generation  we  find  it  in  the 
writings  of  the  Egyptian  Apion,  and  in  Damocritus,  of 
whom  we  know  nothing,  but  who,  it  is  likely  enough, 
was  a  resident  of  Alexandria.^"" 

Here  the  statements  are  unmistakable.  According  to 
Damocritus,  if  he  is  accurately  cited  by  the  late  Byzan- 
tine lexicographer  Suidas,  the  Jews  adored  the  gilded 
head  of  an  ass  (^xP^^V^  ^^^^  Kc^aA^v  TrpocreKvvovv) .  Apion, 
in  the  Latin  translation  of  Josephus,  asserts  that  the 
Jews  "  adored  this  ass'  head,  and  worshiped  it  with 
much  ceremony "  (id  [i.  e.  asini  caput]  colere  ac 
dignum  facere  tanta  religione)  .^* 

Probably  from  Apion  it  got  to  Tacitus,  120  c.  e.,  who 
in  his  Histories  (v.  4)  uses  the  words,  effigiern  [asini] 


THE  OPPOSITION  171 


penetrali  sacravere,  "  they  consecrated  the  figure  of 
an  ass  in  their  inner  shrine."  Tacitus  expressly  avoids 
the  allegation  of  worshiping  this  statue.  He  probably 
intentionally  modified  the  words  of  Apion  to  fit  the 
statement  into  the  then  abundantly  proven  fact  that  the 
Jews  worshiped  an  imageless  and  abstract  deity  (Hist. 

V.5)- 

The  Greek  essayist  Plutarch,  almost  a  generation 

before  Tacitus,  makes  a  similar  reference,  though  in 

his  case  without  the  least  hostile  or  satiric  intention. 

The  ass  is  according  to  him  the  animal  most  honored 

among  the  Jews    (^to  TifXMixevov  W  arrali^  juaAio-ra  6r)ptov^  ^ 

a  statement  which,  it  may  be  said  incidentally,  is  by  no 
means  without  foundation.^'' 

It  is  generally  assumed  that  the  use  of  an  ass  as  an 
object  of  adoration  necessarily  aroused  derision.  That 
would  probably  be  true  of  our  own  times  in  Europe  or 
in  America,  but  it  would  not  obtain  in  the  ancient  world. 
Veneration  of  an  ass  was  no  more  extraordinary  to  a 
Greek  than  veneration  of  any  other  animal  symbol.  Nor 
was  the  ass  associated  in  men's  minds  only  with  con- 
temptuous and  derisive  images.  He  played  a  large  part 
in  the  economy  of  the  people,  and  was  in  many  places 
correspondingly  esteemed.  The  very  first  reference  to 
him  in  Greek  literature  is  in  the  Iliad  (xi.  558),  where 
A j ax's  slow  retreat  is  compared  to  the  stubborn  and 
effectual  resistance  of  an  ass  in  the  fields — surely  no 
dishonoring  simile.  The  ass  was  a  part  of  the  sacred 
train  of  Dionysus,^^  long  before  the  latter  was  identified 
with  the  Phryg^ian  Sabazios.    Again,  the  ass  was  trans- 


172      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

ferred  to  heaven,  where  he  still  shmes  as  a  constella- 
tion. At  Lampsacus  and  Tarentum  he  was  a  sacrificial 
animal/'  At  Rome  he  was  associated  with  Vesta,  and 
crowned  at  the  Consualia. 

Among  the  Jews,  as  among  all  the  people  of  that 
portion  of  Asia,  his  importance  is  such  as  to  justify  in 
a  large  measure  the  words  of  Plutarch.  Generally  in 
the  Bible  he  is  preferred  to  the  horse  (Prov.  xxvi.  3; 
Psalm  xxxii.  9).  In  the  ancient  song  of  Deborah 
(Judges  V.  10)  those  who  sit  on  white  asses  are  the 
princes  of  the  people.  The  Anointed  of  God  would 
ride  into  the  city  upon  an  ass.  It  is  not  without  mean- 
ing that  asses,  but  not  horses,  appear  on  Assyrian 
sculpture. 

In  Egypt,  however,  the  ass  was  a  symbol  of  evil.  He 
was  associated  with  the  demoniac  Typhon,  and  was  an 
object  of  superstitious  fear  and  hatred.'^ 

For  most  of  the  Mediterranean  nations  the  worship 
of  an  ass  was  only  in  so  far  contemptible  as  the  worship 
of  any  animal  was  so  considered.  Romans  and  Greeks 
take  very  lofty  ground  indeed  when  they  speak  of  Egyp- 
tian theriolatry,  although  innumerable  religious  prac- 
tices of  their  own  were  associated  in  some  way  or  other 
with  animals.'"  It  is  not  likely  accordingly  that  the 
allegation  of  this  form  of  fetichism  against  the  Jews 
arose  among  Greeks  or  Romans  or  Syrians  or  Pales- 
tinians. For  Egyptians,  on  the  contrary,  this  particular 
story  would  charge  the  Jews  with  "  devil-worship," 
or,  at  least,  the  veneration  of  a  deity  hostile  to  them. 
In  Egypt,  and  in  Egypt  alone,  the  story  would  have  a 
special  point. 


THE  OPPOSITION  173 


It  may  further  be  noted  that  in  Manetho's  account  the 
Jews  are  brought  to  Avaris,  a  site  consecrated  to 
Typhon. 

As  it  appears  in  Posidonius,  perhaps  in  Mnaseas  and 
Molo,  and  certainly  in  Plutarch,  the  story  is  based  upon 
a  real  Jewish  tradition  and  actual  custom.  In  Damoc- 
ritus  and  Apion,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  malicious 
slander,  needing  no  basis  in  observed  fact.  It  is  one 
of  the  many  developments  of  the  mutual  hatred  of  Jew 
and  Egyptian,  of  which  there  is  such  a  wealth  of  other 
evidence. 

This  story  has  been  dealt  with  in  some  detail  because 
it  illustrates  in  very  many  ways  the  character,  sources, 
and  methods  of  the  literary  anti-Semitism  of  ancient 
times.  Wholly  without  basis  from  the  beginning,  it 
becomes  almost  an  accepted  dogma,  as  well  grounded  as 
many  another  facile  generalization  in  those  days  and 
ours.  Further,  it  will  be  observed  that  it  does  not  every- 
where necessitate  the  inference  of  hostility  on  the  part 
of  the  writer.  The  historians  of  those  days  were 
ex  professo  rhetoricians.  Every  form  of  literary  com- 
position had  as  its  prime  object  a  finished  artistic 
product.  Since  the  subject  of  literature,  or  artistic 
verbal  expression,  was  human  life,  history,  which  is 
the  record  of  human  life,  was  eminently  the  province  of 
the  word-fancier,  the  rhetorician.  The  trained  his- 
torian has  no  words  of  sufficient  contempt  for  the  mere 
logographer  whose  object  is  the  recording  of  facts. 
That  ''  pretty  lies  "  do  not  in. the  least  disfigure  history, 
is  the  opinion  of  the  Stoic  Panaetius  and  his  pupil  and 


174      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

admirer  Cicero.  And  that  was  particularly  the  case 
when  the  history  was,  as  it  often  became,  an  expanded 
plea  or  invective,  in  which  case  the  tricks  of  trade  of  the 
advocate  were  not  only  commendable  but  demanded/" 

Most  of  the  accounts  of  the  Jews  or  the  fragments 
of  such  accounts  come  to  us  from  just  these  rhetorical 
historians.  If  the  whole  book  were  extant  in  any  case, 
we  should  be  in  a  position  to  determine  the  occasion  for 
the  account  and  the  source  of  its  color.  As  it  is,  we 
are  on  slippery  ground  when  we  endeavor  to  interpret 
the  fragments  in  such  a  way  as  to  discover  the  facts  of 
which  they  present  so  distorted  an  image. 

Not  all  historians,  however,  were  of  this  type.  Even 
among  the  rhetors,  many  had,  or  at  any  rate  professed 
to  have,  a  passion  for  truth.  And  among  the  others 
there  is  manifested  from  time  to  time  a  distinct  his- 
torical conscience,  a  qualm  as  to  the  accuracy  of  the 
assertion  so  trippingly  written. 

It  is  for  this  reason  an  especially  painful  gap  in  our 
sources  to  find  that  portion  of  Polybius  missmg  in 
which  he  promised  to  treat  at  length  of  the  Jews. 
Polybius  of  Megalopolis,  a  Greek  who  lived  as  an 
Achean  hostage  in  Rome,  in  the  second  third  of  the 
second  century  b.  c.  e.,  was  the  nearest  approach  the 
ancient  world  had  to  an  historian  in  the  modern  sense, 
one  whose  primary  object  was  to  ascertain  the  truth 
and  state  it  simply.  Polybius  could,  for  example,  feel 
and  express  high  admiration  for  Roman  institutions 
and  at  the  same  time  do  justice  to  the  bitter  hater  of  the 
Romans,  Hannibal.    And  this  too  in  the  lifetime  of  men 


THE  OPPOSITION  175 


who  may  themselves  have  heard  the  dreadful  news  of 
Trasimene  and  Cannae. 

In  his  sixteenth  book,  Polybius  briefly  relates  the  con- 
quest of  Judea  among  other  parts  of  Coele-Syria,  first 
by  Ptolemy  Philometor's  general,  then  by  Antiochus 
the  Great.  ''  A  little  while  after  this,  he  [Antiochus] 
received  the  submission  of  those  of  the  Jews  who  lived 
around  the  temple  known  as  Jerusalem,  About  this  I 
have  much  more  to  tell,  particularly  because  of  the  fame 
of  the  temple,  and  I  shall  reserve  that  narrative  for 
later." 

An  evil  chance  has  deprived  us  of  that  later  narrative. 
If  we  possessed  it,  we  should  probably  have  a  very  sane 
and,  as  far  as  his  sources  permitted,  an  accurate  account 
of  the  condition  of  the  Jews  during  the  generation 
between  Antiochus  the  Great  and  the  Maccabees. 
Polybius,  however,  wrote  before  the  establishment  of 
the  Jewish  state  and  the  spread  of  its  cult  had  focused 
attention  upon  the  people,  and  roused  opposition.  And 
he  wrote,  too,  at  the  very  beginning  of  Roman  inter- 
ference in  the  East,  which  reduced  Egypt  to  a  pro- 
tectorate before  another  generation.  When  he  speaks 
therefore  of  the  ''  great  fame  of  the  temple  "  (17  irepl  to 
Upbv  eVtt^aveta),  he  is  an  especially  important  witness  of 
what  the  name  meant  to  the  Romans  and  Greeks,  for 
whom  he  wrote.'^ 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  OPPOSITION  IN  ITS  SOCIAL  ASPECT 

If  the  rivals  and  opponents  of  the  Jews  had  nothing 
more  to  say  of  them  than  that  they  worshiped  the  head 
of  an  ass,  it  is  not  likely  that  their  opposition  would  have 
been  recorded.  But  they  would  have  put  their  training 
to  meager  use,  if  they  could  not  devise  better  and 
stronger  terms  of  abuse. 

The  very  first  Greek  historian  who  has  more  than  a 
vague  surmise  of  the  character  and  history  of  the  Jews 
is  Hecataeus  of  Abdera  (comp.  above,  p.  92).  As  has 
been  seen,  his  tone  is  distinctly  well-disposed.  But  he 
knows  also  of  circumstances  which  to  the  Greek  mind 
were  real  national  vices.  He  mentions  with  strong  dis- 
approval their  credulity,  their  inhospitality,  and  their 
aloofness. 

Credulity  is  not  a  vice  with  which  the  Jews  were 
charged  in  later  times.  That  may  be  due  to  Christian 
tradition,  in  which  of  course  the  sin  of  the  Jews  is  that 
they  did  not  believe  enough,  as  stated  in  Christian  con- 
troversial writings.  But  Greeks  and  Romans  were 
quite  in  accord,  that  the  Jews  were  duped  with  extra- 
ordinary facility ;  especially  that  they  were  the  victims 
of  the  deception  of  their  priests,  so  that  they  attached 
importance  to  thousands  of  matters  heartily  without 
importance.    We  may  remember  Horace's  jibe,  Credat 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT  177 

ludaeiis  Apella,  "  Tell  it  to  the  Jew  Apella  " ;  *  and 
nearly  two  hundred  years  later  Apuleius  mentions  the 
ludaei   superstitiosi,    ''  the    superstitious   Jews." ' 

Among  the  Greeks  particularly  the  quality  of  evrjOeta, 
"  simplicity/'  had  rapidly  made  the  same  progress  as 
the  words  "  silly  "  and  "  simpleton  "  have  in  English. 

Sharpness  and  duplicity  were  the  qualities  with  which 
non-Greek  nations  credited  the  Greeks,  and  whether  the 
accusation  was  true  or  not,"  "  naivete,"  €vrj6eia^  excited 
Greek  risibilities  more  quickly  than  anything  else.  The 
evrjOaa  of  the  Jews  lay  of  course  not  in  their  beliefs 
about  the  Deity.  On  that  point  all  educated  men  were 
in  accord.  But  it  lay  in  believing  in  the  sanctity  of  the 
priests,  and  in  the  observance  of  the  innumerable  regu- 
lations, particularly  of  abstention,  which  had  already 
assumed  such  proportions  among  the  Jews.  The  line 
of  Meleager  of  Gadara,  about  his  Jewish  rival, 

Even  on  the  cold  Sabbaths  Love  makes  his  warmth  felt, 

contains  in  its  ^l^vxpa  ad/SjSaTa  ''  cold  Sabbaths,"  an  epit- 
ome  of  the  Greek  point  of  view.  il/vxp6<s,  "  cold,"  was 
almost  a  synonym  for  "  dull.".  That  a  holiday  should 
be  celebrated  by  abstention  from  ordinary  activities  and 
amusements  seemed  to  a  Greek  the  essence  of  unreason. 
Their  own  religious  customs  were,  like  those  of  all  other 
nations,  full  of  tabus,  but  they  were  the  less  conscious 
of  them  because  they  were  wholly  apart  from  their 
daily  life.  Jews  avoided  certain  foods,  not  merely  as 
an  occasional  fast,  but  always.    Their  myths  were  not 

12 


178      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

irrelevant  and  beautiful  stories,  but  were  firmly  believed 
to  be  the  records  of  what  actually  happened.  The  pre- 
cepts of  their  code  were  sanctioned,  not  merely  by  ex- 
pediency, but  by  the  fear  of  an  offended  God. 

An  excellent  example  of  how  the  rhetorical  totto'^  of 
"  naivete  "  was  handled  is  presented  by  Agatharchidas 
of  Cnidus,  who  wrote  somewhere  near  150  b.  c.  e.* 

He  tells  us  of  Stratonice,  daughter  of  Antiochus 
Soter  and  wife  of  Demetrius  of  Macedon,  who  was 
induced  by  a  dream  to  remain  in  a  dangerous  position, 
where  she  was  taken  and  killed.  The  occasion  is  an 
excellent  one  to  enlarge  upon  the  topic  of  superstition, 
and  Agatharchidas  relates  in  this  connection  an  incident 
that  is  said  to  have  happened  one  hundred  years  before 
Stratonice,  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Ptolemy  Soter 
through  the  fact  that  the  Jews  would  not  fight  upon  the 
Sabbath.  ''  So,"  says  Agatharchidas,  "  because,  instead 
of  guarding  their  city,  these  men  observed  their  sense- 
less rule,  the  city  received  a  harsh  master,  and  their  law 
was  shown  to  be  a  foolish  custom."  One  cannot  repro- 
duce in  English  the  fine  antitheses  of  the  related  words 

(fyvXaTTCLV  T7]V  TToAtv  balauccd  by  hiaTrjpovvTOJv  Trjv  dvoiav,  vo/jlo^ 

answering  to  lOidfxov  ;  but,  besides  the  artificiality  of  the 
phrases,  the  total  absence  of  any  attempt  to  make  the 
words  fit  the  facts  is  shown  by  the  conclusion  to  which 
Agatharchidas,  by  rule  of  rhetoric,  had  to  come.  Now 
a  ''  harsh  master  "  is  just  what  Ptolemy  was  not  to  the 
Jews,  and  Agatharchidas  of  all  men  must  have  been 
aware  of  that  fact,  for  he  wrote  not  only  at  Alexan- 
dria, but  at  the  court  of  Philometor,  an  especial  patron 
of  the  Jews  individually  and  as  a  corporation. 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT  179 

The  practice  of  the  Sabbath  was  one  of  the  first 
things  that  struck  foreigners.  It  is  Hkely  that  the  con- 
gregations of  Sabbatistae  in  Asia  Minor  were  com- 
posed of  Jewish  proselytes.^  The  name  of  the  Jewish 
Sibyl  Sambethe/  the  association  of  Jewish  worship 
with  that  of  the  Phrygian  Sabazios/  were  based 
upon  this  highly  peculiar  custom  of  the  Jews.  But  its 
utter  irrationality  seemed  to  be  exhibited  in  such  in- 
stances as  Agatharchidas  here  describes,  the  abstention 
from  both  offensive  and  defensive  fighting  on  the 
Sabbath. 

Whether  the  incident  or  others  of  the  same  kind  ever 
occurred  may  reasonably  be  doubted.  The  discussion 
of  the  question  in  Talmudic  sources  is  held  at  a  time 
when  Jews  had  long  ceased  to  engage  in  warfare.* 
Their  nation  no  longer  existed,  and  their  legal  privi- 
leges included  exemption  from  conscription,  if  they 
chose  to  avail  themselves  of  it.  In  the  Bible  there  is  no 
hint  in  the  lurid  chronicles  of  wars  and  battles  that  the 
Sabbath  observance  involved  cessation  from  hostil- 
ities during  time  of  war,  and  the  supposition  that  no 
resistance  to  attack  was  offered  on  that  day  is  almost 
wholly  excluded.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  one  of  the 
grim  swordsmen  of  David  or  Joab  allowing  his  throat 
to  be  cut  by  an  enemy  because  he  was  attacked  on  the 
Sabbath. 

That  any  rule  of  Sabbath  observance  which  de- 
manded this  had  actually  developed  during  the  post- 
Exilic  period  is  likewise  untenable.  The  Jews  served 
frequently  in  the  army  under  both  Persian  and  Greek 


i8o      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


rule.  This  is  amply  demonstrated  by  the  Aramaic 
papyri  of  Elephantine  and  the  existence  of  Jewish 
mercenaries  under  the  Ptolemies/  The  professional 
soldier  whose  service  could  not  be  relied  upon  one  day 
in  seven  would  soon  find  his  occupation  gone. 

Several  passages  in  the  Books  of  Maccabees  have 
often  been  taken  to  imply  that  the  strict  observance  of 
the  Sabbath  was  maintained  before  the  Hasmonean  re- 
volt, and  deliberately  abrogated  by  Mattathiah  (I  Mace, 
ii.  30-44 ;  II  Mace.  viii.  23-25) .  But  upon  closer  analysis 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  incidents  there  recorded  do  not 
quite  show  that.  The  massacre  of  the  loyal  Jews  in 
the  desert  was  a  special  and  exceptional  thing.  They 
were  not  rebels  in  arms,  but  hunted  fugitives.  Their 
passive  submission  to  the  sword  was  an  act  of  voluntary 

martyrdom  (I  Mace.  ii.  37).  aTTo6dvM/xev  ol  Trai/res  iv  rrj 
wnXoT-qTi   r)fjL(^v :    fxaprvpcl    e0'  ry/xa?  6    ovpavb<5    /cat    rj  yyj    on 

aKpiTiii^  dTToAAure  ly/xa?,  "  Let  US  all  die  in  our  innocence. 
Heaven  and  earth  bear  witness  for  us  that  ye  put  us  to 
death  wrongfully.'^ 

Again,  it  is  not  Mattathiah,  but  the  sober  reflection  of 
his  men,  that  brings  them  to  the  resolution  that  such 
acts  of  martyrdom,  admirable  as  they  are  in  intention, 
are  futile.  The  decision  is  rather  a  criticism  of  their 
useless  sacrifice  than  anything  else. 

Similar  acts  of  self-devotion  on  the  part  of  inhabi- 
tants of  doomed  cities  were  not  uncommon.  As  final 
proofs  of  patriotism  on  the  part  of  those  who  would 
not  survive  their  city,  they  received  the  commendation 
of  ancient  writers.'"^  But  to  kill  oneself  or  allow  oneself 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT 


to  be  killed  for  a  fantastic  superstition,  could  have 
seemed  only  the  blindest  fanaticism. 

Now  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  the  essential 
accuracy  of  the  report  in  I  Maccabees,  to  the  effect  that 
one  group  of  Jewish  zealots  chose  passive  resistance 
to  the  attempt  of  Antiochus,  and  by  that  nerved  the  Has- 
moneans  to  a  very  active  resistance.  And  it  is  very 
likely  that  in  this  event  we  have  the  basis  for  the 
stories  that  related  the  capture  of  Jerusalem — almost 
in  every  case — on  the  Sabbath.  The  story  is  told  of  the 
capture  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  by  Artaxerxes  Ochus,  by 
Ptolemy,  and  by  Pompey.  It  is  a  logical  inference  from 
the  non-resistance  of  the  refugees  mentioned  in  I  Mac- 
cabees. The  conditions  of  ancient  warfare  make  it 
highly  improbable  that  it  was  more. 

The  rationalist  Greek  or  Roman  felt  it  a  point  of 
honor  to  hold  in  equal  contempt  the  ''  old-wives'  tales  " 
of  his  own  countrymen  as  to  the  supramundane  facts 
with  which  the  myths  were  filled,"  and  the  vain  and 
foolish  attempts  by  which  barbarians,  and  Greeks  and 
Romans  too,  sought  to  dominate  the  cosmic  forces  or 
tear  the  secret  from  fate.  These  attempts  generally 
took  the  form  of  magic,  not,  however,  like  the  primitive 
ceremonies,  of  which  the  real  nature  had  long  been  for- 
gotten, but  in  the  elaborate  thaumaturgic  systems  which 
had  been  fashioned  in  Egypt,  Persia,  and  Babylon.  In 
their  lowest  forms  these  were  petty  and  mean  swindling 
devices.  In  their  more  developed  forms  they  contained 
a  sincerely  felt  mysticism,  but  under  all  guises  they 
aroused  the  contempt  of  the  skeptic,  to  whom  the  most 


i82      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

ancient  and  revered  rites  of  his  own  cult  were  merely 
ancestral  habits  which  it  did  no  harm  to  follow.  The 
tone  such  men  adopted  toward  the  complicated  Oriental 
theologies  and  rituals  was  very  much  like  that  of  mod- 
ern cultivated  men  toward  the  various  "  Vedantic  phil- 
osophies," which  at  one  time  enjoyed  a  certain  vogue. 
Those  who  seriously  maintained  that  by  the  rattling 
of  a  sistrum,  or  the  clash  of  cymbals,  or  by  mortifica- 
tions of  the  flesh,  influences  could  be  exerted  upon  the 
laws  that  governed  the  universe,  so  as  to  modify  their 
course  or  divert  them,  were  alike  insensate  fools,  whose 
chatter  no  educated  man  could  take  seriously.  The 
Jews,  who  observed,  even  when  they  were  less  rigorous, 
a  number  of  restrictive  rules  that  gravely  hampered  their 
freedom  of  action,  who  seriously  maintained  that  they 
possessed  a  direct  revelation  of  God,  were  fanatics  and 
magicians,  and  exhibited  a  credulity  that  was  the  first 
sign  of  mental  inferiority. 

*'  Senseless,"  ''  nonsense,"  dvoT^rds,  avoia,  are  terms 
that  are  principally  in  the  mouths  of  the  Philopator  of 
III  Maccabees  and  the  Antiochus  of  IV  Maccabees,  in 
whose  words  we  may  fairly  see  epitomized  all  the  cur- 
rent abuse  as  well  as  criticism  which  opponents  to 
the  Jews,  from  philosophers  to  malevolent  chauvinists, 
heaped  upon  them. 

Hecataeus  says  of  Moses  that  he  instituted  an  "  inhos- 
pitable and  strange  form  of  living."  "  The  two  words 
fxiuo^evov  and  airavOpoiirov  form  a  doublette,  or  rhetorical 
doubling  of  a  single  idea.  That  idea  is  ''  inhospitality," 
lack  of  the  feeling  of  common  humanity,  a  term  which 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT  183 

for  Greeks  and  Romans  embodied  a  number  of  concep- 
tions not  suggested  by  the  word  to  modern  ears. 

The  word  ^eVo5,  which  is  the  root  of  the  words  for 
'*  hospitahty "  and  its  opposite,  has  no  equivalent  in 
EngHsh.  A  ^eVo?  was  a  man  of  another  nation,  who 
approached  without  hostile  intent.  The  test  of  civiliza- 
tion was  the  manner  in  which  such  a  vo^  was  dealt 
with.  The  Greek  traditions,  even  their  extant  litera- 
ture, have  a  very  lively  recollection  of  the  time  when 
hospitality  was  by  no  means  universal,  when  the  feVos 
was  treated  as  an  enemy  taken  in  arms  or  worse.  The 
one  damning  epithet  of  the  Cyclops  is  a^evo?,  "  inhos- 
pitable." "  The  high  commendation  bestowed  upon  the 
princely  hospitality  of  the  Homeric  barons  itself  indi- 
cates that  this  virtue  was  not  yet  a  matter  of  course, 
and  that  boorish  nations  and  individuals  did  not  pos- 
sess it. 

Legally,  of  course,  the  ^eVo?  had  no  rights.  Such 
claim  as  he  could  make  for  protection  rested  upon  the 
favor  of  the  gods,  especially  of  Zeus,  who  was  fre- 
quently addressed  by  the  cult  title  of  Eeno?.  the  Pro- 
tector of  Strangers.  The  uncertain  aid  of  the  gods  was 
soon  displaced  by  personal  relations  between  individuals 
and  groups  of  individuals  in  different  states,  who  were 
mutually  Trpoievot  to  each  other,  a  title  that  always 
created  a  very  definite  moral  obligation  and  soon  a  legal 
one  as  well.  So,  when  Alexander  destroyed  Thebes,  he 
spared  the  irpoievoi  of  his  own  family  and  of  the  Mace- 
donians in  general." 


1 84      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


The  institution  and  the  development  had  practically 
gone  on  in  similar  ways  all  through  the  Mediterranean 
world.  The  Bedouins  still  maintain  the  ancient  cus- 
toms of  their  fathers  in  that  respect.  The  Romans  had 
the  word  hospes,  of  which  the  history  is  a  close  parallel 
to  that  of  ^€1/05. 

Of  the  Jews  the  same  thing  may  be  said.  The 
Bible  enjoins  the  protection  of  strangers  as  a  primary 
obligation.  They  were  the  living  symbols  of  the  Egyp- 
tian bondage.  So  Exodus  xxiii.  9,  "  Also  thou  shalt  not 
oppress  a  stranger,  for  ye  know  the  heart  of  a  stranger, 
seeing  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of  Egypt."  One  of 
Job's  protests  of  righteousness  is  his  hospitality  (Job 
xxxi.  32). 

In  these  circumstances  just  what  could  the  charge  of 
/Aio-o^cvta,  of  "  inhospitality,"  have  meant?  We  shall 
look  in  vain  in  Greek  literature  for  an  injunction  to  hos- 
pitality as  finely  phrased  as  the  passage  just  quoted 
from  Exodus.  To  understand  the  term  as  applied  to  the 
Jews  we  shall  have  to  examine  the  words  that  are  used 
for  the  acts  connected  with  hospitality. 

In  Homer  the  word  ^etn'^w^'  is  frequently  found. 
Strictly  of  course  it  means  simply  "  to  deal  with  a 
stranger,"  but  it  is  used  principally  in  the  sense  of  ''  en- 
tertain at  dinner."  The  wandering  stranger  might  as 
such  claim  the  hospitality  of  the  people  among  whom 
chance  had  brought  him,  and  claim  it  in  the  very  con- 
crete sense  that  food  and  lodging  at  the  master's  table 
were  his  of  right.  Indeed  it  would  almost  seem  that  he 
became  pro  hac  vice  a  member  of  the  family  group  in 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT  185 

which  he  partook  of  a  meal,  protected  in  Hfe  and  Umb 
by  the  blood-vengeance  of  his  temporary  kinsmen. 

That  however  seems  to  have  been  the  general  rule  in 
the  older  communities  of  the  East,  in  Palestine  just  as 
in  Greece  and  Asia.  There  was  no  feeling  against  en- 
tertaining a  stranger  at  table  among  the  Jews,  although 
the  relation  could  not  well  be  reversed.  And  there  was 
the  rub.  It  was  not  in  Palestine  (where  the  Jew  was 
likely  always  to  be  the  host),  but  in  the  communities  in 
which  Jew  and  non-Jew  acknowledged  the  same  civic 
bond  that  the  refusal  of  the  Jew  to  accept  the  hospitality 
of  his  neighbor  would  be  a  flagrant  instance  of  fjnaoievia, 
of  dislike  of  strangers.  We  need  not  suppose  that  it 
needed  careful  investigation  and  the  accumulation  of 
instances  to  produce  the  statement.  A  few  incidents 
within  anyone's  experience  would  suffice.  We  shall 
have  to  remember  further  that  we  are  dealing  with  a 
literary  tradition  in  which  many  statements  are  taken 
over  from  the  writer's  source  without  independent  con- 
viction on  his  own  part. 

However,  among  the  great  masses  the  general  feel- 
ing that  the  Jews  disliked  strangers,  and  so  were  prop- 
erly to  be  termed  /Ato-d^evot,  was  in  all  likelihood  based 
on  an  observation  of  more  obvious  facts  than  dietary 
regulations.  It  is  principally  in  meat  diet  that  the  sep- 
aration is  really  effective,  and  meat  diet  was  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  rich.  Then,  as  now,  the  great  majority 
of  the  people  ate  meat  rarely,  if  at  all,  and  surely  could 
take  no  offense  at  a  man's  squeamishness  about  the 
quality  or  nature  of  the  food  he  ate.    But  what  every- 


i86      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

body  was  compelled  to  notice  was  that  the  Jews  delib- 
erately held  aloof  from  practically  all  public  festivities, 
since  these  were  nearly  always  religious,  and  that  they 
created  barriers  which  seemed  as  unnecessary  as  they 
were  foolishly  defended.  That  in  itself  could  be  inter- 
preted by  the  man  in  the  street  only  as  a  sign  of  deep- 
rooted  antipathy,  of /xto-o^ei/ta. 

This  accusation,  as  has  been  shown,  was  more  than 
the  reproach  of  unsociability.  The  vice  charged  by  it 
was  of  serious  character.  Those  individuals  who  in 
Greek  poetry  are  called  inhospitable  are  nothing  short 
of  monsters.  It  implied  not  merely  aloofness  from 
strangers,  but  ill-usage  of  them,  and  that  ill-usage  was 
sometimes  assumed  to  be  downright  cannibalism.  So 
Strabo  (vii.  6)  tells  us  that  the  "  inhospitable  "  sea  was 
called  so,  not  only  because  of  its  storms,  but  because 
of  the  ferocity  of  the  Scythian  tribes  dwelling  around 
it,  who  devoured  strangers  and  used  their  skulls  for 
goblets.  That  was  of  course  to  be  inhospitable  with 
a  vengeance,  but  the  term  covered  the  extreme  idea 
as  well  as  the  milder  acts  that  produced  at  Sparta 
and  Crete  frequent  edicts  of  expulsion  (ievrjXaataty^ 
and  a  general  cold  welcome  to  foreigners. 

In  very  many  cases,  especially  in  the  rhetorical 
schools,  '*  inhospitality,"  ''hatred  of  strangers,"  was  a 
mere  abusive  tag,  available  without  any  excessive  con- 
sideration of  the  facts.  And  when  intense  enmity  was 
to  be  exhibited,  the  extreme  form  of  *'  inhospitality  " 
was  naturally  enough  both  implicitly  and  expressly 
charged  against  the  objects  of  the  writer's  dislike. 


1  6  '^^M'^^ 


GREEK  INSCRIPTION,  FOUND  ON  SITE  OF  TEMPLE  AREA,  FORBIDDING 

GENTILES  TO  PASS  BEYOND  THE  INNER  TEMPLE 

WALLS  AT  JERUSALEM 

(Now  in  the  Imperial  Ottoman  Museum,  Constantinople) 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT  187 

There  are  many  instances  in  which  the  hereditary 
enemy  was  credited  with  human  sacrifice  or  cannibal- 
ism. Indeed  it  was  currently  believed  that  cannibalism 
had  universally  prevailed  at  one  time,  and  with  ad- 
vancing civilization  was  gradually  superseded."  As  far 
as  human  sacrifice  was  concerned,  many  highly  civilized 
states, knew  of  vestiges  or  actual  recurrences  of  it  in 
their  own  practice.  Rome  is  a  striking  example.  But 
in  Rome  such  things  were  rare  exceptions,  employed  in 
times  of  unusual  straits  to  meet  a  quite  unusual  emer- 
gency.^^ In  Greece  there  were  many  traces  frankly 
admitted  to  be  such — if  not  actual  instances  of  such 
sacrifices.  But  here,  as  at  Rome,  the  act  was  admittedly 
something  out  of  the  ordinary,  a  survival  of  primitive 
savagery." 

Accordingly  when  Greeks  and  Romans  spoke  of  hu- 
man sacrifices,  it  was  not  of  an  inconceivable  form  of 
barbarity,  which  placed  those  who  took  part  in  it  quite 
out  of  the  human  pale,  but  as  a  relic  of  a  condition  from 
which  they  had  themselves  happily  grown,  and  to  which 
they  reverted  only  in  extremities.  Its  presence  among 
other  tribes  was  a  demonstration  that  they  were  still 
in  the  barbarous  stage,  and  especially  was  it  deemed 
to  be  so  when  all  strangers  who  chanced  to  come  upon 
the  foreign  shore  were  the  selected  victims  of  the  god. 

That  charge,  as  we  know,  was  made  against  many 
Scythian  and  Thracian  tribes.  The  story  of  Iphigenia 
in  Tauris  is  an  example  of  it.  It  was  made  against 
the  Carthaginians,  at  least  in  the  early  stages  of  their 
history.     The   Gauls,   according  to  both   Greek   and 


i88      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Roman  writers,  had  made  of  it  a  very  common  institu- 
tion.'" We  do  not  know  very  much  of  the  evidence  in 
the  case  of  the  Thracians,  Scythians,  and  Gauls.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  customs  like  certain  symbolic  rites 
found  in  many  places  were  misinterpreted.  Or  it  is 
highly  likely  that,  if  human  sacrifices  existed,  they  were, 
as  among  Greeks  and  Romans,  a  rare  form  of  expiation. 
For  the  Carthaginians  the  story  is  almost  certainly  a  by- 
product of  national  hatred,  and  rests  upon  the  same 
foundations  as  the  ''cruelty"  and  "perfidy"  of 
Hannibal. 

Human  sacrifices,  similar  to  those  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  existed  in  Palestine.  Children  were  sacrificed  to 
the  nameless  god  or  gods  that  bore  the  cult  title  of 
melech,  i.  e.  "  king."  As  in  the  rest  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean world  such  sacrifices  were  exceptional  and  grisly 
forms  of  expiation,  used  when  ordinary  means  had 
failed.  Among  the  Jews,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
seem  to  have  been  prohibited  from  the  very  beginning 
of  their  history  as  a  community.  It  is  a  purely,  gra- 
tuitous theory  that  makes  melech,  or  molech,  a  cult- 
title  of  Yahveh  in  Israel.  There  is  simply  no  evidence 
of  any  kind  that  it  was  so.  On  the  contrary,  the  oldest 
traditions  of  the  Jews  represent  the  abolition  of  human 
sacrifices  as  one  of  the  first  reforms  instituted  by  the 
founders  of  their  faith.  The  Mosaic  code  made  these 
sacrifices  a  capital  offense  (Lev.  xviii.  21  ;xx.  2).  The 
very  name  molech  indicates  an  intense  abhorrence, 
if,  as  has  been  plausibly  suggested,  it  is  simply  i^D,  or 
"king,"  with  the  vowels  of  nt^n.  "the  Abomination." "" 


THE  SOCIAL  ASPECT  189 

With  SO  old  a  tradition  on  the  subject,  the  Jews  must 
have  felt,  as  peculiarly  irritating,  the  transference  of 
this  vituperative  tag  to  them.  That  it  might  be  so 
applied  was  of  course  an  inevitable  expansion  of 
the  belief  that  the  Jews  were  fiiaoievot,  ''  haters  of 
strangers."  However,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the 
statement  was  widely  current.  On  the  contrary,  we 
have  only  two  references  to  it.  Damocritus,  who  lived 
perhaps  in  the  first  century  b.  c.  e.,  as  quoted  by  the  late 
Byzantine  compiler  Suidas,"  asserts  that  the  Jews  cap- 
tured a  stranger  every  seven  years,  and  sacrificed  him  to 
their  god ;  and  Apion,  in  the  first  century  c.  e.,  relates  the 
circumstantial  story  of  the  captured  Greek  who  was 
found  immured  in  the  temple  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 

The  latter  story  is  an  amusing  instance  of  rhetorical: 
method.  Of  its  baselessness  of  course  no  proof  need  be 
adduced.  It  is  almost  certainly  the  concoction  of  Apion 
himself,  perhaps  based  upon  some  such  statement  as 
this  just  quoted  from  Damocritus.  Its  melodramatic 
features,  the  fattening  of  the  stranger,  the  oath  sealed 
by  blood,  are  highly  characteristic  of  Apion's  style. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  this  particular  charge  against 
the  Jews  had  any  real  success.  The  later  writers  do  not 
mention  it.  Tacitus  and  Juvenal,  both  of  whom  are 
very  likely  to  have  read  Apion,  pass  by  the  story  in 
silence.  And  Juvenal,  who  in  his  Fifteenth  Satire 
expresses  such  detestation  of  a  similar  act  among  the 
Egyptians  he  abominated,''  would  certainly  not  have  let 
off  the  Syrian  fortune-tellers,  whom  he  equally  disliked, 
with  an  allusion  to  their  unsociability. 


190      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Non  monstrare  vias  nisi  eadem  sacra  colenti^  **  They 
are  instructed  not  to  point  out  a  road  except  to  those 
who  share  their  rites."  It  might  almost  seem  as  though 
even  rhetorical  animosity  demanded  more  for  its  terms 
of  abuse  than  the  authority  of  Apion. 

The  tragic  importance  of  the  ''  ritual  murder  "  in  the 
modern  history  of  the  Jews  since  the  Crusades  has 
given  the  account  of  Apion  a  significance  to  which  it  is 
by  no  means  entitled.  The  least  analysis  will  show  that 
the  "  ritual  murder  "  of  modern  times  is  not  really  like 
the  ancient  story  at  all.  The  latter  is  simply  an  applica- 
tion to  the  Jews  of  the  frequent  charge  of  ievodvata^ 
"  sacrifice  of  strangers,"  such  as  was  made  against  the 
Scythians.  And  Apion's  fable  found  practically  no 
acceptance.  There  is  of  course  no  literary  transmission 
between  Apion  and  the  chroniclers  of  Hugh  of  Lincoln, 
but  we  cannot  even  suppose  that  there  was  a  popular 
one.  In  the  fearful  struggles  of  the  rebellions  under 
Hadrian  and  Trajan,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the 
mutual  hatred,  which  found  such  expression  as  the 
massacre  at  Salamis  and  the  reprisals  of  the  Greeks, 
would  have  failed  to  register  this  charge  against  the 
avoGLoL  'lovSaloL,  "  the  wicked  Jews,"  if  it  were  known. 

The  early  Middle  Ages,  at  any  rate  from  the  Cru- 
sades on,  devised  the  "  ritual  murder  "  without  the  aid 
of  older  authorities.  It  is  one  of  the  many  cases  in 
which  parallel  developments  at  different  times  and  in 
dififerent  places  produce  results  that  are  somewhat  sim- 
ilar, although  only  superficially  so.""" 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION 

A  favorite  adjective  in  describing  the  Jews  was 
"  superstitious."  Strangely  enough,  another,  perhaps 
even  more  general,  was  ''  irreligious."  The  Jews  were 
frequently  stigmatized  as  aOtoi,  a  word  generally  trans- 
lated ''  atheist,"  and  undoubtedly  often  used  in  the 
sense  of  the  modern  term.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  the  term  meant,  in  its  application  to  the  Jews, 
all  that  the  corresponding  modern  term  implies.  That 
is  particularly  necessary  here,  since  to  the  modern  world 
the  devotion  of  the  nation  to  its  Deity  is  its  most  strik- 
ing characteristic,  and  at  least  one  of  the  key-notes  of 
its  historical  development.  Upon  us  it  has  almost  the 
effect  of  a  paradox  to  read  that  this  people  impressed 
some  Greeks  as  a  nation  of  *'  atheists  "  or  "  godless." 

The  modern  term  and  the  ancient  partly  cover 
each  other.  Both  often  denote  the  speculative  negation 
of  a  supernatural  direction  of  the  world.  Now  it 
simply  cannot  be,  in  view  of  the  wide  distribution  of 
the  Jews  and  their  successful  propaganda,  that  even  the 
unthinking  could  associate  the  people  whose  claims  to 
direct  divine  guidance  were  so  many  and  so  emphatic, 
with  a  term  that  implied  the  non-recognition  of  any  god. 
We  may  remember  how  even  the  very  first  contact  had 


192      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


seemed  to  emphasize  the  rehgious  side  of  the  Jewish 
communal  Hfe. 

The  usual  explanations  will  not  bear  analysis.  It  is 
frequently  asserted  that  '*  atheist  "  was  applied  to  the 
Jews  because  of  their  imageless  cult.  The  natural 
inference,  we  are  told,  from  the  fact  that  there  were  no 
statues  was  that  there  were  no  gods.  But  that  is  to 
assign  to  the  statue  a  larger  importance  in  ancient 
religious  theory  than  in  fact  belonged  to  it.  We  meet, 
to  be  sure,  cases  where  the  identification  of  the  statue 
and  the  resident  deity  seems  to  be  complete.  Especially 
in  such  scoffers  as  Lucian,^  or  in  the  polemics  of  the 
philosophic  sects,  or  in  those  of  Jews  and  Christian 
writers,  Romans  and  Greeks  are  often  charged  with  the 
adoration  of  the  actual  figure  of  stone  or  bronze.  That, 
however,  was  surely  not  the  general  attitude  of  any 
class.  The  passages  that  seem  to  show  it  are  generally 
figurative  and  often  imply  merely  that  the  god  had 
taken  his  abode  within  the  statue,  and  might  leave  it  at 
will. 

Indeed,  just  for  the  masses,  the  most  intense  and 
direct  religious  emotions  were  always  aroused,  not  by 
the  great  gods  whose  statues  were  the  artistic  pride  of 
their  cities,  but  by  the  formless  and  bodiless  spirits  of 
tree  and  field  and  forest  that  survived  from  pre-Olym- 
pian  animism.  And  these  latter,  if  adored  in  symbolic 
form,  were  represented  generally  by  pillars  or  trees, 
and  not  by  statues  at  all. 

Nor  were  the  Jews  the  only  imageless  barbarians 
whom  the  Greeks  and  Romans  encountered.  Most  of  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  193 

surrounding  nations  can  scarcely  have  possessed  actual 
statues  at  first.  And  the  Greeks  or  Romans  drew  no 
such  inference  as  atheism  from  the  fact  that  they  found 
no  statues  of  gods  among  Spaniards,  Thracians,  Ger- 
mans, or  Celts.  On  the  contrary,  we  hear  of  gods 
among  all  these  nations,  many  of  them  outlined  with 
sufficient  clearness  to  be  identified  promptly  with  vari- 
ous Greek  deities.  What  a  Greek  would  be  likely  to 
assume  is  rather  that  these  barbarians  lacked  the  skill  to 
fashion  statues  or  the  artistic  cultivation  to  appreciate 
them.  If  it  occurred  to  him  to  explain  the  imageless 
shrine  at  Jerusalem  at  all,  he  would  no  doubt  have 
offered  some  such  statement,  especially  as  it  was  quite 
common  to  assume  lack  of  artistic  skill  in  barbarians. 

Atheism  as  a  philosophic  doctrine  was  relatively  rare. 
Diagoras  of  Melos,  a  contemporary  of  Socrates,  and 
Theodore  of  Gyrene,^  a  contemporary  of  the  first 
Ptolemy,  were  said  to  have  held  that  doctrine,  and  the 
former  was  known  from  it  as  ''  the  Atheist."  How- 
ever, even  in  this  case  we  cannot  be  quite  sure  of  our 
ground.  Some  of  the  poems  of  Diagoras  seem  to  have 
a  distinct,  even  a  strong,  religious  feeling.  Josephus 
asserts  that  Diagoras'  offense  in  Athenian  eyes  was 
scoffing  at  the  mysteries.^  If  that  is  true,  he  received 
his  sobriquet  less  from  atheism,  as  we  understand  it, 
than  from  the  same  facts  that  brought  Protagoras, 
Anaxagoras,  and  Socrates  himself  within  the  ban  of  the 
Athenian  police.  That  is,  he  was  charged  rather  with 
contempt  of  the  actually  constituted  deities  of  the 
Athenian  state  than  with  a  general  negation  of  a 
13 


194      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

divinity.  The  term  itself,  aO^o^,  is  not  necessarily  nega- 
tive. In  fact,  Greek  had  very  few  purely  negative 
ideas.  In  Plato's  Euthyphro*  the  only  alternatives  that 
are  admitted  are  ^€0(^tAes  and  dcofjuah,  i.  e.  what  the 
gods  hate  and  what  the  gods  love.  So  the  various  Greek 
adjectives  compounded  with  "  a  privative,"  avoi(f>eXr]^, 
''  useless,"  aySovAo?,  "thoughtless,"  are  really  used  in  a 
positive  sense  contrary  to  that  of  the  positive  adjective. 
So  av(j}cf)€\r)s  is  rather  "  harmful  "  than  merely  **  use- 
less "  ;  aySouAo?  is  "  ill-advised  " ;  etc.  The  word  aOeo^s 
would,  by  that  analogy,  rather  denote  one  that  opposed 
certain  gods  than  one  who  denied  them.  A  man  might 
be  adeo<s  in  one  community  and  not  in  another.  Indeed 
his  "  atheism  "  might  be  an  especial  devotion  to  a  divine 
principle  which  was  not  that  recognized  by  the  state. 

In  ordinary  literary  usage  a^eos  is  denuded  even  of 
this  significance.  It  means  little  more  than  "  wicked." 
It  is  used  so  by  Pindar,  by  Sophocles,  and  in  general  by 
the  orators.  Often  it  runs  in  pairs  with  other  adjectives 
of  the  same  character.     Xenophon  calls  Tissaphernes 

(An.  II.  V.  29)    d^eoraros  Koi  Trarov/oyoraTos,  "  most   god- 

less  and  wicked,"  in  which  the  superlative  is  especially 
noteworthy.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  often  used 
of  a  man  whom  the  gods  would  have  none  of,  rather 
than  one  who  rejects  the  gods.  A^cos,  ac^iAo?  oXoifiav, 
cries  the  chorus  in  Oedipus  Rex,  *'  May  I  die  abandoned 
by  gods  and  men."° 

When  it  is  first  used  of  the  Jews  by  Molo,  it  is  as  part 
of  just  such  a  group  ;  aOcot  Kal  /xto-av^yowTrot,  he  calls  the 
Jews.  "  hateful  to  gods  and  men,"  and  other  rhetoricians 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  195 

follow  suit.  As  a  term  of  abuse,  a^eo?  was  as  good  as 
any  other. 

But  there  may  have  been  a  more  precise  sense  in 
which  the  Jews  might  by  an  incensed  Greek  be  properly 
stigmatized  as  oOeoi.  To  the  thoroughgoing  mono- 
theists,  the  gods  of  the  heathen  are  non-existent.  They 
are  not  evil  spirits,  but  have  no  being  whatever.  The 
prophets  and  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the  Jews  held 
that  view  with  passionate  intensity.  But  even  they  used 
language  which  readily  lends  color  to  the  view  that  these 
gods  did  exist  as  malignant  and  inferior  daemonia. 
The  "  devils  "  of  Leviticus  xvii.  7  are  undoubtedly  the 
gods  of  other  nations.^  The  name  ''  Abomination," 
which  for  the  Jew  was  a  cacophemism  for  ''  god," 
equally  implies  by  its  very  strength  a  common  feeling  of 
the  reality  of  the  being  so  referred  to.  Likewise  the 
other  terms  of  abuse  which  the  Jews  lowered  upon 
the  gods  of  the  heathen  indicate  a  real  and  fiercely  per- 
sonal animosity. 

Hatred  and  bitterness  formed  almost  a  religious 
duty.  An  implacable  war  was  to  be  waged  with  the 
abominable  thing,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  dictates  of 
courtesy  would  stand  in  the  way.  The  retort  of  a^eos 
would  mean  no  more  than  a  summary  of  the  fact  that 
the  Jew  was  the  declared  enemy  of  the  constituted 
deity,  whose  anger  he  provoked  and  whose  power  he 
despised.^ 

Something  of  this  appears  in  the  statement  of  the 
Alexandrian  Lysimachus,  that  the  Jews  were  enjoined 
to  overturn  the  altars  and  temples  which  they  met 


196      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


(Josephus,  Contra  Ap.  i.  34),  and  in  the  phrase  of  the 
elder  Pliny  (Hist.  Nat.  XIII.  iv.  46),  gens  contumelia 
numinum  insignis,  "  a  race  famous  for  its  insults  to  the 
gods." 

Most  of  the  phrases  that  have  been  quoted  have  been 
taken  from  works  where  they  were  little  more  than 
casual  asides  imbedded  in  matter  of  different  purport. 
Rhetoricians,  in  attempting  to  establish  a  point,  use 
some  phrase,  either  current  through  popular  usage  or 
a  commonplace  in  their  schools.  In  this  respect  the 
Jews  fare  no  better  and  no  worse  than  practically  all 
nationalities  of  that  time.  Individual  writers  disliked 
or  despised  various  peoples,  and  said  so  in  any  manner 
that  suited  them.  Slurs  against  Romans,  Athenians, 
Boeotians,  Egyptians,  Cappadocians  are  met  with 
often  enough.  The  Cretans  were  liars,  the  Boeotians 
guzzlers,  the  Egyptians  knaves,  the  Abderitans  fools ; 
antiquity  has  furnished  us  with  more  than  one  enter- 
taining example  of  national  hate  and  jealousy.*  The  epi- 
thets which  the  Acheans  showered  on  their  Aetolian 
rivals  certainly  leave  nothing  to  be  desired  as  far  as 
intensity  is  concerned.*  The  various  panders  of  Roman 
comedy  often  are  represented  as  particularly  choice 
specimens  of  Agrigentine  character."  Cicero  particu- 
larly knew  from  his  rhetorical  masters  how  to  use 
national  prejudices  in  the  conduct  of  his  business.  If 
Celts  are  the  accusers  of  his  client,  as  they  were  in 
the  case  of  Fonteius,  they  are  perjurers,  murderers, 
enemies  of  the  human  race.  "  Tribes,"  he  says,  "  so 
far  removed  from  other  races  in  character  and  customs 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  197 

that  they  fight,  not  for  their  rehgion,  but  against  the 
rcHgion  of  all  men.""  If  they  are  Sardinians,  these 
are  a  ''  tribe  whose  worthlessness  is  such  that  the  only 
distinction  they  recognize  between  freedom  and  slavery 
is  that  the  former  gives  them  unlimited  license  to  lie."  " 

To  take  this  seriously  is  to  misconceive  strangely 
both  the  functions  of  an  advocate  and  the  license  of 
rhetoric.  Now  the  abusive  paragraphs  directed  against 
the  Jews  are  quite  of  this  type.  And  it  is  in  the  highest 
degree  extraordinary  that  these  phrases,  which,  in  the 
instances  just  cited,  are  given  no  weight  in  determining- 
national  attitude,  should  be  considered  of  the  highest 
importance  in  the  case  of  the  Jews.  Whether  it  was 
Syrian,  Greek,  or  Celt  that  was  attacked,  the  stock  epi- 
thet means  no  more  than  the  corresponding  terms  of 
our  own  day  mean. 

But  besides  these  occasional  flings  there  were  whole 
books  directed  against  the  Jews,  and  to  that  fact  a  little 
attention  may  be  given. 

It  is  a  relatively  rare  thing  that  a  writer  should  nurse 
his  bile  against  a  particular  people  to  the  extent  of 
expanding  it  into  a  whole  book.  We  must  of  course 
remember  that  a  ''  book  "  was  sometimes,  and  especially 
in  this  polemical  literature,  a  single  roll,  and  we  are  not 
to  understand  it  in  the  sense  of  a  voluminous  treatise. 
However,  there  were  such  books  and  these  we  must 
now  consider. 

What  such  a  book  was  like,  recent  anti-Semitism 
has  made  it  very  easy  to  imagine.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  this  type  of  pamphlet  was  appreciably 


198      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

different  in  those  days.  It  consisted  of  a  series  of  bitter 
invectives  interspersed  with  stories  as  pieces  justiHca- 
tives.  Now  and  then  an  effort  is  made  to  throw  it  into 
the  form  of  a  dispassionate  examination.  But  even  in 
very  skilful  hands  that  attitude  is  not  long  maintained. 

Of  several  men  we  know  such  treatises.  All  have 
already  been  mentioned — Apollonius  Molo,  Damocri- 
tus,  and  probably  Apion. 

Apollonius,  either  son  of  Molo,  or  himself  so  named, 
was  one  of  the  most  considerable  figures  of  his  day. 
He  taught  principally,  but  not  exclusively,  at  Rhodes, 
and  numbered  among  his  pupils  both  Cicero  and  Caesar. 
As  a  rhetorician  he  enjoyed  an  extensive  and  well- 
merited  influence.  It  was  during  his  time  that  the  reac- 
tion against  the  florid  literary  style  of  Asia  culminated 
in  the  equally  artificial  simplicity  of  the  Atticists — a 
controversy  of  the  utmost  importance  in  the  history  of 
Latin  literature  no  less  than  Greek.  The  doctrine  of 
mediocritas,  "  the  golden  mean,"  set  forth  by  Molo, 
moulded  the  style  of  Cicero  and  through  him  of  most 
modern  prose  writers.  The  refined  taste  and  good 
sense  which  could  avoid  both  extremes  justify  his 
repute  and  power. 

He  was  a  voluminous  writer  on  historical  and  rhetor- 
ical subjects.  Only  the  smallest  fragments  remain,  not 
enough  to  permit  us  to  form  an  independent  estimate  of 
his  style  or  habits  of  thought.  Just  what  was  the  incen- 
tive for  the  pamphlet  he  wrote  against  the  Jews  it  is 
impossible  to  conjecture.  But  it  is  not  likely  that  it  con- 
tained many  of  the  specially  malignant  charges.     To 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  199 

judge  from  Josephus'  defense,  it  seems  to  have  con- 
cerned itself  chiefly  with  their  unsociability,  and  may 
have  been  no  more  than  a  sermon  on  that  text.  Josephus' 
charge  against  him  is  that  of  unfairness.  There  is  none 
of  the  abuse  in  Josephus'  account  of  Molo  which  he 
heaps  upon  Apion.  We  may  accordingly  infer  that 
Molo's  pamphlet  was  considerably  less  offensive.  It 
may  have  been,  in  effect,  a  mere  declamatio,  a  speech 
in  a  fictitious  cause,  or  the  substance  of  an  oration 
delivered  in  an  actual  case.  Or  perhaps  a  single  in- 
stance of  personal  friction  produced  it  as  an  act  of 
retaliation.  The  rhetoricians  of  those  days  were  essen- 
tially a  genus  irritabile,  and  their  wrath  or  praise  was 
easily  stirred. 

Of  Damocritus  we  know  almost  nothing.  Suidas,  a 
late  Byzantine  grammarian,  mentions  a  short  work  of 
his  on  Tactics,  and  one  as  short,  or  shorter^  on  the  Jews. 
The  reference  to  human  sacrifice  (above,  p.  189),  might 
be  supposed  to  indicate  a  strong  bias.  While  it  is  likely 
enough  that  it  was  hostile  in  character,  that  single  fact 
would  not  quite  prove  it,  since  we  do  not  know  whether 
Damocritus  represented  these  human  sacrifices  as  an 
ancient  or  a  still-existing  custom. 

The  third  name,  Apion,  has  become  especially  famil- 
iar from  the  apology  of  Josephus.  The  latter  refers 
to  him  throughout  as  an  Egyptian,  and  in  spite  of  cer- 
tain very  warm  and  modern  defenders,  he  very  likely 
was  of  Egyptian  stock.  From  the  Oasis  where  he  was 
born,  he  came  to  Alexandria,  where  he  established  a 
great  reputation.     Undoubtedly  possessed  of  fluency 


200      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

and  charm  as  a  speaker,  he  was  a  most  thoroughgomg 
charlatan,  a  noisy  pedant  wholly  devoid  of  real  critical 
skill.  He  boasted  of  magical  power,  through  which  he 
was  enabled  to  converse  with  the  shade  of  Homer.  His 
vanity  prompted  the  most  ludicrous  displays  of  arro- 
gance. Tiberius  Caesar  dubbed  him  the  cymbalum 
mvmdi,  "  the  tom-tom  of  the  world,"  a  characterization 
that  seems  to  have  been  generally  accepted." 

In  the  appeal  of  the  Jewish  residents  of  Alexandria 
against  the  maladministration  of  the  prefect  Flaccus, 
argued  before  the  emperor,  he  represented  the  Alexan- 
drian community,  whose  acts  were  the  basis  of  the 
charge  made  by  the  Jews.  As  such  he  no  doubt  deliv- 
ered an  anti-Jewish  invective,  and  it  is  at  least  likely 
that  this  speech  formed  the  substance  of  his  book  on 
the  subject,  just  as  the  defense  of  the  Jews  and  the 
attack  upon  Flaccus  are  contained  in  the  two  extensive 
fragments  of  Philo,  the  Legatio  ad  Gaium,  and  the  In 
Flaccum. 

It  has  been  doubted  whether  he  really  wrote  such 
a  book,  although  there  are  express  statements  that  he 
did.  It  is  true  enough  that  those  who  assert  it  may 
easily  have  been  misled  by  the  fact  that  certain  books 
of  his  History  of  Egypt  may  have  contained  these 
anti-Jewish  passages  or  most  of  them.  None  the  less, 
the  fact  that  he  must  have  prepared  a  set  speech  in 
the  case  mentioned,  coupled  with  the  statements  of 
Clemens  of  Alexandria  and  Julius  Africanus,  renders 
the  older  view  the  more  probable."  There  would  of 
course  be  nothing  strange  if  the  books  of  the  History 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  20 t 

of  Egypt  and  a  special  monograph  contained  essen- 
tially the  same  material. 

As  to  other  similar  pamphlets,  we  hear  of  a  Trcpt 
^lovhaiuiv  by  a  certain  Nicarchus,  son  of  Ammonius, 
which  may  have  had  an  ''  Egyptian "  bias,  in  that 
Moses  is  said  to  have  been  afflicted  with  white  scales 
upon  his  body — an  assertion  that  seems  to  be  a  re- 
vamping of  Manetho's  "  leprous  outcasts."  But  the 
title  of  the  book  does  not  point  to  a  wholly  hostile 
attitude,  nor  does  the  passage  referred  to  necessarily 
imply  such  an  attitude." 

Taking  all  these  passages  together,  from  Manetho 
to  Apion,  one  thing  must  be  evident :  Manetho  him- 
self, Mnaseas,  Agatharchidas,  Chaeremo,  Lysimachus, 
Apion,  are  either  Egyptians  or  are  trained  in  Alex- 
andria, and  represent  the  Egyptian  side  of  a  bitter 
racial  strife,  as  intense  and  lasting  as  was  generally 
the  case  when  the  same  community  contained  sev- 
eral compact  groups  of  different  political  rights  and 
privileges. 

The  conditions  of  the  population  of  Alexandria  have 
been  previously  discussed.  It  was  the  great  market 
center  of  the  East,  and  as  such  of  the  Mediterranean 
world,  since  the  commercial  and  intellectual  hegemony 
was  always  east  of  the  Aegean  Sea.  The  population 
had  been  a  mixed  one  since  its  foundation.  The  warped 
notions  that  have  often  been  held  of  the  position  of  the 
Jews  there  are  due  to  a  failure  to  realize  concretely  how 
such  a  city  would  be  likely  to  grow.  The  Greeks 
and   Macedonians   that   were   originally   settled  there 


202      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

undoubtedly  constituted  a  real  aristocracy,  and  made 
that  attitude  very  thoroughly  felt.  One  thing  further 
is  clear,  that  the  native  Egyptians,  who  probably  formed 
the  mass  of  the  populace,  looked  upon  these  Greeks  as 
they  did  upon  all  foreigners,  with  intense  dislike.  We 
have  a  document  in  which  a  Greek  suitor  in  court 
impugns  the  credibility  of  Egyptian  testimony  against 
him  because  of  the  well-known  hatred  Egyptians  bear 
toward  Greeks/'' 

Egyptian  animosity  toward  Jews  had  been  of  longer 
standing  simply  because  intercourse  in  close  proximity 
was  much  older.  Further,  the  Jewish  colonies  from 
early  Persian  times  had  always  represented  the  foreign 
master.  It  was  as  natural,  therefore,  for  this  animosity 
to  express  itself  in  street-conflicts  in  Alexandria  as  for 
anti-Greek  feeling  to  be  manifested  there.  Those 
modern  investigators  who  have  confidently  asserted  that 
Alexandrian  "  anti-Semitism  "  was  of  Greek  origin  and 
leadership  have  permitted  the  rattle  of  the  cymbalum 
mundi  to  confuse  their  minds.  For  it  is  Apion  and 
Apion  alone  that  makes  the  claim  that  the  Jews  are 
especially  embittered  against  Greeks,  and  seeks  to 
create  a  general  Greek  feeling  against  them.  His 
motives  are  too  apparent  to  need  comment,  and  there  is 
no  evidence  whatever  that  he  was  successful. 

Further,  it  is  the  Egyptians  Manetho  and  Apion 
whose  tirades  have  a  fiercely  personal  coloring.  The 
Greek  Alexandrians  make  their  anti-Jewish  polemics  on 
the  basis  of  general  theories,  and  particularly  lay  stress 
on  what  was  to  them  the  perfectly  irrational  separatism 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  203 

which  the  Jews  had  made  a  part  of  their  religion.  As 
has  been  frequently  shown,  the  relatively  small  frag- 
ments of  these  writers  do  not  enable  us  to  say  how  far 
this  Jewish  characteristic  is  used  to  point  a  moral,  much 
as  the  modern  clergy  takes  chauvinistic  commonplaces 
to  illustrate  the  evil  results  of  doctrines  they  are 
attacking. 

In  the  case  of  two  Greeks,  Posidonius  of  Apamea  in 
Syria,  and  Molo,  no  Egyptian  influence  can  be  shown. 
Both  were  among  the  most  influential  men  of  their 
time.  Molo's  career  and  importance  have  been  briefly 
sketched.  To  Posidonius  must  be  assigned  a  still  more 
powerful  intellectual  influence  over  his  generation  and 
those  that  followed."  The  leader  of  the  Stoic  school  or, 
as  it  may  well  be  called,  sect,  he  so  reorganized  its 
teaching  that  the  Stoa  became  nothing  else  than  the 
dominant  faith  among  cultivated  men,  a  situation  per- 
haps paralleled  by  Confucianism  in  China,  which  is  also 
an  ethical  philosophy  that  finds  it  possible  to  dwell  on 
terms  of  comity  with  various  forms  of  cruder  popular 
belief. 

What  Molo's  philosophic  affiliations  were  is  not  easy 
to  determine.  The  Stoics  were  nearer  than  most  other 
schools  to  rhetoricians  and  grammarians,  but  many  men 
of  these  professions  acknowledged  allegiance  to  the 
Academy,  to  Epicureanism,  or  even  to  the  revived 
Pythagoreanism  of  the  first  century  b.  c.  e.  Of  the 
extensive  writings  of  the  Rhodian  rhetorician  there  is 
not  enough  left  to  give  even  a  probable  answer. 


204      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

But  most  philosophic  sects  laid  stress  on  the  univer- 
sality of  their  teachings,  and  were  marked  by  an  intense 
intellectual  rationalism.  The  crude  psychology  of  those 
days  made  the  formation  of  categories  a  simple  thing. 
Thinkers  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  admit  that 
inherited  instincts  could  qualify  the  truth  of  a  philo- 
sophic dogma.  More  particularly,  the  philosophic 
movements  were  powerful  solvents  of  nationalism. 
Even  the  distinction  between  Greek  and  barbarian  did 
not  exist  in  theory  for  them.^  The  notion  of  the  state 
and  the  maintenance  of  its  ancestral  rites  became  for 
them  a  meaningless  but  innocuous  form,  which  men  of 
common  sense  would  not  despise,  but  to  which  one 
could  attach  no  great  importance. 

Face  to  face  with  congregations  like  those  of  the 
Jews,  which  enforced  their  separation  by  stringent 
religious  prohibitions,  the  Stoics  more  than  others  found 
their  opposition  roused.  More  than  others,  because  many 
Stoics  adopted  from  the  Cynical  school  the  methods  of 
the  diatribe,  the  popular  sermon,  and,  indeed,  made  an 
active  attempt  to  carry  the  universality  of  their  prin- 
ciples into  practice.  And  the  Stoics,  more  than  others, 
would  find  the  height  of  irrationality  in  the  stubborn 
insistence  on  forms  for  which  only  an  historical  justi- 
fication could  be  found. 

A  highly  interesting  document,  which  gives  a  certain 
phase  of  the  controversy,  or  perhaps  even  fragments  of 
an  actual  controversy,  between  the  general  philosophic 
and  the  Jewish  doctrine,  has  come  down  to  us  in  the 
tract  known  as  the  Fourth  Book  of  Maccabees.     The 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  205 

author  announces  his  purpose  of  setting  forth  a  most 

philosophic  thesis,  to  wit,  whether  the  pious  reason  is 

sovereign  over  the  passions.    The  philosophic  argument, 

which  fills  the  first  three  chapters,  is  Stoic  in  form  and 

substance.    Then,  to  illustrate  his  point,  he  cites  certain 

vaguely  remembered  stories  of  II  Maccabees,  which 

he  expands  into  highly  detailed  dramatic  forms.    In  the 

mouth  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  are  placed  the  stock 

philosophic   arguments   against  the   Jews,   which   are 

triumphantly   refuted  by   the   aged   Eleazar  and   the 

seven  sons  of  Hannah. 

So  we  hear  Epiphanes  reasoning  with  Eleazar  and 

urging  him  to  partake  of  swine's  flesh  (IV  Mace.  v.  8 

seq.)  : 

For  It  is  obviously  a  senseless  proceeding  to  refrain  from 
enjoying  those  pleasures  of  life  which  are  free  from  shame: 
it  Is  even  wicked  to  deprive  oneself  of  the  bounties  of  nature. 
And  it  seems  to  me  that  your  conduct  will  be  still  more  sense- 
less, if  you  provoke  my  anger  because  of  your  zeal  for  some 
fancied  principle.  Why  do  you  not  rid  your  mind  of  the  silly 
doctrine  of  your  people?  Discard  that  stupidity  which  you 
call  reason.  Adopt  a  form  of  thought  that  suits  your  age,  and 
let  your  philosophic  principle  be  one  that  actually  serves  you. 
....  Further  consider  this  :  If  in  the  Deity  you  adore  there 
Is  really  a  power  that  oversees  our  deeds,  It  will  grant  you  full 
pardon  for  all  transgressions  which  you  have  been  forced  to 
commit. 

To  a  Greek,  and  no  doubt  to  many  modern  men,  the 
reasoning  is  conclusive.  It  presents  the  Greek  point 
of  view  very  well  indeed,  and  is  doubtless  the  epitome 
of  many  conversations  and  even  formal  disputes  in 
which  these  matters  were  discussed  between  Greek  and 


-nuU- 


a 


2o6      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Jew.  And  just  as  the  argument  of  Epiphanes  seems 
strangely  modern  in  its  appeal  to  common  sense  and 
expediency,  so  the  answer  of  Eleazar  rings  with  a  lofty 
idealism  that  is  both  modern  and  ancient : 

I  We,  whose  state  has  been  established  by  God,  cannot  admit 

that  any  force  is  more  powerful  than  that  of  the  Law.  Even 
if,  as  you  assume,  our  Law  were  not  divine,  yet,  since  we  sup- 
pose that  it  is,  we  durst  not  set  it  aside  without  gross  impiety. 

^^  Eleazar  then  proceeds  to  elaborate  upon  the  Stoic 
paradox  that  the  slightest  and  the  greatest  transgres- 
sions are  equally  sinful;"  and  that  in  so  far  as  absten- 
tion is  a  form  of  self-control,  it  is  an  admirable  and  not 
a  contemptible  act.  After  a  detailed  account  of  the 
hideous  sufferings  heroically  endured  by  the  priest,  the 
author  breaks  out  into  a  panegyric  of  him  as  a  main- 
tainer  of  the  Law,  in  which  the  fundamental  Stoic  prop- 
osition with  which  he  begins  is  less  prominent  than  his 
intense  Jewish  piety. 

For  us,  however,  the  prime  importance  lies  in  the 
sharp  contrast  between  the  Greek  and  the  Jewish  atti- 
tude. Upon  the  philosophically  cultured  man,  the  rea- 
soning of  Epiphanes  could  not  fail  to  produce  a  certain 
impression.  In  the  case  of  the  seven  sons  of  Hannah, 
while  many  elements  are  repeated  (IV  Mace.  viii.  17 
seq.),  the  writer  has  in  mind  the  appeal  to  the  flesh, 
which  Hellenism  made.  "  Will  you  not  change  your 
mode  of  life  for  that  of  the  Greeks  and  enjoy  your 
youth  to  the  full?"  asks  Antiochus  (ibid.  viii.  8)  ;  and 
that  no  doubt  was  the  whisper  that  came  to  the  heart 
of  many  a  young  man,  surrounded  by  the  bright  and 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  207 

highly  colored  life  of  the  Hellenic  communities  in 
which  he  dwelt.  There  is  no  exchange  of  vituperation. 
The  denunciations  hurled  against  Antiochus  are  im- 
personal, indeed  are  generic.  He  is  the  type  of  tyrant, 
another  Busiris  or  Phalaris,  a  bowelless  despot.  And 
the  one  word  which  alternates  with  ''  senseless  "  in  the 
mouths  of  Antiochus  and  his  executioners  is  "  mad." 

The  actual  events  described  are  of  course  quite  unhis- 
torical.  But  we  do  not  find  here  any  of  the  various 
forms  in  which  racial  animosity  or  personal  spleen 
exhibited  itself  against  the  Jews.  In  spite  of  the  set- 
ting, the  controversy  is,  judged  by  disputation  stand- 
ards, quite  decorous.  The  terrns  that  qualify  the 
Jewish  doctrine  as  "  irrational "  are  almost  contro- 
versial commonplaces.  The  martyrs  do  not  resent  the 
epithet.  They  seem  to  accept  it  as  the  logical  inference 
of  the  carnal  philosophy  of  their  oppressors  and  claim 
to  be  justified  by  a  higher  wisdom. 

Jewish  and  Greek  life  began  to  touch  each  other 
at  many  points  in  the  six  or  seven  generations  that 
intervened  between  Alexander  and  Caesar.  Hellenism 
dominated  the  political  and  social  culture  of  the  Eastern 
Mediterranean,  although  the  nationalities  it  covered 
were  submerged  rather  than  crushed.  In  Egypt  the 
indigenous  culture  maintained  itself  successfully,  and 
forced  concessions  from  the  conqueror,  which  made  the 
Hellenism  of  that  country  a  thing  quite  different  from 
that  of  the  other  lands  within  the  sphere  of  Greek 
influence.  The  resistance  of  the  Jews  also  took  the 
form   of   successful   insurrection,   and    in   their   case 


2o8      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

/"enabled  an  independent  political  entity  to  be  constituted. 
I  The  dispersal  of  the  Jews  was  already  considerable 
*  at  this  time.  It  differed  from  the  dispersal  of  the 
Syrians  in  the  fact  that  the  bond  of  union  of  the  Jewish 
congregations  existed  in  the  common  cult  and  the  com- 
mon interest  in  the  fortunes  of  the  mother-country.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Syrians  of  Rome  and  of  Naples 
shared  nothing  except  the  quickly  effaced  memory  of  a 
common  racial  origin.'" 

1^  The  propaganda  of  the  Jews  was  also  well  under 
way.  Since  it  was  believed  that  they  possessed  a 
mystery,  initiation  into  which  gave  promise  of  future 
beatitude,  they  were  strong  rivals  of  the  Greek  and 
Oriental  mysteries  that  made  similar  claims.  It  was 
chiefly  among  the  half-educated  or  the  wholly  un- 
i  lettered  that  these  claims  would  find  quickest  belief. 
However,  the  Jewish  propaganda  had  also  its  philo- 
sophic side,  and  competed  with  the  variously  organized 
forms  of  Greek  philosophic  thought  for  the  adherence 
of  the  intellectually  advanced  classes  as  well. 

Through  the  Diaspora  and  this  active  propaganda 
an  opposition  was  invited.  In  Egypt  the  opposition  was 
older,  because  the  presence  of  Jews  in  Egypt  was 
of  considerably  earlier  date  than  the  period  we  are  con- 
sidering. The  occasions  for  its  display  were  various, 
but  the  underlying  cause  was  in  most  cases  the  same. 
That  was  the  fact  of  religious  separatism,  which  in  any 
given  community  was  tantamount  to  lack  of  patriotism. 
It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  this  opposition  found 
voice  generally  except  in  Egypt.  Elsewhere  racial  fric- 
tion was  relatively  rare. 


THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION  209 

The  literature  of  the  opposition  falls  into  two  classes  IK/^  k/\/{/AjLf^j 
first,  that  which  scarcely  knows  the  Jews  except  as  a  5t^      ^ 

people  of  highly  peculiar  customs,  and  uses  these  cus- 
toms as  illustrations  of  rhetorical  theses ;  and  second, 
that  which  is  inspired  by  direct  animosity,  either  per- 
sonal or,  in  the  case  of  the  Egyptians,  racial  in  its 
character. 


U^^. 


14 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  ROMANS 

We  have  been  concerned  so  far  almost  wholly  with 
Greeks  and  the  Greek  attitude  toward  the  Jews.  It 
will  be  necessary  at  this  point  to  turn  our  attention  to 
a  very  different  people,  the  Romans. 

If  we  desire  to  trace  the  development  of  this  all- 
overwhelming  factor  in  our  reckoning,  it  will  not  be 
possible  to  go  back  very  far.  During  the  fifth  century 
B.  c.  E.,  in  which  Greek  genius  is  believed  to  have 
reached  its  apogee,  it  is  doubtful  whether  even  the 
faintest  whisper  had  reached  Greeks  that  told  of  the 
race  of  Italic  barbarians  destined  so  soon  to  dominate 
the  world.  Little  as  was  known  of  the  Jews  by  Greeks 
of  this  period,  the  Romans  were  still  less  known.  The 
eyes  of  men  were  persistently  turned  east. 

Rome,  however,  even  then  was  not  wholly  insignifi- 
cant. Many  centuries  before,  there  had  grown  up,  on 
the  south  bank  of  the  Tiber,  a  town  of  composite  racial 
origin.  It  is  possible  to  consider  it  an  outpost  of  the 
Etruscans  against  Sabine  and  Latin,  or  a  Latin  outpost 
against  the  Etruscans.  Whatever  its  origin,  at  an 
indeterminate  time,  when  the  Etruscan  hegemony  over 
central  Italy  was  already  weakened,  this  town  of  Rome 
became  a  member  of  the  Latin  Confederation,  a  group 


THE  ROMANS  211 


of  cities  of  which  the  common  bond  was  the  shrine  of 
Jupiter  Latiaris  on  the  Alban  Mount. 

There  may  have  been  rude  hamlets  upon  this  site 
from  times  very  ancient  indeed.  But  from  the  begin- 
ning of  its  existence  as  a  real  city  Rome  must  have 
been  a  considerable  community.  Her  strategic  position 
upon  seven  hills,  the  commercial  advantages  of  her 
location  upon  a  navigable  stream,  conspired  to  this  end. 

The  Latin  Confederation  had  long  been  under  the 
real  or  titular  presidency  of  the  city  of  Alba.  At  some 
time  before  our  records  become  reliable,  Rome  had 
obtained  a  decidedly  real  leadership  in  the  league, 
and  unscrupulously  used  the  latter's  resources  for  the 
furtherance  of  her  own  power  and  wealth.  Without 
a  definite  programme  of  conquest,  and  with  military 
skill  and  personal  hardihood  very  little,  if  at  all,  superior 
to  that  of  their  neighbors,  the  Romans  had,  by  stead- 
fastness and  native  shrewdness,  developed  a  policy 
which  it  is  difficult  to  put  in  precise  terms,  because  it  was 
never  even  approximately  formulated,  but  which  may 
be  said  to  consist  of  unremitting  vigilance  and  long 
memory,  combined  with  special  alertness  to  profit  by 
the  mistakes  or  division  of  the  foe.  It  may  be  that  the 
indubitably  mixed  character  of  Rome's  population  pro- 
duced that  result.  Certainly  in  these  respects  no  other 
ancient  community  was  its  equal. 

The  legendary  history  of  Rome  is  as  generally 
familiar  as  the  commonest  household  stories  of  the  race. 
Modern  investigators  have  abandoned  the  attempt  to 
find  out  even  partially  the  line  at  which  its  history 


212      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

ceases  to  be  legendary.  Fairly  correct  accounts  of 
Rome  begin  with  the  permanent  contact  of  the  city  with 
a  literate  community  of  which  the  records  have  sur- 
vived, namely,  the  Greeks/ 

The  Greeks  had  founded  cities  along  the  southern 
coast  of  Italy  and  the  eastern  half  of  Sicily  as  early  as 
the  ninth  century  b.  c.  e.  With  some  of  these  cities  it 
was  inevitable  that  Rome  should  be  in  frequent  com- 
munication, but  the  communication  did  not  impress 
itself  for  many  years  upon  that  class  of  Greeks  which, 
in  the  extant  books,  speaks  for  the  whole  people.  Not 
till  the  time  of  Alexander  (330  b.  c.  e.)  do  our  Greek 
records  begin  to  deal  with  Romans.  At  that  time  Rome 
was  already  the  dominant  power  in  central  and  in  the 
interior  of  southern  Italy,  succeeding  roughly  to  the 
empire  of  that  great  Tuscan  League  of  which  she  was 
once  the  subject.  And  yet,  Alexander's  teacher,  the 
encyclopedically  learned  Aristotle,  had  only  vaguely 
heard  of  Rome  as  an  Italian  city  overrun  by  marauding 
Gauls.' 

The  position  occupied  then  by  Rome  would  of  itself 
have  made  active  participation  in  Mediterranean  affairs 
a  necessity.  The  embroilment  of  Romans  in  the  con- 
flicts in  which  international  politics  is  expressed  was 
precipitated  by  the  ambition  of  the  restless  Diadochi 
and  their  successors.  It  was  a  kinsman  of  the  lurid 
Demetrius  the  Besieger,  the  Epirote  prince  Pyrrhus, 
who  undertook  to  save  the  Greek  civilization  of  the 
coast  cities  from  the  Italian  barbarians.  Pyrrhus  ulti- 
mately retired  with  his  tail  between  his  legs,  after  hav- 


THE  ROMANS  213 


ing  dragged  the  Romans  into  Sicily  and  brought  them 
face  to  face  with  the  Carthaginians.  The  succeeding 
three  generations  were  occupied  in  the  mortal  grapple 
between  these  two.  It  ended  with  the  triumph  of 
Rome. 

So  far  Rome  had  dealt  only  with  the  West,  but  with 
the  permanent  eastward  bent  of  men's  minds  the  lord  of 
the  Western  Mediterranean  was,  as  such,  a  power  in  the 
East  as  well.  Scarcely  a  single  generation  passed  before 
it  became  the  sole  power  in  the  East,  so  that  future 
political  history  becomes  the  act  of  officially  recording 
successive  realizations  of  that  fact.  And  yet,  this  extra- 
ordinary people,  which  had  in  an  astoundingly  short 
time  secured  the  primacy  over  a  considerable  fraction 
of  the  earth,  was  apparently  possessed  of  slighter  intel- 
lectual endowments  than  many  of  its  subjects.  It  had 
not  succeeded  in  giving  such  culture  as  it  had  developed 
any  artistic  form.  And  before  it  had  taken  any  steps 
in  that  direction,  it  came  into  immediate  contact  with 
nations  of  much  older  culture,  which  had  done  so ;  in 
one  case,  a  nation  which  had  carried  artistry  of  form 
to  a  degree  never  subsequently  attained  by  any  single 
people.  First,  the  Etruscans  had  given  in  bulk  a  mass 
of  finished  cultural  elements,  especially  in  religion  and 
constructive  crafts,  and  had  otherwise  exercised  an 
influence  now  wholly  undeterminable.  Secondly,  by 
Etruscan  mediation  and  afterwards  directly,  the 
RomansJaecame  the  intellectual  vassals  of  the  Greeks,  a 
fact  that  lends  some  justification  to  the  modern  tend- 
ency to  treat  classical  antiquity  as  a  single  term. 


214      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

The  Romans  obtained  their  very  earhest  knowledge 
of  the  Jews  when  the  political  and  social  development 
just  outlined  was  practically  complete. 

The  treaty  cited  in  I  Mace.  viii.  22  seq.  is  per- 
haps apocryphal,  but  the  substantial  accuracy  of  the 
chapter  is  scarcely  doubtful.  "  And  Judas  had  heard 
the  name  of  the  Romans,"  we  read,  and  this  statement 
is  followed  by  a  lengthy  recital  of  the  recent  conquests 
of  Rome.  After  the  first  Hasmonean  successes  the  little 
knowledge  that  Roman  and  Jew  had  of  each  other  may 
be  so  summed  up.  On  the  Roman  side,  the  responsible 
senatorial  oligarchy  learned  with  undisguised  satisfac- 
tion that  a  previously  unknown  tribe  of  Syrian  moun- 
taineers, grouped  about  a  famous  temple-rock  not  far 
from  the  Egyptian  frontier,  had  successfully  main- 
tained themselves  against  a  troublesome  and  unaccount- 
able tributary  king.  On  the  Jewish  side,  the  leaders  of 
the  victorious  rebels,  conscious  of  the  precarious  nature 
of  their  success,  turned  at  once  to  that  mighty  people — 
known  as  yet  scarcely  by  report — which  from  far  off 
directed  men's  destinies.  Even  at  that  time  the  Roman 
policy  of  divide  et  impera,  ''  divide  and  rule,"  was  well 
understood  and  consciously  exploited  by  all  who  could 
do  so.  The  embassy  sent  by  Judas — there  is  no  real 
reason  for  questioning  its  authenticity — presented  to 
curious  Romans  in  162  b.  c.  e.  an  aspect  in  no  way 
different  from  that  of  other  Syrian  embassies  long 
familiar  to  the  capital.  And  if  it  is  true  that  some  of 
that  train  or  of  a  later  embassy  of   Simon  took  up 


THE  ROMANS  215 


permanent  residence  in  Rome,  that  fact  was  probably 
scarcely  noticed  from  sheer  lack  of  novelty. 

Generally  speaking,  the  Roman  attitude  to  the  Jews, 
as  to  all  other  peoples,  was  that  of  a  master :  the  attitude 
of  the  Goth  in  Spain,  the  Manchu  in  China,  the  English 
in  India.  No  one  of  these  analogues  is  exact,  but  all 
have  this  common  feature,  that  individuals  of  the 
dominant  race  can  scarcely  fail  to  exhibit  in  their  per- 
sonal relations  with  the  conquered  an  arrogance  that 
will  vary  inversely  with  the  man's  cultivation.  It  is  so 
very  easy  to  assume  for  oneself  the  whole  glory  of 
national  achievements.  No  doubt  every  Italian  peasant 
and  artisan  believed  that  it  was  qualities  existing  in 
himself  that  commanded  the  obedience  of  the  magnifi- 
cent potentates  of  the  East.  The  earliest  attitude  of 
Roman  to  Jew  could  not  have  been  different  from  that 
toward  Syrians  or  foreigners  in  general.  If  in  150  b.  c. 
E.  the  term  ludaei  had  reached  the  ears  of  the  man  in 
the  street,  it  denoted  a  Syrian  principality  existing  like 
all  other  principalities  at  sufferance  and  upon  the  con- 
dition of  good  behavior. 

For  nearly  a  hundred  years  this  state  of  things 
remained  unchanged.  Then  the  inevitable  happened. 
Syria  became  Roman,  and  the  motives  that  had  won 
Roman  support  for  the  Jews  no  longer  existed.  Roman 
sufferance  was  withdrawn,  and  Judea's  good  behavior 
ceased.  That  Gnaeus  Pompey  encountered  serious 
resistance  on  his  march  from  Antioch  to  Jerusalem  is 
doubtful.  The  later  highly-colored  versions  of  his 
storming  of  the  temple  are  probably  rhetorical  inven- 


2t6     the  jews  among  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

tions.  The  Psalms  of  Solomon,  which  are  very  plausi- 
bly referred  to  this  period,  are  outbursts  of  passionate 
grief  at  the  loss  of  the  national  independence ;  for  no 
recognition  of  Hyrcanus'  rank  could  disguise  the  fact  of 
the  latter's  impotent  dependence  upon  the  senate,  and 
the  limitations  openly  placed  upon  the  vassal-king's 
authority  show  that  the  Romans  were  at  no  pains  to 
disguise  the   fact.^ 

When  the  Romans  added  Asia  to  their  dominions, 
as  they  had  in  the  generation  preceding  the  occupation 
of  Jerusalem,  they  annexed  with  Asia  many  hundreds 
of  Jewish  synagogues  in  the  numerous  cities  of  Asia. 
Jews  lived  also  in  Greece,  in  Italy  and  Rome  itself,  and 
in  Carthage.  Egypt,  which  contained  many  hundreds 
of  thousands,  was  still  nominally  independent.  Roman 
officials  had  long  known  how  to  distinguish  the  ludaei 
from  others  of  those  ubiquitous  Syrians  who,  as  slaves, 
artisans,  physicians,  filled  every  market-place  of  the 
empire.  More  than  one  provincial  governor  must  have 
collected  a  few  honest  commissions  from  a  people 
indiscreet  enough  to  collect  sums  of  considerable  mag- 
nitude, as  the  Jews  did  for  the  support  of  the  temple. 

That  they  were  classed  as  Syrians  did  not  raise  the 
Jews  in  general,  and  particularly  in  Roman,  esteem. 
The  Syrians,  to  be  sure,  were  one  of  the  most  energetic, 
perhaps  mentally  the  quickest,  of  the  races  then  living, 
but  they  were  the  slave  race  par  excellence ;  i.  e.  the 
largest  number  of  slaves  were  and  had  long  been  derived 
from  among  them.  The  vices  of  slavery,  low  cunning, 
physical  cowardice,  lack  of  self-respect,  were  apparent 


(c.  UnderwiiuU  and  Under uivod) 


RUINS  OF  AN  ANCIENT  SYNAGOGUE  AT  MEROM,  GALILEE, 

PALESTINE 
(Roman    Period) 


THE  ROMANS  217 


enough  in  those  Syrians  who  were  actually  slaves,  and 
were  transferred  to  all  men  of  that  nation.  "  Syri "  is 
nothing  less  than  a  term  of  contempt  applied  to  any 
people  of  unwarlike  habits.* 

Unwarlike  the  Jews  of  that  day  were  not.    All  that\ 
had  commended  them  to  Roman  notice  was  their  mili-  \ 
tary  successes  over  the  troops  of  Antiochus  and  Deme- 
trius.   Pompey  may  not  have  found  Aristobulus  and  his 
Nabatean  allies  really  formidable,  but  he  did  have  to 
fight,  and  did  not  meet  that  docile  crawling  at  his  feet 
which  he  had  encountered  elsewhere.    That  made  con- 
siderable  difference   in   Roman   eyes,   and   may   have 
caused  the  unusual  tenderness  they  manifested  as  a  rule/ 
for  what  they  loftily  termed  the  Jewish  superstition. 

As  has  been  said,  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  a 
Jewish  community  already  existed  at  Rome,  and  we  \(jj\j\}\ 
shall  see  that  it  must  have  been  fairly  numerous.  As  a  A .  < 
city,  Rome  was  probably  the  least  homogeneous  in  the 
world.  It  may  have  contained  at  this  time  something 
less  than  a  million  people,  perhaps  much  less ;  but  this 
population  was  of  the  most  diverse  origin.  Not  only 
had  the  capital  of  the  world  attracted  to  it  all  manner 
of  adventurers ;  not  only  was  it  teeming  with  slaves  of 
every  imaginable  blood  and  speech ;  but  the  thronging 
of  the  city  with  the  refuse  of  the  world  had  been  a  con- 
scious policy  of  the  democratic  and  senatorial  rings,  to 
whom  modern  "  colonization "  was  a  familiar  and 
simple  process.  When  we  recall  that  the  accepted 
governmental  theory  was  still  that  of  the  city-state,  we 
shall  see  that  mere  residence  made  to  a  certain  extent 


21 8      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


a  Roman  of  everyone  who  lived  v^ithin  the  walls. 
Various  measures  of  expulsion,  such  as  the  Lex  Junia 
Penni  and  the  Lex  Papia  of  65  b.  c.  e.,  were  wholly 
ineffective. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  governmental  apparatus  of 
the  city-state  was  quite  unable  to  cope  with  the  situation 
that  presented  itself.  Until  200  b.  c.  e.,  the  turning- 
point  in  Roman  history,  the  city  was  small  and  mean ; 
the  population,  though  composite,  was  still  almost 
wholly  Italian  in  character.  A  rapid  increase  in  wealth 
and  a  consequent  increase  in  glaring  inequalities  of 
fortune  began  at  this  point.  The  governing  council  of 
ex-magistrates,  whose  office  had  in  practice  become 
almost  hereditary,  found  itself  confronted  by  a  needy 
and  exigent  proletariat,  which  it  could  neither  overawe 
nor  purchase. 

The  urban  tendency  of  the  population  of  Italy  was 
due  largely  to  the  failure  of  the  small  farms  to  support 
their  man.  Free  labor  was  subjected  to  the  constant 
drain  of  military  levies,  and  temporary  suspension  of 
cultivation  was  ruinous.  The  obvious  remedy  was  a 
forced  and  unprofitable  sale  to  the  agrarian  capitalists, 
whose  leasehold  interest  in  the  great  public  lands  had 
long  been  so  nearly  vested  that  it  was  almost  sacrilege 
to  attack  it.  To  migrate  to  the  city  was  then  the  only 
course  open  to  the  peasant,  but  in  the  city  the  demand 
for  free  labor  was  never  great.  The  new  arrivals 
joined  the  great  mass  of  landless  rabble,  sinking  soon 
into  an  idle  and  pauperized  mob. 


THE  ROMANS  219 


But  at  the  same  time  infusions  of  foreign  blood  came 
into  the  city.  The  rapid  rise  in  wealth  and  power  had 
poured  into  Rome  a  constant  stream  of  the  commonest 
of  wares,  viz.  human  chattels.  These  slaves,  Greek, 
Thracian,  but  above  all  Syrian,  were  directly  conse- 
quent upon  the  imperative  demand  for  skilled  labor, 
which  they  alone  could  satisfy.  But  the  very  number  of 
these  slaves,  and  the  changes  in  personal  fortunes, 
which  were  then  even  more  frequent  than  now,  made 
them  often  a  liability  rather  than  an  asset  to  their 
master. 

Enfranchisement  was  encouraged  by  another  con- 
sideration. The  Roman  law,  determined  by  a  very  an- 
cient patriarchal  system,  was  apparently  very  rigid  as 
to  the  extent  of  the  master's  dominium.  The  slave  was, 
in  law  and  logic,  a  sentient  chattel  indistinguishable 
from  ox  and  ass.  But  in  other  respects  the  Roman  law 
was  extraordinarily  liberal.  For  practical  purposes  the 
slave  could  and  did  acquire  property,  the  so-called 
peculium,  and  could  and  did  use  it  to  purchase  his 
freedom. 

Further,  the  newly-made  freeman  became  a  full 
citizen,  a  civis  Romanus.  His  name  was  enrolled  in  the 
census  books ;  he  possessed  full  suffrage,  and  lacked 
only  the  ius  honorum,  the  right  of  holding  office.  Even 
this,  however,  his  children  acquired.  Sons  of  slaves 
who  held  magistracies  are  frequent  enough  to  furnish 
some  notable  examples  ;  e.  g.  Cn.  Flavins,  the  secretary 
to  Appius  Claudius;  P.  Gabinius,  the  proposer  of  the 
Lex  Tabellaria  of  139  b.  c.  e.'  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
indications  of  servile  origin  have  been  found  in  names 
nothing  less  than  illustrious  in  Roman  history." 


220      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

With  this  steady  influx  of  dispossessed  peasants  and 
enfranchised  Greek  and  Asiatic  slaves,  the  urban  popu- 
lation was  a  sufficiently  unaccountable  quantity ;  and  in 
this  motley  horde,  constantly  stirred  to  riot  by  the 
political  upheavals,  which  quickly  followed  each  other 
from  the  Gracchan  period  onward,  all  manner  of 
strange  and  picturesque  foreigners  lived  and  worked. 
To  the  Roman  of  cultivation  they  were  sometimes 
interesting,  more  often  repellent,  especially  if  he  found 
himself  compelled  to  reckon  with  them  seriously  on 
the  basis  of  a  common  citizenship.  Even  for  foreigners 
Roman  citizenship  was  not  very  difficult  to  acquire,  and 
was,  as  we  have  seen,  obtained  with  especial  facility 
through  slavery.  The  emancipated  slave  was  as  such 
a  civis  Romanus.  His  son  had  even  the  ius  honorum ; 
he  might  be  a  candidate  for  the  magistracy.  This 
process  had  been  accelerated  after  the  Social  War, 
which  admitted  an  enormous  and  quite  unmanageable 
number  into  citizenship.  The  popular  leaders  were 
especially  lavish,  and  no  doubt  many  ward  politicians 
took  it  upon  themselves  to  dispense  with  the  formalities 
when  a  few  votes  were  needed. 

We  are  very  fortunate  in  possessing  for  this  period 
records  of  quite  unusual  fulness  and  variety.  The  last 
century  of  the  Roman  republic  was  rich  in  notable  men, 
with  some  of  whom  we  are  especially  familiar.  In 
literary  importance  and  in  permanent  charm  of  person- 
ality, no  one  of  them  can  compare  with  the  country 
squire's  son,  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  who  achieved  the 
impossible   in  his   lifetime,   and  attained  posthumous 


THE  ROMANS  221 


fame  far  beyond  his  wildest  dreams.  He  was  consul  of 
Rome  in  the  very  year  in  which  Jerusalem  was  cap- 
tured, and  was  in  the  throes  of  the  same  political  uncer- 
tainty that  marked  his  whole  later  career.  The  most 
brilliant  pleader  in  the  city  or  the  world,  he  was  feared, 
loved,  and  hated  for  his  mordant  wit,  his  torrential 
fluency  of  speech,  and  his  remarkable  power  and  skill 
in  invective.  Although  his  personal  instincts  had  always 
inclined  him  to  the  gentlemanly  aristrocracy  that  made 
up  the  majority  of  the  senate,  he  had  won  his  first  suc- 
cesses in  politics  on  the  other  side,  and  reached  the  sum- 
mit of  his  ambition,  the  consulship,  as  a  popular  candi- 
date, receiving  the  support  of  the  senate  only  because 
he  was  deemed  the  least  dangerous  of  three. 

In  the  year  59  b.  c.  e.  Cicero,  concededly  the  leader  of 
the  Roman  bar  and  still  more  concededly  the  social  lion 
of  the  day,  undertook  the  defense  of  Lucius  Valerius 
Flaccus,  former  governor  of  Asia,  who  was  charged 
with  maladministration  and  oppression.  The  counts  in 
the  indictment  were  numerous.  Among  them  was  the 
following  allegation :  That  Flaccus  as  praetor  had 
seized  certain  sacred  funds ;  to  wit,  the  moneys  which 
Asiatic  provincials,  Jews  in  origin,  had,  in  accordance 
with  ancient  custom,  collected  and  were  about  to  trans- 
fer to  the  temple  at  Jerusalem.  By  so  doing  Flaccus 
had  doubled  embezzlement  upon  sacrilege,  for  the 
sanctity  of  the  temple  was  established  by  its  antiquity, 
and  confirmed  by  the  conduct  of  Pompey,  who  had 
ostentatiously  spared  it  and  its  appurtenances. 


222      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

It  will  be  necessary  to  examine  in  some  detail  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  entire  case.  Flaccus  was  a  member 
of  the  reactionary  wing  of  the  senatorial  party,  which 
until  recently  had  held  Cicero  aloof  as  an  upstart 
provincial.  His  birth  and  training  were  those  of  an 
aristocrat.  A  certain  portion  of  Cicero's  defense  is 
occupied  in  descanting  on  the  glories  of  the  Valerian 
house,  to  which  Flaccus  belonged.  The  prosecution  of 
Flaccus,  again,  was  a  political  move  of  the  popular 
opposition,  now  at  last,  after  the  futile  essays  of  Lepidus 
and  Catiline,  finding  voice  and  hand  in  the  consummate 
skill  of  Gaius  Julius  Caesar. 

Shortly  before  this  date  a  powerful  combination  had 
been  made,  which  enlisted  in  the  same  scheme  the 
glamour  of  unprecedented  military  success  in  the  per- 
son of  Gnaeus  Pompey,  the  unlimited  resources  of  the 
tax-farmers  and  land-capitalists  represented  by  Marcus 
Crassus,  and  the  personal  popularity  of  the  demagogue 
Caesar.  Each  no  doubt  had  his  own  axe  to  grind  in  this 
coalition,  and  the  bond  that  held  them  was  of  an  uncer- 
tain nature,  opposition  to  the  senatorial  oligarchy. 
Further,  only  in  the  case  of  Caesar  was  the  opposition  a 
matter  of  policy.  In  the  case  of  the  other  two,  it  was 
the  outcome  of  nothing  loftier  than  pique.  None  the 
less,  when  the  strings  were  pulled  by  Caesar,  this 
variously  assembled  machine  moved  readily  enough. 

In  59  B.  c.  E.  this  cabal  had  been  successful  in  winning 
one  place  in  the  consulship,  that  of  Caesar  himself. 
Lucius  Flaccus  had  earned  Caesar's  enmity  by  his 
vigorous  action  against  the  Catilinarians  in  63  b.  c. 


THE  ROMANS  223 


E.,  SO  that  when  an  influential  financier,  C.  Appuleius 
Decianus,  complained  of  Flaccus'  treatment  of  him,  the 
democratic  leader  found  an  opportunity  of  gratify- 
ing his  allies,  of  posing  as  the  protector  of  oppressed 
provincials,  and  wreaking  political  spite  at  the  same 
time.  A  certain  Decimus  Laelius  appeared  to  prosecute 
the  ex-governor  of  Asia. 

Of  Flaccus'  guilt  there  seems  to  be  no  reasonable 
question.  He  was  plainly  one  of  the  customary  type  of 
avaricious  nobles  to  whom  a  provincial  governorship 
was  purely  a  business  proposition.  No  doubt  he  was 
no  worse  than  his  neighbors.  His  guilt  seems  to  have 
been  especially  patent.  '*  Cicero,"  says  Macrobius, 
"secured  the  acquittal  of  Flaccus  by  an  apposite  jest, 
although  the  defendant's  guilt  of  the  charges  made  was 
perfectly  apparent."  "'  And  indeed  on  the  •  principal 
counts  Cicero  has  no  evidence  except  exaltation  of 
Flaccus'  personal  character,  and  abuse  of  the  witnesses 
against  him,  whom  he  characterizes  as  lying  and  irre- 
sponsible Greeks.  His  peroration  is  a  flaming  denuncia- 
tion of  the  prosecution  and  an  appeal  to  the  jury  not  to 
permit  the  supporters  of  the  dead  traitor  Catiline  to 
win  a  signal  triumph. 

The  speech  was  successful.  Flaccus  was  acquitted, 
and  the  acquittal  may  have  hastened  Cicero's  own  ban- 
ishment. But  for  us  the  particularly  interesting  part 
of  this  brilliant  effort  is  contained  in  §§66-69.  After 
he  has  disposed  of  the  various  charges  of  peculation 
and  extortion,  he  turns  to  the  charges  made  by  the 
Jews: 


224      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Next  comes  the  malicious  accusation  about  the  gold  of  the 
Jews.  No  doubt  that  is  the  reason  why  this  case  is  being 
tried  so  near  the  Aurelian  terrace.  It  is  this  count  in  the 
indictment,  Laelius,  that  has  made  you  pick  out  this  place,  and 
that  is  responsible  for  the  crowd  about  us.  You  know  very 
well  how  numerous  that  class  is,  with  what  unanimity  they  act, 
and  what  strength  they  exhibit  in  the  political  meetings.  But 
I  shall  frustrate  their  purpose.  I  shall  speak  in  a  low  tone, 
just  loud  enough  for  the  jury  to  hear.  There  is  no  lack  of 
men,  as  you  very  well  know,  to  stir  these  fellows  up  against  me 
and  every  patriotic  citizen ;  and  I  have  no  intention  of  making 
the  task  of  such  mischief-makers  lighter  by  any  act  of  mine. 

The  facts  are  these :  Every  year  it  has  been  customary  for 
men  representing  the  Jews  to  collect  sums  in  gold  from  Italy 
and  all  our  provinces  for  exportation  to  Jerusalem.  Flaccus 
in  his  provincial  edict  forbade  this  to  be  done  in  Asia. 

Now,  gentlemen,  is  there  a  man  who  can  honestly  refuse 
commendation  to  this  act?  That  gold  should  not  be  exported 
is  a  matter  which  the  senate  had  frequently  voted,  and  which 
it  did  as  recently  as  my  own  consulship.  Why,  it  is  a  proof  of 
Flaccus'  vigorous  administration  that  he  took  active  steps 
against  a  foreign  superstition,  as  it  is  an  indication  of  a  lofty 
sense  of  duty  that  he  dared  defy,  where  the  public  weal  was 
concerned,  the  furious  mass  of  Jews  that  frequently  crowd  our 
meetings. 

But,  we  are  told,  when  Jerusalem  was  captured,  the  con- 
queror Gn.  Pompey  touched  nothing  in  that  shrine.  And  that 
was  very  wisely  done  on  Pompey's  part,  as  in  so  many  other 
acts  of  that  commander.  In  so  suspicious  and  slanderous  a 
city  as  ours,  he  would  leave  nothing  for  his  detractors  to  take 
hold  of.  But  I  do  not  believe,  and  I  cannot  suppose  you  do, 
that  it  was  the  religion  of  such  a  nation  as  the  Jews,  recently  in 
arms  against  Rome,  that  deterred  our  illustrious  general.  It 
was  rather  his  own  self-respect. 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  just  wherein  does  the  accusa- 
tion lie?  You  do  not  anywhere  charge  theft;  you  do  not 
attack  the  edict ;  you  admit  due  process  of  law ;  you  do  not 
deny  that  the  moneys  were  openly  confiscated  upon  official 
investigation.     The  testimony  itself  discloses  that  the  whole 


THE  ROMANS  225 


matter  was  carried  on  by  men  of  rank  and  position.  At 
Apamea,  Sextus  Caesius,  a  Roman  knight  and  a  gentleman  of 
whose  honor  and  integrity  there  can  be  no  question,  openly 
seized  and  weighed  out  in  the  forum  at  the  feet  of  the  praetor 
a  little  less  than  a  hundred  pounds  of  gold.  At  Laodicea  an 
amount  somewhat  more  than  twenty  was  seized  by  Lucius 
Peducaeus,  a  member  of  this  very  jury;  at  Adramytus,  .  .  .  . 
by  the  governor's  representative,  L.  Domitius.  A  small 
quantity  was  also  seized  at  Pergamon.  The  accounts  of  the 
gold  so  seized  have  been  audited.  The  gold  is  in  the  treasury. 
There  is  no  charge  of  theft.  The  purpose  of  the  charge  is 
to  excite  odium  against  my  client.  It  is  not  the  jury  that 
the  prosecution  is  addressing,  but  the  audience,  the  crowd 
about  us. 

Religious  scruples,  my  dear  Laelius,  are  primarily  national 
concerns.  We  have  our  own,  and  other  states  have  theirs. 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  even  while  Jerusalem  was  standing, 
and  the  Jews  were  at  peace  with  us,  there  was  very  little  in 
common  between  the  religious  customs  of  which  their  rites  are 
examples  and  those  which  befit  an  empire  as  splendid  as  ours, 
or  a  people  of  our  character  and  dignity.  Our  ancestral  institu- 
tions are  as  different  from  theirs  as  they  well  can  be.  Now, 
however,  there  surely  can  be  all  the  less  obligation  upon  us  to 
respect  Jewish  religious  observances  when  the  nation  has 
demonstrated  in  arms  what  its  feelings  are  toward  Rome,  and 
has  made  clear  how  far  it  enjoyed  divine  protection  by  the  fact 
that  it  has  been  conquered,  scattered,  enslaved. 

There  are  a  number  of  difificulties  with  the  passage. 
The  text  of  the  final  sentence  is  doubtful — but  the  dis- 
cussion of  that  point  will  be  reserved  for  the  Notes.^ 

We  cannot  suppose  that  Cicero  was  guilty  of  delib- 
erate misstatement  on  matters  about  which  he  could  be 
immediately  confuted.  We  must  therefore  accept  his 
assertion  that  this  count  in  the  indictment  did  not 
charge  theft  or  malversation,  but  merely  public  con- 
fiscation of  the  funds  in  question.  It  is  undoubtedly  a 
15 


226      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

fact  that  the  exportation  of  the  precious  metals  had  been 
frequently  forbidden,  although  the  senatorial  resolution 
to  this  effect  was  far  from  being  a  law,  but  with  this 
precedent  and  even  without  it  no  one  could  very  well 
deny  that  it  was  within  the  imperium  of  a  proconsul  to 
make  such  a  regulation  if  he  saw  fit." 

One  may  well  ask  with  Cicero,  Uhi  ergo  crimen  est? 
The  point  seems  to  be  that  previous  officials  had  inter- 
preted the  rule  to  refer  to  exportation  for  commercial 
purposes,  and  had  exempted  from  its  operation  con- 
tributions for  religious  purposes.  Doubtless  the  self- 
imposed  temple  tax  of  the  Jews  was  not  the  only  one  of 
its  kind.  If  custom  had  sanctioned  that  exemption, 
Flaccus'  act  would  be  felt  as  an  act  of  oppression,  since 
the  strict  or  lenient  enforcing  of  the  edict  on  this  point 
was  purely  a  matter  of  discretion."  Flaccus'  successor, 
Quintus  Cicero,  a  brother  of  the  orator,  seems  to  have 
reverted  to  the  former  practice. 

In  one  other  respect  the  seizure  of  these  sums  may 
have  seemed  an  act  of  arbitrary  tyranny.  The  sum 
seized  at  Apamea  was  said  to  be  one  hundred  pounds 
of  gold — about  72  English  pounds — and  must  have 
equaled  about  75,000  Roman  denarii  or  Athenian 
drachms.  As  the  temple  tax  was  a  didrachm,  that 
would  imply  over  35,000  heads  of  famihes,  or  a  total 
Jewish  population  for  Apamea  of  170,000.  That  num- 
ber is  quite  impossible.  It  is,  however,  very  likely  that 
the  Jews  of  the  various  synagogae  paid  their  didrachm 
with  their  other  dues  to  the  corporation  area,  or  treas- 
ury, and  that  it  was  the  whole  treasury  that  was  seized. 


THE  ROMANS  227 


That  would  give  the  Jews  of  these  cities  a  very  real 
grievance,  and  make  their  animus  against  Flaccus  easy 
to  explain. 

The  importance  of  the  passage,  however,  is  in  no 
way  concerned  with  the  justice  or  injustice  of  the 
accusation  against  Flaccus.  It  lies  first  in  its  picture  of 
the  Jewish  community  at  Rome,  and  secondly  in  its 
indication  of  Cicero's  personal  views. 

The  very  insertion  of  the  charge  proves  that  a 
considerable  Jewish  element  existed,  whose  aid  the 
prosecution  was  anxious  to  enlist.  Cicero's  own  state- 
ments show  this  directly.  Here  and  here  only  in  his 
speech  he  refers  to  the  popular  odium  sought  to  be 
incited  against  his  client,  and  speaks  of  the  number  and 
power  of  the  Jews  in  contionibus,^^  "  in  the  political 
meetings,"  and  in  the  crowd  about  him.  Part  of  this, 
the  summissa  voce,  "  low  tone,"  for  example,  is  the 
veriest  acting.  Cicero  was  really  not  afraid  to  say 
loudly  what  he  wished  to  say,  and  if  the  jury  could 
hear  him,  part  of  the  crowd  could  hear  as  well.  But 
although  the  Roman  Jews  were  probably  not  so  redoubt- 
able as  Cicero  would  have  his  jury  believe,  they  must 
have  formed  a  large  contingent.  Where  did  they  come 
from? 

We  have  the  statement  of  Philo  that  it  was  not  until 
the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Pompey  in  63  b.  c.  e.  that 
Jews  were  brought  to  Rome  in  large  numbers.^^  These, 
it  is  supposed,  were  enfranchised  shortly  after,  and  are 
the  people  here  referred  to.  That  may  be  said  to  be 
the  general  view. 


228      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

There  are,  however,  serious  difficulties  in  it  that 
escape  those  who  hold  it,  simply  because  they  fail  to 
follow  in  detail  the  implications  of  their  view.  Pompey 
did  not  arrive  in  Rome  till  January,  6i  b.  c.  e.  His  army 
had  been  previously  dismissed,  but  was  to  assemble  for 
the  great  triumph  that  took  place  in  September,  6i.  The 
trial  of  Flaccus  was  held  in  August,  59  b.  c.  e.  Some 
months  must  have  been  spent  in  preparing  the  case 
against  him.  Accordingly  we  are  to  suppose  that  thou- 
sands of  Jewish  captives  were  brought  to  Rome,  sold 
there,  enfranchised,  learned  Latin,  became  politically 
organized,  and  developed  formidable  voting  strength, 
all  within  less  than  two  years !  The  mere  question  of 
language  makes  the  hypothesis  impossible.  Pompey's 
captives  were  Palestinian  Jews,  of  most  of  whom  the 
native  language  was  Aramaic,  not  Greek."  Without 
command  of  Greek  or  Latin  the  ready  acquisition  of 
either  was  nothing  short  of  miraculous,  and  the 
immediate  political  activity  is  only  less  so. 

But  the  chief  difficulty  lies  in  another  matter.  The 
phrase  '*  taken  prisoners "  immediately  suggests  the 
conditions  of  modern  warfare,  in  which  whole  armies 
are  surrendered  and  transferred  in  bulk  great  distances 
for  safe-keeping.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  some  such  idea 
was  suggested  to  modern  writers  by  the  words  of 
Philo.  But  that  is  not  at  all  what  occurred  in  ancient 
times.  Prisoners  taken  on  the  field  of  battle  were  sold 
immediately  at  the  nearest  market.  Slave-dealers  fol- 
lowed the  army.  Caesar's  account  of  his  campaign  in 
Gaul  affords  numerous  instances  of  this  immediate  dis- 


THE  ROMANS  229 


posal  of  captured  foes ;  e.  g.  the  case  of  the  Atuatuci 
and  Veneti."  If  they  were  assigned  as  loot  to  individual 
soldiers,  they  were  disposed  of  in  the  same  way.  Here 
and  there  a  soldier  would,  for  one  reason  or  another, 
retain  his  prisoner  as  a  personal  slave,  but  in  general 
he  had  almost  no  facilities  for  providing  or  caring  for 
a  number  of  them.  A  few  of  the  distinguished  captives 
were  reserved  by  the  commander  for  a  triumph. 

Now  Pompey's  army  had  just  finished  a  five  years' 
campaign.  It  had  marched  through  Asia  and  Syria, 
winning  battles  that  were  not  very  bloody,  but  must 
have  been  immensely  lucrative.  The  Jews  formed  only 
a  small  portion  of  the  total  prisoners  taken.  If  all  those 
prisoners  actually  accompanied  their  captors  to  Rome, 
the  question  of  transportation  and  provision  for  such  a 
horde  must  have  been  tremendous.  What  could  have 
induced  a  general  or  private  to  assume  this  enormous 
expense  and  care,  when  the  greatest  slave-market  in  the 
world,  viz.  that  at  Alexandria,  was  relatively  near  by, 
is  inconceivable.  If  they  got  to  Rome,  the  city's  popu- 
lation must  have  swelled  visibly  under  the  process. 
There  is  no  record  that  it  did,  and  it  could  scarcely  have 
escaped  notice,  had  such  a  thing  taken  place. 

And  finally,  even  if  we  assume  that  such  a  wholly 
unprecedented  and  inexplicable  incident  occurred,  how 
are  we  to  explain  the  immediate  and  wholesale  en- 
franchisement of  so  large  a  number?  Ransom  by 
wealthy  coreligionists  at  Rome  is  excluded  by  the 
hypothesis.  Similar  action  by  Jews  outside  the  city 
would  demand  a  much  longer  time.    The  reasons  gener- 


230      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

ally  assigned  are  based  upon  the  assumed  uselessness  of 
Jewish  slaves  for  ordinary  purposes  because  of  their 
dietary  laws  and  religious  intransigeance.  But  that  is 
a  purely  dogmatic  assertion.  Papyri  and  inscriptions 
have  shown  that  in  spite  of  a  bitter  racial  opposition  and 
perhaps  economic  strife  as  well,  Jew  and  non-Jew  could 
live  quite  peaceably  together.  The  dietary  laws  would 
not  render  his  master's  meals  obnoxious  to  a  Jewish 
slave,  because  he  did  not  eat  at  his  master's  table,  and 
might  consume  his  scanty  vegetable  food  where  and 
how  he  pleased.  If  a  master  actually  chose  to  force 
attendance  at  the  sacrifice,  the  compulsion  of  necessity 
would  have  been  a  valid  excuse  for  all  but  those  of 
martyr  stuff,  and  we  cannot  suppose  that  every  Jewish 
soldier  had  in  him  the  zeal  of  a  martyr.  Besides,  for 
such  compulsion  the  slave  would  in  no  sense  be  responsi- 
ble,, and  it  is  with  disadvantages  moving  from  him  that 
we  are  concerned. 

It  is  simply  impossible  to  imagine  what  could  have 
induced  Pompey's  soldiers  or  those  who  purchased  from 
them  to  enfranchise  immediately  slaves  transported 
from  such  a  distance  and  at  such  expense. 

Philo's  statement  is  at  best  a  conjecture,  made  with- 
out any  better  acquaintance  with  the  facts  than  we 
ourselves  possess,  and  contradicted  by  the  necessary 
inference  from  Cicero's  words. 

We  must  therefore  assign  the  settlement  of  Jews  in 
Rome  to  a  much  earlier  date.  The  tradition  that  some 
of  the  train  of  Simon's  embassy  had  remained  in  Rome 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  probable  enough.     To  that  nucleus 


THE  ROMANS  231 


there  was  added,  by  a  perfectly  natural  and  even  inevi- 
table infiltration,  a  group  of  Jewish  freedmen,  artisans, 
and  merchants  who  were  establishing  themselves  all 
over  the  Mediterranean.  Jews  are  met  with  at  Delphi 
a  hundred  years  before  the  delivery  of  this  speech." 

We  have  therefore,  in  59  b.  c.  e.,  an  established  Jew- 
ish community,  necessarily  organized  in  synagogues  and 
chiefly  of  servile  origin.  The  use  of  foreigners  at  the 
polls  by  the  political  leaders  had  led  to  the  Lex  Junia 
Penni  of  80  b.  c.  e.  and  the  Lex  Papia  of  65  b.  c.  e., 
which  ordered  foreigners  to  leave  the  city.  But 
these  measures  were  wholly  ineffective,  and  in  any 
case  could  have  only  partly  served  those  who  proposed 
them,  since  the  mass  of  the  democratic  strength  lay  in 
the  proletariat,  and  the  proletariat  was  largely  com- 
posed of  undoubted  citizens,  although  freedmen.  The 
Jews  formed,  as  we  see,  an  active  and  troublesome 
element  in  the  turbulent  city  populace.  Their  attach- 
ment to  the  democratic  leader,  Caesar,  is  well  attested, 
and  Caesar's  marked  favor  toward  them  has  all  the 
appearance  of  the  payment  of  a  political  debt,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Cisalpine  Gauls." 

As  far  as  Cicero  was  concerned  personally,  we  may 
assume  that  his  attitude  was  the  contempt  which  he  no 
doubt  honestly  felt  for  the  iniima  plehs  and  for  Syrian 
barbarians  in  particular.  He  probably  voices  the  senti- 
ments of  the  optimates,"  with  whom,  though  still  hesi- 
tant, he  had  already  cast  his  fortunes.  The  abuse  arises 
from  the  necessities  of  the  case.  As  previously  pointed 
out,  it  is  in  this  very  speech  that  we  have  fine  examples 


232      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


of  the  device  of  abusing  your  opponent's  witnesses 
when  arguments  give  out.  These  phrases  show  no 
special  animus.  Just  as  Greeks  are  Hars  if  they  are  on 
the  other  side,  and  men  of  honor  on  his  own,  as 
exhibited  almost  in  successive  paragraphs  of  this 
speech,"  so  we  may  be  sure  if  Cicero  were  prosecuting 
Flaccus,  a  few  eloquent  periods  would  extol  the  char- 
acter of  those  ancient  allies  and  firm  friends  of  Rome, 
the  Jews. 

How  much  Cicero  really  knew  of  the  Jews  is  not  cer- 
tain. He  is  aware  that  in  point  of  religious  observance 
the  Jews  are  strikingly  different  from  other  tribes.  The 
contrast  he  emphasizes  in  his  speech  may  be  an 
allusion  to  the  imageless  cult  of  the  Jews  and  the 
inference  of  meanness  and  poverty  of  ceremonial  which 
Romans  would  draw  from  it.  And  the  taunt  quam  dis 
cara,  *'  how  dear  to  the  gods,"  seems  an  unmistakable 
fling  at  the  claim  of  the  Jews,  loudly  voiced  in  their 
propaganda,  to  possess  in  a  high  degree  the  favor  of  the 
Divinity,  or  even  a  special  communion  with  the  Deity  in 
their  mysteries. 

All  this  Cicero  might  have  learned  from  his  sur- 
roundings. It  is  doubtful  that  he  learned  it  from 
Posidonius  and  Molo,  both  of  whom  he  knew  well.  In 
these  two  appear  stories  which  Cicero  could  hardly  have 
overlooked  if  he  knew  them.  When  we  remember  what 
he  says  of  Sardinians  in  the  Scauriana,  of  Gauls  in 
the  Fonteiana,"  he  surely  would  not  have  omitted  to 
catalogue  the  tales  treasured  up  by  these  two  Greek 
teachers  of  his;  to  wit,  the  ass-god,  the  scrofulous 


THE  ROMANS  233 


prophet,  the  savage  inhospitality  and  absurd  fanaticism 
Molo  and  Posidonius  ascribe  to  the  Jews. 

One  other  phrase  which  Cicero  appHes  to  Jews  would 
deserve  little  attention  if  it  were  not  for  the  extra- 
ordinary general  inferences  some  have  drawn  from  it. 
In  May,  56  b.  c.  e.,  Cicero  has  an  opportunity  to  vent  his 
venom  on  his  enemy  Gabinius,  consul  in  59  b.  c.  e., 
whom  he  held  personally  responsible  for  the  humiliation 
of  his  exile.  Gabinius,  in  56,  was  governor  of  Syria, 
and  seems  to  have  been  rather  short  with  the  tax- 
farmers,  whom,  to  the  delight  of  the  provincials,  he 
treated  with  contumely  and  no  doubt  with  gross  in- 
justice. The  persistent  favor  he  showed  to  all  pro- 
vincial claims  against  these  men,  many  of  them  Cicero's 
personal  friends  and  at  all  times  his  supporters,  caused 
the  orator  to  exclaim : 

As  far  as  the  unfortunate  tax-farmers  are  concerned — and 
I  count  myself  equally  unfortunate  to  be  compelled  to  relate 
their  misfortunes  and  sufferings — Gabinius  made  them  the 
chattel-slaves  of  Jews  and  Syrians,  races  themselves  born  to  be 
slaves. 

The  concluding  phrase  is  simply  the  application  of 
the  rhetorical  commonplace  of  Greeks  that  barbarians 
as  such  were  slaves  by  nature.  It  was  applied  to 
Syrians  with  a  certain  justice,  as  the  slave  name 
Syrus  testifies.  From  that  standpoint,  however,  it  was 
obviously  absurd  to  assert  that  it  was  true  of  Jews. 
Cicero's  inclusion  of  them  is  due  to  the  fact  that,  as 
governor  of  Syria,  Gabinius  would  have  had  many 
occasions  to  favor  Jewish  litigants  against  the  publicans, 
probably  in  pursuance  of  his  party's  policy.    Gabinius, 


234      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

we  may  recall,  was  a  very  obedient  servant  of  his 
masters,  the  triumvirs,  and  the  interest  of  the  leading 
spirit  of  the  coalition  in  the  provinces  has  been  pre- 
viously pointed  out.*" 

Allusions  of  this  type  made  in  the  course  of  vehement 
advocacy  or  invective  are  really  of  little  meaning  even 
as  an  indication  of  personal  feeling.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  Cicero  shows  very  little  sympathy  in  general  with 
the  Roman  masses  or  with  the  provincials,  despite  the 
Verrine  prosecution.  That  he  could  have  felt  any 
interest  or  liking  for  Syrian  barbarians  in  or  out  of  the 
city  is  very  improbable. 

None  the  less,  within  Cicero's  own  circle,  the  same 
elements  in  Jewish  customs  which  had  impressed 
Greeks,  such  as  Theophrastus  and  Clearchus,  could  not 
fail  to  strike  such  Romans  as  made  philosophic  pre- 
tensions. The  fame  of  the  shrine  at  Jerusalem  had 
reached  Rome  a  century  earlier,  as  we  have  seen  from 
Polybius.  Pompey's  capture  of  the  city  formed  no 
inconsiderable  item  in  his  exploits.  Cicero  refers  to 
him  jestingly  as  noster  Hierosolymarms,  "  Our  Hero  of 
Jerusalem.""  We  can  tell  from  Cicero's  own  words 
the  emphasis  that  Laelius  had  laid  on  the  fame  of  the 
temple  and  its  sanctity  when  he  denounced  Flaccus.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  it  was  a  constant  practice  of  Romans  to 
find,  in  those  institutions  of  barbarians  which  could  be 
called  severe  or  simple,  the  image  of  their  own  golden 
age  of  simplicity,  before  the  advent  of  Greek  luxury. 
So  Cicero's  learned  friend  and  correspondent  Varro  is 
quoted  by  Augustine''  as  referring  to  the  Jews  among 


THE  ROMANS  235 


others  as  a  people  whose  imageless  cult  still  maintains 
what  the  Romans  had  abandoned.  There  may  be  very 
little  sincerity  in  this  regret  of  a  simple-living  past,  but 
it  is  an  indication  that  the  exceptional  character  of 
Jewish  religious  customs  might  in  Cicero's  own 
entourage  be  characterized  in  terms  somewhat  different 
from  those  of  the  Flacciana. 

We  shall  have  reason  to  distinguish  very  sharply 
between  the  attitude  of  Romans  of  rank  and  cultivation 
and  that  of  the  great  mass.  However,  that  is  true  not 
only  in  this  relatively  minor  detail  but  in  thousands  of 
other  matters  as  well.  The  Roman  gentleman  was  dis- 
tinct from  the  mass,  not  merely  in  political  principles, 
but  in  his  very  speech.  In  the  following  generations 
social  readjustments  of  all  sorts  frequently  modified  the 
position  of  the  Jews  in  Rome,  but  until  the  increasing 
absolutism  of  the  monarchy  practically  effaced  dis- 
tinctions, the  cleavage  just  indicated  largely  determined 
the  point  of  view  and  even  the  terms  used. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
JEWS  IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  assertion  that  both 
Greeks  and  Romans  of  the  last  pre-Christian  century 
were  in  a  state  of  complete  moral  and  religious  collapse, 
that  polytheism  had  been  virtually  discarded,  and  that 
the  worn  souls  of  men  were  actively  seeking  a  new 
religious  principle  to  take  its  place.  This  general  state- 
ment is  partly  true,  but  it  is  quite  inadequate,  if  it  is 
made  to  account  for  the  situation  at  Rome  at  that  time. 
The  extant  literature  of  the  time  makes  it  quite  clear 
that  there  was  no  belief  in  the  truth  of  the  mythology. 
But  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  ever  had  been,  and 
mythology  was  no  part  of  religion.  This  was  particu- 
larly true  at  Rome.  For  some  thousands  of  years  the 
inhabitants  of  central  Italy  had  performed  ceremonies 
r — ^in  their  fields  in  connection  with  their  daily  life.  A 
I  great  many  of  these  ceremonies  had  become  official  and 
I  regulated  in  the  city  of  Rome  and  many  other  Italic 
civic  communities.  It  was  the  practice  of  educated 
Italians  to  devise  aetiological  stories  for  these  practices 
and  to  bring  them  into  connection  with  Greek  myths.  In 
this  way  a  Roman  mythology  was  created,  but  more 
even  than  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks  it  was  devoid  of  a 
folkloristic  foundation.^  For  the  masses  these  stories 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  existed.     But  the  cere- 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  237 

monies  did,  and  their  punctilious  performance  and  the 
anxious  care  with  which  extraordinary  rites  of  purga- 
tion were  performed  satisfied  the  ordinary  needs  of 
ordinary  men. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  rehgious  movement 
which  from  the  seventh  century  b.  c.  e,  spread  over  the 
Eastern  Mediterranean,  and  which  was  concerned  with 
the  demand  for  personal  salvation  and  its  corollary,  a 
belief  in  personal  immortality.  In  the  Greek-speaking 
world  the  carriers  of  that  movement  were  the  Orphic 
and  Dionysiac  mysteries.  In  the  non-Greek  East  there 
was  abundant  occasion  for  beliefs  of  this  kind  to  gain 
ground.  The  great  world  monarchies  introduced  such 
cataclysms  in  the  smaller  nations  that  a  violent  read- 
justment of  relations  with  the  divinity  was  frequently 
necessitated,  since  the  god's  claim  to  worship  was 
purely  national.  No  such  profound  political  upheavals 
occurred  in  Greece.  Here,  however,  a  fertile  field  for 
the  spread  of  mysteries  and  extra-national  means  of 
divine  relations  was  found  in  the  rapid  economic  degen- 
eration caused  by  the  slave  system.  Attachment  to  the 
state  was  confined  to  those  who  had  a  stake  in  it.  The 
maxim  that  a  man's  fatherland  was  where  his  fortune 
brought  him  seemed  less  a  bold  and  cynical  aphorism 
than  the  veriest  commonplace  for  all  but  a  few  idealists.^ 
To  save  the  personality  that  individual  misfortunes 
threatened  to  overwhelm,  recourse  was  had  to  every 
means  and  especially  to  the  vague  and  widespread  doc- 
trine of  other  and  fuller  existences  beyond  the  confines 
of  mortality. 


238      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

In  Rome  the  obvious  hinge  in  the  destinies  of  the 
people  from  almost  every  point  of  view  was  the  Hanni- 
balic  war.  For  a  short  time  disaster  seemed  imminent, 
and  the  desperate  reaching  out  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
for  divine  support  could  not  fail  to  make  a  deep  im- 
pression upon  thousands  of  men.  In  that  moment  of 
dreadful  stress,  it  was  not  the  Etruscan  Triad  on  the 
Capitol  nor  Father  Mars,  but  the  mystic  Ma,  the 
Ancient  Mother  of  Phrygia  with  her  diadem  of  towers, 
her  lion-chariot  and  her  bloody  orgies,  that  stayed  the 
rush  of  the  Carthaginian.  It  is  true  that  the  city's 
ultimate  triumph  caused  a  reaction.  An  increased 
national  self-consciousness  made  Romans  somewhat 
ashamed  of  their  weakness,  but  they  could  not  blot  out 
the  memory  of  the  fact. 

The  city's  increase  in  total  well-being  went  on  with 
tremendous  strides,  but  the  disintegrating  forces  of 
a  vicious  economic  system  were  present  here  too. 
Besides,  the  special  circumstances  that  tended  to 
choke  the  city  with  people  of  diverse  origin  were  inten- 
sified. In  the  next  few  generations  we  hear  of  the 
threatening  character  of  foreign  mysteries,  of  surrepti- 
tious association  with  the  Cybele  worshipers,  of  Isis 
devotees  gaining  ground.  Shortly  after  the  Second 
Punic  War  occurs  the  episode  of  the  Bacchic  suppres- 
sion. One  can  scarcely  help  noticing  how  strikingly 
similar  were  the  accusations  directed  against  the  Bac- 
chanales  and  those  later  brought  against  the  Christians, 
and  wondering  whether  they  were  any  truer  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other.     The  whole  incident  can 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  239 

easily  be  construed  as  an  act  of  governmental  persecu- 
tion, which,  it  may  be  noted,  was  as  futile  as  such 
persecution  generally  is.  The  orgiastic  Dionysus  was 
not  kept  from  Italy,  though  he  always  remained  an 
uncomfortable  god  for  Romans  of  the  old  type.  One 
reason  has  already  been  referred  to ;  viz.,  the  constant 
recruiting  of  the  iniima  plebs  from  enfranchised  for- 
eign slaves.  The  lower  classes  were  becoming  orien- 
talized. The  great  Sicilian  slave  revolt  of  134  b.  c.  e. 
was  almost  a  Syrian  insurrection,  and  was  under  the 
direct  instigation  of  the  Syrian  goddess  Atargatis.^ 

During  the  civil  wars  and  the  periods  of  uncertainty 
that  lay  between  them,  all  political  and  social  life  seemed 
as  though  conducted  on  the  edge  of  a  smouldering  vol- 
cano. Innumerable  men  resorted  to  magic,  either  in  its 
naive  form  or  in  its  astrological  or  mathematical  refine- 
ments. Newer  and  more  terrific  rites,  stranger  and 
more  outlandish  ceremonials,  found  a  demand  con- 
stantly increasing.  And  the  Augustan  monarchy 
brought  only  a  temporary  subsidence  of  this  excite- 
ment. Order  and  peace  returned,  but  Augustus  could 
not  cure  the  fundamentally  unsound  conditions  that 
vitiated  Roman  life,  nor  did  he  make  any  real  attempt  to 
prevent  Roman  society  from  being  dissolved  by  the 
steady  inpour  of  foreign  blood,  traditions,  and  non- 
Roman  habits  of  mind.  The  need  of  recourse  to  foreign 
mysteries  was  as  apparent  as  ever. 

In  this  way  the  internal  conditions  of  Roman  society 
impelled  men  to  the  alien  forms  of  religion.  And 
external  impulses  were  not  lacking.  There  were  present 


240      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

professional  and  well-equipped  missionaries.  Our 
information  about  them  is  fullest  with  reference  to 
the  philosophic  schools,  which  consciously  bid  for 
the  support  of  educated  Romans.  These  groups  of 
philosophers  were  nearly  all  completely  organized, 
and  formed  an  international  fraternity  as  real  as  the 
great  International  Actors  Association  and  the  sim- 
ilar Athletic  Union."  It  was  scarcely  feasible  to  stand 
neutral.  A  man  was  either  an  Academic,  or  Stoic,  or 
Epicurean,  or  Neopythagorean,  and  so  on.  So  skil- 
ful a  trimmer  as  Cicero's  friend,  the  astoundingly 
shrewd  Atticus,  was  enrolled  as  an  Epicurean.''  Even 
skepticism  classified  a  man  as  an  Academic,  as  Cicero 
himself  was  classed  despite  occasional  exhibitions  of 
sympathy  for  the  Stoa.  And  the  combat  was  as  intense 
and  as  dogmatic  as  that  between  competing  religious 
sects.  That  is  precisely  what  they  were,  and  they 
bandied  their  shibboleths  with  the  utmost  zeal  and 
unction. 

Some  of  these  philosophic  sects,  the  Cynics  and 
Stoics,  reached  classes  of  lower  intellectual  level.  And 
there  they  came  in  conflict  with  astrologer  and  thau- 
maturg,  with  Isis  and  with  Atthis  devotees,  and  with 
Jews.  The  popular  sermon,  the  diatribe,  was  an  insti- 
tution of  the  Cynics,  and  was  directed  to  the  crowd. 
Indeed  the  chief  object  of  Cynic  jibes  was  the  pretension 
of  philosophers  to  possess  a  wisdom  that  was  in  any 
way  superior  to  the  mother-wit  of  the  rudest  boor." 
The  Stoics  too  used  the  diatribe  with  success.  It  must 
not,  however,  be  supposed  that  either  Stoic  or  Cynic 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  241 

was  a  serious  rival  of  the  dramatic  and  sensationally 
attractive  rites  of  the  Eastern  cults.  The  latter  counted 
their  adherents  by  the  hundreds  where  the  preaching 
philosopher  might  pick  up  an  occasional  adherent.  The 
importance  of  the  philosophers  for  the  spread  of  non- 
Roman  beliefs  lies  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  they  reached 
all  classes  of  society,  and,  different  as  they  seem  from 
the  cult-associations  of  the  various  foreign  deities,  they 
really  represented  the  same  emotional  need  as  the  latter. 

These  had  literary  support  as  well.  We  have  recently 
had  restored  to  us  some  astrological  pamphlets,  such 
as  that  of  Vettius  Valens,^  and  we  can  only  guess  from 
what  arsenal  Isiac  or  Mithraist  drew  those  arguments 
with  which  he  boasted  of  confuting  even  Stoics  and 
Epicureans.  But  we  may  safely  assume  that  tracts 
existed  of  this  sort. 

As  far  as  the  Jews  are  concerned,  their  propaganda 
may  have  begun  with  their  first  settlement  in  Rome. 
Cicero  does  not  mention  it,  but  Cicero  was  not  inter- 
ested in  what  went  on  among  the  strata  of  society  in 
which  the  Jews  then  moved.  In  the  next  generation 
their  propaganda  was  so  wide  and  successful  that  it 
must  have  been  established  for  a  considerable  time. 

Further,  from  what  has  been  said  it  is  clear  that  this 
propaganda  must  have  been  directed  primarily  to  the 
plebs,  to  the  same  classes,  that  is,  as  those  who  received 
Isis  and  Cybele,  Mithra  and  the  Cabiri.  At  first  it  prac- 
tically did  not  reach  the  intellectually  cultivated  at  all. 
But  the  Jews  possessed  an  extensive  literature,  which 
in  Egypt  and  the  East  generally  had  assumed  the  form 
16 


242      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

of  "  most  philosophic  "  treatises.  Indeed,  it  is.  quite 
clear  that  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  could  be  enjoyed  by 
none  but  cultured  men.*  Books  of  this  sort,  as  well  as 
the  Bible,  were  accessible,  and  were  read  by  some.  The 
synagogue  service  was  an  exposition  of  Jewish  doctrine 
upon  topics  that  ranked  as  philosophic.  While  there- 
fore it  was  mainly  from  among  the  masses  that  Jewish 
converts  came,  here  and  there  men  of  education  must 
have  found  the  Jewish  preachers  as  convincing  as  the 
philosophic  revivalists,  who  boasted  of  no  more  respect- 
able credentials. 

The  Roman  state  had  found  itself  obliged  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  foreign  religious  movements  at  an 
early  date.  The  official  acceptance  of  Cybele  had 
promptly  been  surrounded  by  restrictions.  Cybele 
was  always  to  remain  a  foreign  goddess.  Romans  were 
stringently  forbidden  to  take  part  in  her  ceremonies." 
Toward  the  forms  of  worship  themselves,  the  Roman 
attitude  was  tolerant  enough.  As  long  as  they  were  con- 
fined to  Egyptians,  Syrians,  Cappadocians,  the  partici- 
pants would  be  secure  from  molestation.  But  that  the 
foreign  rites  might  displace  the  ancestral  forms  was  a 
well-grounded  fear,  and  drastic  precautions  were  taken 
against  that.  The  Bacchanalian  incident  of  i86  b.  c.  E. 
is  the  first  of  these  instances. 

In  the  same  way  the  Roman  police  found  it  necessary 
at  various  times  to  proceed  against  astrologers,  Isis- 
worshipers,  and  philosophers.  The  statement  fre- 
quently occurring,  that  these  groups  were  banished, 
is   constantly  misunderstood.     It   can  apply  only   to 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  243 

foreigners  in  these  classes,  not  to  Roman  citizens 
affected  by  these  strange  beHef s ;  but  it  impUes  that  the 
Roman  citizens  so  affected  were  sufficiently  numerous 
to  make  the  desertion  of  the  national  religion  a  probable 
contingency.  Of  course  Roman  citizens  could  not 
violate  the  laws  that  regulated  religious  observances 
with  impunity.  These  laws,  however,  were  ostensibly 
never  directed  against  the  religious  observances,  but 
against  abuses  and  acts  that  were  connected  with  them. 
That  was  true  even  in  the  case  of  the  Bacchanalia,  when 
the  decree  of  the  senate  expressly  permitted  the  cele- 
bration of  the  rites  under  proper  restrictions. 

Whether  honestly  or  not,  the  Roman  government 
aimed  its  measures  solely  at  certain  indubitably  criminal 
acts,  which,  it  was  alleged,  were  associated  with  the 
practice  of  the  foreign  cults.     These  acts  were  often  I 
offenses  against  public  morality.     Conditions  of  high  ' 
religious  excitement  often  sought  a  physical  outlet  in 
dancing  or  shouting,  and  no  doubt  often  enough,  when 
the  stimulation  of  wine  or  drugs  or  flagellation  was 
added,  in  sexual  excesses.    Instances  that  were  perhaps  1 
isolated  and  exceptional  were  treated  as  characteristic, 
and  made  the  basis  for  repressive  legislation.^" 

Another  and  better  founded  objection  to  many  of  the 
forms  of  foreign  religion  was  the  opportunities  they 
offered  for  swindlers.  As  early  as  139  b.  c.  e.  the 
astrologers  were  banished  from  Rome,  not  because  of 
the  feeling  that  the  astrological  system  was  baseless, 
but  because  of  the  readiness  with  which  professed 
astrologers  defrauded  the  simple  by  portentous  horo- 


244      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

scopes,  which  they  alone  could  interpret  or  avert."  The 
"  Chaldeans  "  or  mathematici  included  many  men  who 
were  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  It  was  obviously 
easier  for  a  Syrian  or  Oriental  generally  to  make  these 
claims  than  for  either  Greek  or  Italian.  Syrians  in  the 
city  accordingly  found  the  profession  of  quack  tempt- 
ing and  profitable,  and  doubtless  many  Jews  as  well 
entered  it. 

We  have  evidence  too  that  many  of  the  mushroom 
political  associations  were  grouped  about  some  of  these 
foreign  deities.  The  possession  of  common  sacra  was, 
in  a  sense,  the  distinguishing  mark  of  any  organized 
body  of  men,  and  organization  of  the  masses  in  all 
forms  was  the  commonest  device  of  the  agitators  of  the 
revolutionary  period.  Clodius  had  his  mobs  grouped  in 
de curies  and  curiae ^^  It  is  likely  enough  that  in  some 
of  these  groups,  consisting  largely  of  freedmen  of 
foreign  birth,  various  foreign  deities  were  worshiped 
in  the  communal  sacra,  so  that  the  various  police 
measures  restricting  or  forbidding  these  rites  may  have 
had  strong  political  motives  as  well. 

When  Caesar  reconstituted  the  state  after  Pharsalia, 
he  knew  from  direct  experience  the  danger  that  lay  in 
unrestricted  association  ostensibly  for  religious  pur- 
poses. The  OiaaoL,  "cult-associations,"  which  he  dis- 
solved were  undoubtedly  grouped  about  some  Greek  or 
Oriental  deity.  The  Jews  were  specially  exempted,  for 
reasons  easy  to  guess  at,  but  which  we  cannot  exactly 
determine.^''  This  striking  favor  cannot  but  have 
immensely  increased  their  influence.    We  need  not  sup- 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  245 

pose  that  Caesar's  orders  were  any  more  effective  than 
previous  decrees  of  this  character  had  been.  But  even 
a  temporary  clearing  of  the  field  gave  the  active  prop- 
agandists among  the  Jews  an  opportunity  which  they 
fully  utilized. 

We  have  sketches  of  Jewish  activities  in  Rome  dur- 
ing the  following  years  drawn  by  master  hands.  In 
every  instance,  of  course,  the  picture  is  drawn  with 
distinct  lack  of  sympathy,  but  it  is  none  the  less  valuable 
on  that  account.  Easily  of  first  importance  is  the  infor- 
mation furnished  us  by  the  cleverest  of  Roman  poets, 
Horace. 

Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus  was  the  son  of  a  former 
slave.  His  racial  origin  accordingly  may  have  been 
found  in  any  corner  of  the  Mediterranean  in  which  we 
choose  to  look  for  it.  That  fact,  however,  is  of  little 
importance,  except  that  the  consciousness  of  servile 
ancestry  must  have  largely  influenced  his  personal  inter- 
course, and  his  patriotism  must  have  been  somewhat 
qualified,  despite  some  vigorously  Roman  sentiments. 
Suave,  obese,  witty,  a  thoroughly  polished  gentlemen 
of  wide  reading  and  perfect  manners,  both  sensual  and 
shrewdly  practical,  Horace  had  early  reached  the  point 
at  which  one  descants  on  the  merits  of  frugality  and 
simplicity  at  the  end  of  a  seven-course  dinner.  His  star 
was  in  the  ascendant.  His  patron  Maecenas  was  the 
trusted  minister  of  Augustus ;  and  to  Augustus,  and  not 
Antony,  fell  the  task  of  rebuilding  the  shattered  frame- 
work of  the  state.  Secure  in  the  possession  of  every 
creature  comfort,  the  freedman's  son  could  loaf  and 
invite  his  soul. 


246      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


That  he  did  so  in  exquisite  verses  is  our  good  fortune, 
and  that  he  chose  to  put  his  shrewd  philosophy  and 
criticism  of  Hfe  into  the  form  of  sketches  that  are  med- 
leys of  scenes,  lively  chat,  satirical  attacks,  and  por- 
traits of  types  and  individuals,  makes  the  period  in 
which  he  lived  and  the  society  in  which  he  moved  almost 
as  vivid  to  us  as  that  depicted  in  the  letters  of  Cicero. 

In  one  of  his  Satires — ''  Chats,"  as  he  called  them — 
he  tells  the  story  of  his  encounter  with  a  pushing  gen- 
tleman, of  a  type  familiar  to  every  age.  Horace  cannot 
escape  from  the  infliction  of  his  presence,  and  miserably 
succumbing  to  the  inane  chatter  of  the  bore,  he  comes 
upon  his  friend  Titus  Aristius  Fuscus.  But  his  hopes 
in  that  quarter  are  doomed  to  disappointment. 

"  Surely,"  says  Horace,  nudging  Fuscus,  "  you  said 
you  had  something  you  wanted  to  speak  to  me  about  in 
private." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  remember,"  answers  Fuscus,  "  but  we'll 
let  that  go  for  some  more  suitable  time.  To-day's  the 
thirtieth  Sabbath.  Why,  man,  would  you  want  to 
offend  the  circumcised  Jews  ?" 

"  I  can't  say  that  I  feel  any  scruples  on  that  score." 

''  But  I  do.  I  haven't  your  strength  of  mind.  Fm 
only  a  humble  citizen.  You'll  excuse  me.  I  shall  talk 
over  our  business  at  some  other  time." 

The  little  scene  is  so  significant  that  we  shall  have  to 
dwell  on  it.  One  unescapable  inference  is  that  the  Jews 
in  Rome  were  numerous,  and  that  a  great  many  non- 
Jews  participated  wholly  or  partially  in  their  observ- 
ances.    Fuscus  need  not  be  taken  seriously  about  his 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  247 

own  beliefs,  but  his  excuse  would  be  extravagant  in  the 
highest  degree  if  the  situation  of  the  Jews  were  not 
such  as  has  been  suggested.  Indeed,  the  terms  of  inten- 
tional offensiveness  which  Fuscus  uses  indicate  the 
serious  annoyance  of  either  himself  or  Horace  that  that 
should  be  the  case. 

The  ''  thirtieth  Sabbath "  will  probably  remain  an 
unsolved  riddle."  And  whatever  the  day  was,  the 
extreme  veneration  expressed  by  Fuscus  in  declining 
even  to  discuss  profane  affairs  is  of  course  absurdly  out 
of  keeping  with  the  words  he  uses.  Fuscus  is  simply 
assuming  the  tone  of  a  demi-proselyte,  a  metuens  Sab- 
hata,  whose  superstitious  dread  of  the  rites  he  has  half 
embraced  would  make  him  carry  his  devotion  to  an 
excess.  Horace  thus  obtains  an  opportunity  of  sketch- 
ing a  new  type  of  absurdity,  in  the  very  act  of  girding 
at  the  one  which  is  the  subject  of  the  sermo. 

And  Horace  makes  still  another  reference  to  the 
proselytizing  activities  of  the  Jews.  ''  You  must  allow 
me  my  scribbling,"  he  writes  to  Maecenas  in  another 
Satire.  ''If  you  don't,  a  great  crowd  of  poets  will  come 
to  help  me.  We  far  outnumber  you,  and,  like  the  Jews, 
will  compel  you  to  join  our  rout."" 

This  is  explicit  enough  in  all  conscience,  and  gives  a 
very  vivid  picture  of  the  public  preaching  that  must 
have  brought  the  Jews  to  the  unwelcome  notice  of  every 
saunterer  in  the  Roman  streets.  Horace,  despite  his 
slave  grandfather,  is  a  gentleman,  the  associate  of 
Rome's  aristocracy,  a  member  of  the  most  select  circle 
of  the  city's  society.     The  Jewish  proselytes,  whether 


248      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

fully  converted  or  *'  righteous  strangers,"  must  have 
been  very  numerous  indeed,  if  he  was  forced  to  take 
such  relatively  frequent  notice  of  them.  Horace  has 
no  pictures,  like  those  of  Juvenal,  of  presumptuous 
Syrians,  Egyptians,  or  Greeks  swaggering  about  the 
city.  It  is  only  these  Syrian  Iiidaei  whom  he  finds 
irritating,  and  wholly  because  of  their  successful  hunt 
for  souls. 

It  is  true  that  all  this  may  be  due  to  personal  circum- 
stances in  his  own  surroundings.  Some  of  his  acquaint- 
ances, or  men  whom  he  occasionally  encountered,  may 
have  been  proselytes ;  others  may  have  been  impressed 
by  certain  Jewish  forms  or  ideas.  Horace  is  taking  his 
fling  at  them  in  his  usual  light  manner.  There  is  some- 
thing ludicrous  to  a  detached  philosopher  in  the  eager 
striving  to  save  one's  soul,  and  still  more  absurd  in  the 
earnest  attempt  to  gain  adherents  for  an  association 
that  promises  salvation. 

Once  he  takes  a  more  serious  tone.  In  the  famous 
journey  he  made  with  Maecenas  to  Brundisium  Horace 
is  told  of  an  altar-miracle  at  Egnatia.  The  incense 
melts  of  itself,  it  seems,  in  the  local  temple.  "  Tell  it 
to  the  Jew  Apella,"  says  Horace,  ''  not  to  me.  I  have 
always  been  taught  that  the  gods  live  free  from  every 
care,  and  if  anything  wonderful  occurs  in  nature,  it 
is  not  because  it  has  been  sent  down  from  heaven  by 
meddlesome  divinities."  " 

This  Jew  Apella — a  dialect-form  of  ApoUas  or 
Apollonius" — is  no  doubt  a  real  person,  who  may  per- 
haps have  recounted  to  Horace  some  of  the  miracles 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  249 

of  the  Bible.  Horace's  raillery  is  directed  plainly 
enough  at  the  credulity  that  will  accept  these  stories, 
and  equally  at  the  troublesome  theology  which  makes 
the  god  a  factor  in  daily  life.  Life  was  much  simpler 
if  no  such  incalculable  quantity  were  injected  into  it. 
And  to  keep  life  free  from  harassing  and  unnecessary 
complications  was  the  essence  of  his  philosophy .^^ 

At  about  the  same  time  another  writer,  the  geogra- 
pher Strabo,  of  Amasea  in  Cappadocia,  makes  a  state- 
ment of  special  interest.  As  quoted  by  Josephus  (Ant. 
XIV.  vii. 2)  he  says:  ''These  people  have  already 
reached  every  city,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
place  in  the  whole  world  that  has  not  received  this  tribe 
and  succumbed  to  it." 

Obviously  the  statement  is  a  gross  exaggeration,  and 
at  most  applicable  to  the  cities  of  Egypt  and  Cyrene, 
in  connection  ^/vrith  which  it  is  made.  But  that  such  a 
statement  could  be  made  at  all  is  excellent  evidence  that 
it  was  at  least  partially  true,  and  that  there  were  Jewish 
communities  practically  everywhere,  although  it  can 
hardly  be  the  case  that  they  were  everywhere  dominant. 
However,  the  sketches  by  Horace  are  an  eloquent  com- 
mentary upon  the  statement  of  Strabo.  Not  merely  the 
East  or  Africa,  but  the  capital  itself,  was  overrun  with 
Jews,  and  their  number  was  constantly  increasing. 

Horace,  it  has  been  said,  wrote  of  and  for  a  cul- 
tured aristocracy.  So  did  the  other  poets  of  the  age, 
Propertius,  Tibullus,  Ovid.  But  all  of  them  were  more 
than  ordinarily  familiar  with  the  bas-lieux  where  dis- 
reputable passions  might  be  gratified.    The  voluptuary 


250      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Ovid  was  especially  prone  to  go  down  into  the  sewer 
for  new  sensations,  and  just  as  Horace  met  Jews  in 
the  boulevards,  so  Ovid  knew  them  in  the  slums. 

In  his  salad-days  Ovid  had  written  a  manual  of 
debauchery,  which  he  called  the  "  Art  of  Love."  He 
was  destined  to  regret  bitterly  the  facility  of  verse  and 
of  conscience  that  gave  birth  to  this  bold  composition. 
But  written  it  was,  and  in  his  advice  to  the  dissolute 
young  Romans  he  enumerates  the  time  and  place  for 
their  amours. 

Rome  [he  says  in  Ars  Amatoria,  \.  55  seq.]  is  the  place  for 
beauties.  Venus  has  her  fixed  abode  in  the  city  of  her  Aeneas. 
Whatever  you  desire  you  may  find.  All  you  have  to  do  is 
to  take  a  walk  in  the  Porticus  of  Pompey  or  of  Livia,  .... 
Do  not  pass  by  the  place  where  Venus  mourns  Adonis,  or 
where  the  Syrian  Jew  performs  his  rites  each  seventh  day. 
Nor  overlook  the  temples  of  the  linen-clad  heifer  from 
Memphis.  She  makes  many  what  Jove  made  her.  Even  the 
fora    favor    Love,  ....  those    where    the    Appian    aqueduct 

gushes  forth  near  the  marble  temple  of  Venus But 

above  all  stalk  your  game  in  the  theaters. 

In  these  instances  Ovid  refers  to  place,  not  to  time, 
and  it  is  only  as  part  of  the  passages  as  a  whole  that 
the  individual  references  can  be  understood.  It  will  be 
seen  that  all  the  localities,  beginning  with  the  Porticus 
of  Pompey  in  the  Campus  Martins,  are  merely  casual. 
It  is  at  the  theater  and  circus  where  Ovid's  pupils  are 
chiefly  to  pick  out  the  ladies  of  their  light  loves.  For 
that  reason  the  other  places  specified  are  also,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  show  places.  The  mention  of  the  law- 
courts  is  especially  noteworthy  in  this  connection. 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  251 

We  must  therefore  assume  that  in  the  Jewish  pro- 
seucha  and  in  the  temple  of  the  Egyptian  Isis  there  were 
to  be  found  a  certain  number  of  curious  onlookers, 
particularly  women,  and  while  many  of  them  became 
ardent  converts,  a  certain  number  were  innocent  of  any 
intentions  except  to  while  away  an  idle  hour,  and  were 
easy  game  for  the  professional  "  mashers  "  for  whom 
Ovid  writes.  Isis  and  Judaism  were  the  two  Oriental 
cults  which  at  this  time  had  the  greatest  success  in 
Rome.  And  we  can  easily  imagine  how  the  unoccupied 
of  all  classes  thronged  to  every  new  fashion  in  religious 
stimulation  as  in  others. 

Ovid  is  as  explicit  in  the  selection  of  time  as  of  place. 

Do  not  disregard  time,  ....  Avoid  the  first  of  April.  Then 
the  rainy  season  begins,  and  storms  are  frequent.  But  begin 
the  day  of  the  defeat  at  the  Allia,  or  the  day  on  which  the 
Sabbath  feast  comes  again,  which  the  Syrian  from  Palestine 
celebrates.  That's  a  day  on  which  other  business  ought  not  to 
be  done.     (Ars.  Am.  i.  413  seq.) 

Again,  in  his  palinode,  with  which  he  vainly  hoped  to 
regain  his  shattered  reputation,  "  The  Cure  for  Love  " 
(vv.  214  seq.),  he  brings  the  same  things  together: 

Off  with  you ;  take  a  long  journey  to  some  distant  land 

The  less  you  want  to  go,  the  more  you  must;  remember  that! 
Be  firm  and  make  your  unwilling  feet  run.  Do  not  pray  for 
rain.  Let  no  imported  Sabbaths  hinder  you,  nor  the  day  on 
which  we  remember  the  disaster  on  the  Allia." 

As  far  as  Ovid  is  concerned,  and  we  must  assume  he 
is  speaking  for  Fuscus'  multi,  a  certain  Jewish  feast, 
whether  it  is  the  Sabbath  or  some  special  holiday,  such 
as  the   Day  of  Atonement,  is  ranked  with  the  Dies 


252      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Alliensis,  the  fifteenth  of  July,  the  day  on  which,  in  390 
B.  c.  E.,  the  Romans  suffered  their  great  defeat  at  the 
hands  of  the  Gauls,  and  which  was  in  consequence  an 
ill-omened  day  from  that  time  forth.  Again,  the  Sab- 
bath is  classed  with  the  rainy  season  as  a  day  that  might 
ordinarily  incline  a  man  to  put  off  serious  business. 

As  stated  in  the  Notes,  it  is  a  common  error  to  sup- 
pose that  the  generally  ill-omened  character  of  these 
days  makes  them  eminently  proper  for  flirtation.  No 
Roman,  however  cynical,  could  flout  superstition  to 
that  extent.  The  advice  is  given  for  purely  practical 
considerations.  The  rainy  season  at  the  time  of  the 
equinoxes  is  an  inauspicious  time  to  begin  a  courtship, 
which,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  previous  passage,  must  be 
carried  on  almost  wholly  in  the  open  air.  Social  gather- 
ings in  the  houses  of  friends  in  the  society  of  ladies 
were  not  common.  There  was  nothing  among  the 
Romans  to  correspond  to  modern  five-o'clock's  or. re- 
ceptions, at  which  court  might  be  paid  to  anyone  who 
had  caught  the  fancy  of  the  Roman  man  about  town. 
It  is  in  the  porticoes,  in  the  idle  crowds  at  the  theater  or 
circus,  where  the  steps  of  ingratiating  are  to  be  carried 
out,  and  for  these  the  rising  of  the  Pleiades  (Ars.  Am. 
i.  409)  is  distinctly  unpromising. 

This  is  especially  borne  out  by  the  passage  immed- 
iately following  the  one  quoted  from  the  ''Art  of  Love  " 
(Ars.  Am.  i.  417  seq.).  The  most  inauspicious  day  to 
attempt  the  beginning  of  an  intrigue  is  the  lady's  birth- 
day. Gifts  are  in  order  then,  and  they  undoubtedly 
deplete  one's  pocket-book.    Ovid  is  jocose  here,  but  the 


IM  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  253 

point  is  the  same  throughout.  The  hints  and  sugges- 
tions are  as  practical  and  direct  as  the  formula  of  Ovid's 
face-powder,  which  he  also  sets  forth  in  the  unfinished 
verses  called  Medicamina  Faciei  Femineae. 

That  which  makes  the  Dies  Alliensis  and  the  Jewish 
Sabbath  desirable  is  the  fact  that  the  former  is  in  mid- 
July  and  the  latter  in  the  early  fall,  the  most  delight- 
ful of  Italian  seasons.  Then  an  unbroken  series  of  cloud- 
less skies  is  almost  assured ;  and  the  Roman  fop  could 
count  on  meeting  his  fair  one  day  after  day  in  one  of 
the  places  of  assignation  so  conveniently  enumerated  by 
Ovid. 

The  phrase  rebus  minus  apta  gerendis,  "  unsuitable 
for  transacting  business,"  is  best  taken  as  given  in  the 
translation  (above,  p.  251).  Ovid  knows  that  under- 
takings are  rare  on  that  day,  and  that  causes  its  inser- 
tion. If  it  were  merely  that  cessation  of  ordinary 
business  made  it  easier  for  idlers  to  pursue  their  amours, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  jeunesse  doree  had  no 
other  ordinary  business  than  falling  in  love. 

The  reference  in  the  "'  Cure  for  Love  "  (above,  p. 
251)  is  of  quite  a  different  character.  It  will  be  noted 
that  pluviae,  "  the  rainy  season,"  which  in  the  first  case 
is  particularly  contrasted  with  the  Sabbath  and  the 
Allia  day,  is  here  associated  with  them.  ''  Let  nothing 
hinder  you,"  says  Ovid,  ''  neither  a  good  excuse  nor  a 
bad  one;  neither  the  weather  nor  superstition."  The 
point  of  the  reference  in  the  two  cases  is  accordingly 
not  at  all  the  same.  In  the  first  instance  the  accidental 
fact  that  the  Allia  day  and  a  certain  Jewish  festival 


254      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

occur  during  pleasant  weather  singles  them  out  for 
mention.  In  the  second  it  is  the  religious  association 
of  the  day  that  Ovid  has  in  mind. 

As  far  as  Ovid  is  personally  concerned,  there  is  no 
more  than  in  Horace  a  trace  of  sympathy  for  the  Jewish 
cult.  We  have  seen  that  in  every  instance  this  cult 
is  only  one  of  several  illustrations.  The  adjective 
peregrina,  ''  foreign,"  applied  to  the  Sabbath,  gives  the 
tone  of  all  the  passages.  Ovid  is  a  collector  of  light 
emotions.  Of  serious  beliefs  he  has  no  vestige.  But 
the  presence  of  these  Syrians  in  the  city  interests  him 
as  anything  else  picturesque  would.  He  takes  cog- 
nizance of  the  part  they  play  in  the  life  of  the  city,  and 
is  a  valuable  witness  on  that  point. 

The  same  inference  may  be  drawn  from  the  letter  of 
Augustus  to  Tiberius  (Suet.  Aug.  76)  :  "  There  is  no 
Jew,  my  dear  Tiberius,  who  keeps  his  fast  on  the  Sab- 
bath as  I  kept  it  to-day."  If  the  considerations  advanced 
in  Note  19  are  valid,  the  Sabbath  here  is  the  Day  of 
Atonement.  But  the  significant  fact  is  the  use  of  the 
illustration  at  all.  It  confirms  Strabo's  statement  of 
the  extent  and  success  of  the  propaganda  of  the 
Jews  that  all  these  writers  in  some  way  mention  their 
presence. 

That  the  preaching  of  the  Jews  was  vigorous  and 
aggressive  is  almost  a  necessary  inference.  We  know 
no  less  than  three  of  their  synagogues  by  name, 
Augustenses,  Volumnienses,  Agrippenses,"""  and  we 
have  no  reason  to  assume  that  these  three  exhausted 
the  list.    To  many  Romans  the  ardor  of  their  proselytiz- 


IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE  255 

ing  was  oftensive.  It  seemed  a  systematic  attempt  to 
transform  the  ancestral  faith  of  the  state.  A  casual 
reference  in  Valerius  Maximus,  a  contemporary  of 
Tiberius,  charges  the  Jews  with  having  attempted  "  to 
contaminate  Roman  beliefs  by  foisting  upon  them  the 
worship  of  Jupiter  Sabazios."  ^'  Valerius  goes  on  to  say 
that  the  praetor  Hispalus  expelled  the  Jews  for  that 
reason  as  early  as  139  b.  c.  e.  If  such  a  thing  took  place, 
it  was  undoubtedly  an  act  similar  to  an  expulsion  under 
Tiberius  (below,  p.  306),  and  was  based  on  definite 
infractions  of  law,  perhaps  the  law  against  unlicensed 
fortune-telling.  The  Jews  in  both  cases  were  associated 
with  the  Chaldeans,  a  fact  that  makes  the  supposition 
more  likely.  But  Valerius  has  in  mind  the  conditions  of 
his  own  day,  when  the  success  of  the  Jewish  propaganda 
was  bitterly  resented,  as  we  have  seen,  by  Horace  and 
Fuscus,  and,  as  we  shall  later  see,  by  Seneca  and  his 
associates  generally. 

If  we  try  to  imagine  what  the  Jewish  Roman  com- 
munities of  that  day  were  like,  we  shall  have  to  think  of 
them  as  a  proletariat.  Freedmen  in  the  second  or  third 
generation  must  have  constituted  a  large  part  of  them, 
and  later  references  make  it  likely  that  many  earned 
their  livelihood  by  the  proscribed  arts  of  divination  and 
fortune-telling.  As  in  Alexandria,  the  bulk  were  prob- 
ably artisans.  Some  were  physicians,  a  profession  then 
ranking  in  social  degree  with  the  manual  trades,  and 
usually  exercised  by  slaves  or  freedmen.^  The  Roman 
encyclopedist  Celsus  mentions  two  Jewish  medical 
authorities  (De  Med.  V.  xix.  11;    xxii.  4).     But  the 


256      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

majority  must  have  formed  part  of  the  pauperized  city 
mob,  turbulent  and  ignorant,  and  no  doubt  only  mod- 
erately acquainted  with  their  own  laws  and  literature, 
so  that  we  cannot  be  surprised  to  find  indications  of 
many  things  among  them  that  were  regarded  as  sacri- 
lege in  Jerusalem,  such  as  carved  animal  figures  on 
tombstones.^^ 

However,  there  must  at  least  have  been  some  of  a 
different  type,  whose  command  of  their  controversial 
literature  enabled  them  to  meet  the  competing  philos- 
ophies upon  their  own  ground  and  impress  themselves 
upon  some  of  the  men  of  Augustus'  own  circle. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  TILL  THE 

REVOLT 

One  of  the  great  determining  events  in  ancient  and 
modern  history  took  place  on  January  i,  27  b.  c.  e., 
when  Gains  Caesar  Octavianus,  returned  from  his  suc- 
cessful campaigns  in  the  East,  was  solemnly  invested 
with  the  civil  and  military  primacy  of  the  Roman  world. 
The  importance  of  that  particular  historic  moment  is 
due  of  course  not  to  anything  in  itself,  but  to  the  fact 
that  it  was  the  external  and  overt  stamp  put  upon  the 
development  of  centuries.  The  basic  governmental 
scheme  of  ancient  society — the  city-state — was  bank- 
rupt. Its  afifairs  were  being  wound  up,  and  the  receiver 
was  in  possession. 

The  reconstitution  by  Augustus  appeared  to  the  men 
of  his  day  as  the  inauguration  of  an  epoch.  Poets 
hailed  the  dawn  of  a  new  day,  and  unqualifiedly  saluted 
its  great  figure  as  a  living  god.^  But  we  shall  receive  a 
false  impression  of  the  time  and  its  condition,  if  we 
assume  it  to  resemble  an  empire  of  modern  type. 

The  Roman  empire  as  founded  by  Augustus  was 
simply  the  expression  of  the  fact  that  between  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Ocean,  between  the  Danube  and  the 
great  African  Desert,  all  the  various  forms  of  consti- 
tuted authority  were  subject  to  revision  by  the  will  of 
the  Roman  people,  i.  e.  those  who  actually  lived,  or  had 
17 


258      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

an  indefeasible  right  to  live,  within  the  walls  of  the 
Roman  city.  The  populus  Romanus  had  chosen  to  dele- 
gate functions  of  great  extent  and  importance  to  a 
single  man,  to  Augustus ;  but  the  power  wielded  by 
Augustus  was  not  in  any  sense  the  power  of  an  unre- 
strained master,  nor  was  the  rule  of  the  Roman  people 
the  actual  and  direct  government  of  the  nations  subject 
to  it. 

It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  enumerate  the  vari- 
ous communities  which,  under  Augustus,  as  they  had 
before,  maintained  their  customs  as  the  unbroken 
tradition  of  many  centuries.  In  the  mountains  of 
Asia  Minor  it  is  likely  that  such  a  people  as  the  Car- 
duchi,  whom  Xenophon  encountered  there,  were  still 
under  Augustus  determining  their  mutual  rights  and 
obligations  by  rules  that  were  either  the  same  as  those 
of  Xenophon's  time  or  directly  derived  from  those 
rules. ^  So  the  cartouches  on  the  Egyptian  monuments 
might  have  been  read  by  the  clerks  of  Amen-hem-et, 
and  would  have  excited  no  queries  from  them.  The 
communities  of  the  Mediterranean  enforced  their  law — 
that  is,  the  rules  which  constrained  the  individual  mem- 
ber to  respect  the  claims  of  his  fellows — without  notice- 
able break.  The  difference  was  that  there  was  a  limit  to 
which  it  might  be  enforced,  and  that  limit  was  set  by 
the  caprice  of  another  and  a  paramount  people. 

Although  the  sovereignty  of  the  Roman  people  was 
limitless,  it  was  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  capriciously 
exercised.  During  the  republic  the  theory  of  pro- 
vincial organization  had  been  somewhat  of  the  follow- 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  259 

ing  nature.  Within  any  given  territory  contained  in 
the  Hmits  of  the  province,  there  existed  a  certain  num- 
ber of  individual  civic  units,  which  might  take  the  form 
of  city-states,  territorial  states  of  varying  extent, 
leagues  of  communities,  kingdoms,  tetrarchies,  or 
hieratic  religious  communes.  Any  or  all  of  these  might 
be  gathered  within  a  single  province,  a  word  which  is 
essentially  abstract,  and  denoted  a  magisterial  function 
rather  than  a  territory.  Into  the  midst  of  these  civitates, 
this  jumble  of  conflicting  civic  interests,  there  was 
sent  a  representative  of  the  sovereign  Roman  people, 
invested  with  imperium,  or  supreme  power,  a  term  in 
which  for  Romans  was  the  essence  of  the  higher  magis- 
tracies. Since  the  provincial  magistrate  had  no  col- 
leagues, and  since  the  tribunician  check  upon  him  was 
inoperative  beyond  the  first  milestone  from  the  city,  the 
wielder  of  the  imperium  outside  of  Italy  was  at  law  and 
often  in  fact  an  absolute  despot  for  the  period  of  his 
office. 

However,  in  theory  his  functions  were  divided  as 
follows :  first,  he  was  the  only  officer  with  jurisdiction 
over  the  Roman  citizens  temporarily  resident  in  the 
province ;  secondly,  he  kept  the  peace ;  thirdly,  he  guar- 
anteed the  treaty  rights  of  those  communities  that  had 
treaties  with  Rome ;  and  fourthly,  he  enforced  and 
maintained  the  local  customary  law  of  all  these  com- 
munities. His  judicial  functions  might  include  cases  of 
all  these  kinds,  so  that  in  rapid  succession  the  praetor  or 
propraetor  might  be  called  upon  to  enforce  the  Twelve 
Tables  and  an  ancient  tribal  usage  of  the  Galatian 
Tectosages. 


26o      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

The  checks  upon  the  holder  of  imperium  at  Rome 
consisted  in  the  pecuhar  Roman  theory  of  magistracy, 
one  of  the  corollaries  of  which  was  the  right  of  any 
other  equal  or  superior  magistrate,  or  of  any  tribune,  to 
veto  any  administrative  act.  A  second  check  lay  in  the 
right  of  appeal  in  capital  cases  to  the  people.  A  third 
was  found  in  the  accountability  for  every  illegal  or 
oppressive  action.  This  accountability  however  existed 
only  after  the  magistracy  had  expired. 

Outside  of  Rome  only  the  last  check  existed.  For 
everything  done  beyond  the  functions  enumerated 
above,  it  was  possible,  even  usual,  to  attempt  to  make 
the  governor  responsible  after  his  term  of  office  was 
over.  We  know  how  frequently  that  attempt  was  futile, 
and  how  constantly  and  flagrantly  corrupt  juries 
acquitted  equally  corrupt  governors.  ''  Catiline  will  be 
acquitted  of  extortion,"  writes  Cicero  in  65  b.  c.  e.,  "  if 
the  jury  believes  that  the  sun  does  not  shine  at  noon."  ^ 
The  jury  evidently  thought  so,  since  he  was  acquitted. 
But  upon  occasion,  and  generally  when  there  were 
personal  and  political  motives  at  work  as  well,  these 
governors  were  convicted,  so  that  there  was  always  a 
certain  risk  attached  to  any  attempt  at  playing  the 
tyrant  for  the  brief  period  of  a  governor's  authority." 

The  Augustan  monarchy  brought  no  real  change  into 
the  theory  of  provincial  organization,  except  as  to  rela- 
tively unimportant  details.  But  one  great  reform  was 
instituted.  The  responsibility  of  the  governor  became 
a  real  one,  and  was  sharply  presented  to  those  officials. 
For  the  provinces,  accordingly,  the  advent  of  Augustus 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  261 

was  an  unmixed  blessing,  since,  except  for  a  few  senti- 
mentalists, the  presence  of  the  Roman  representative  as 
the  final  court  of  appeal  was  not  at  all  resented.  We 
can  accordingly  understand  the  extravagance  with 
which  the  rich  and  populous  East,  always  the  center  of 
wealth  and  civilization,  received  the  Reformer,  and  the 
unanimity  and  perhaps  sincerity  with  which  he  was 
hailed  as  living  god.^ 

We  cannot  be  certain  that  this  was  encouraged  by 
Augustus  himself.  There  is  nothing  in  his  character 
that  indicates  any  special  sympathy  with  the  point  of 
view  demanded  by  it;  nothing  of  that  daemonic  strain 
noticeable  in  Alexander,  which  makes  it  easy  to  believe 
that  the  latter  was  one  of  the  first  to  be  convinced  by  the 
salutation  of  the  priests  of  Amnion.  But  Augustus 
recognized  at  once  the  value  for  unity  that  the  tendency 
to  deify  the  monarch  possessed.  The  reverence  for  the 
living  monarch,  to  be  transformed  into  an  undisguised 
worship  at  his  death,  was,  however,  to  be  superimposed 
upon  existing  forms.  Nothing  was  more  characteris- 
tically Roman  than  Augustus'  eagerness  to  make  it  clear 
that  the  vast  domain  of  the  empire  was  to  remain,  as 
before,  a  mass  of  disparate  communities  of  which  the 
populus  Romanus  was  only  one,  although  a  paramount 
one,  and  that  in  each  of  these  communities  every  effort 
was  to  be  made  to  maintain  the  ancestral  ritual  in 
government  and  worship.  What  he  added  was  simply 
the  principle  that  to  keep  the  community  together,  to 
prevent  the  chaos  and  anarchy  of  a  dissolution  of  the 
empire,  it  was  necessary  to  bestow  on  the  princeps,  on 


2(>2      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

the  First  Citizen  of  the  paramount  Roman  people,  such 
powers  and  functions  as  would  assure  the  coherence  of 
the  whole.  These  powers  he  selected  himself.  Such  a 
step  as  that  taken  by  the  Constitution  of  Caracalla, 
which  attempted  to  enforce  a  legal  merging  of  all  the 
communities  into  a  single  state,  would  have  been  noth- 
ing else  than  abhorrent  to  Augustus.^  And,  indeed, 
it  was  a  distinctly  un-Roman  idea. 

In  Rome  Augustus  was  chiefly  intent  upon  a  restora- 
tion of  everything  that  could  well  be  restored  in  the 
social,  religious,  and  political  life  of  the  people.  Cer- 
tain of  the  political  elements,  such  as  the  actual  sov- 
ereignty of  the  populus,  as  far  as  it  could  be  physically 
assembled  in  the  Campus  Martins,  had  to  be  abandoned, 
as  demonstrably  inconsistent  with  the  larger  purpose 
which  Augustus  had  set  himself.  But  in  every  other 
respect,  he  did  not,  as  Julius  Caesar  had  done,  compel 
the  Romans  to  face  the  unpleasant  fact  that  a  revolution 
had  taken  place,  but  professed  to  be  simply  a  restorer 
of  the  ancient  polity.  Perhaps  he  did  not  face  the 
facts  himself.  At  any  rate  he  seems  sincerely  to  have 
believed  that  morality  and  sobriety  could  be  recon- 
stituted by  statute,  and  that  one,  by  dint  of  willing, 
might  live  under  Caesar  as  men  lived  under  Numa 
— barring  such  un-Sabine  additions  as  marble  palaces 
and  purple  togas. 

With  his  mind  full  of  these  views,  Augustus  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  regard  favorably  those  tendencies 
in  his  own  time  which  inevitably  made  for  real  unity  of 
the  empire  in  speech,  blood,  and  religion.    He  was  quite 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  263 

aware  that  this  unity  would  not  be  produced  by  a 
coalescing  of  everything  into  new  forms,  but  by  the 
conquest  of  all  or  most  of  the  existing  elements  by  the 
one  most  powerful  or  most  aggressive.  Unchecked, 
it  was  likely  that  Greek  speech  would  drive  out  Latin, 
Syrian  blood  dominate  Roman,  or  any  one  of  the  vari- 
ous Oriental  worships  dislodge  the  Capitoline  Triad. 

On  the  last  point  he  had  even  a  definite  policy  of 
opposition.  His  sagacious  adviser  Maecenas  had  laid 
great  stress  upon  the  ease  with  which  foreign  religions 
introduce  a  modification  of  habits  of  life,  in  his  last 
words  :^ 

Take  active  part  in  divine  worship,  in  every  way  estab- 
lished by  our  ancestral  customs,  and  compel  others  to  respect 
religion,  but  avoid  and  punish  those  who  attempt  to  introduce 
foreign  elements  into  it.  Do  so  not  merely  as  a  mark  of  honor 
to  the  gods — although  you  may  be  sure  that  anyone  who 
despises  them,  sets  little  value  upon  anything — but  because 
those  who  introduce  new  deities  are  by  that  very  act  persuad- 
ing the  masses  to  observe  laws  foreign  to  our  own.  Hence 
we  have  secret  gatherings  and  assemblies  of  different  sort, 
all  of  which  are  inconsistent  with  the  monarchical  principle. 

His  commendation  of  Gains'  avoidance  of  sacrifice 
at  Jerusalem  was  of  a  piece  with  this  policy.^ 

The  Jews  in  Rome,  who  had  been  directly  favored 
by  Caesar,  had  to  be  contented,  as  far  as  Augustus  was 
concerned,  with  freedom  from  molestation.  However, 
this  freedom  was  real  enough  to  enable  their  situation 
in  Rome  to  reach  the  development  hinted  at  in  the 
Augustan  poets,  although  their  activities  militated 
strongly  against  the  most  cherished  plans  of  Augustus. 

In  the  rest  of  the  empire  the  Jews  of  the  various 


264      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


communities  found  their  situation  unchanged.  Even 
the  obnoxious  privileges  which  they  had  in  several 
cities  of  Asia  continued  unimpaired/  and  here  the 
orthodox  Jewish  propaganda  and  a  few  generations 
later  the  heterodox  Jewish  propaganda  made  rapid 
strides.'" 

Judea  belonged,  in  spite  of  the  quasi-independence 
of  Herod,  to  the  province  of  Syria,  which  meant  that 
such  dues  as  Herod,  the  Jewish  king,  owed  Rome 
would  be  enforced,  if  he  were  recalcitrant,  by  the 
Roman  legate  at  Antioch.  Herod's  name  throughout 
the  empire  was  as  much  a  synonym  for  wealth  as  it 
is  now  for  cruelty.  And  his  wealth  and  power  adver- 
tised the  Jews  notably,  a  fact  which  their  propaganda 
could  scarcely  help  turning  to  account." 

The  attitude  of  the  various  Jewish  synagogues  and 
communes  toward  Judea  was  one  that  appeared  to  the 
men  of  the  day  as  that  which  bound  various  colonies  of 
a  city  to  the  mother-city.  Indeed  the  Jewish  com- 
munities outside  of  Palestine  were  styled  explicitly 
colonies,  airoiKia.  Such  a  tie,  however,  was  conceived  in 
the  Greek  fashion  and  not  in  the  Roman.  The  Greek 
colony  was  bound  to  its  mother-city  by  sentiment  only, 
not,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Romans,  by  law.  That  senti- 
ment might  be  powerful  enough  at  times,  but  it  was  not 
inconsistent  with  the  bitterest  warfare.  Consequently 
such  movements  as  appear  in  Palestine  need  not  at  all 
have  been  reflected  in  the  synagogues  of  the  East  and 
West,  and  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  the  active 
and  successful  proselytizing  of  the  Asiatic  and  Roman 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  265 

synagogues  was  either  directed  or  systematically  en- 
couraged by  the  Pharisaic  majority  in  the  Sanhedrin 
at  Jerusalem.  It  will  at  all  times  create  a  wholly  false 
impression  to  speak  of  the  Jews  of  that  period  as  of  a 
single  community  bound  by  common  interests  and  open 
to  identical  influences.  The  independence  of  the  Jewish 
congregations  of  one  another  was  quite  real,  and  was 
even  insisted  upon.  Neither  the  high  priest  nor  the 
Nasi  of  the  Sanhedrin  pretended  to  any  authority 
except  over  those  legally  resident  in  Judea ;  and  often, 
when  the  reverence  for  the  temple  and  the  holy  city  was 
most  strongly  emphasized,  intense  contempt  might  be 
manifested  for  those  who  were  at  the  moment  the 
holders  of  the  supreme  authority  in  the  mother-country. 
Another  matter  that  is  apt  to  be  lost  sight  of  in  this 
connection  is  the  fact  that  not  all  Jews  of  the  time 
lived  within  the  Roman  empire.  The  Persian  king- 
dom, which  Alexander  had  conquered,  and  which  the 
Seleucidae  had  with  varying  success  attempted  to  main- 
tain, had  fallen  to  pieces  long  before  the  Roman  occu- 
pation of  Syria.  Media,  Babylonia,  Bactria  resumed  a 
quasi-independence,  which  however  was  soon  lost  when 
the  obscure  province  of  Parthia — as  Persis  had  done 
five  centuries  before — assumed  a  dominance  that  ended 
in  direct  supremacy.  The  Roman  limits  were  set  at  the 
river  Euphrates,  leaving  Armenia  a  bloody,  debatable 
ground.  The  one  great  moment  in  the  history  of  this 
new  Parthian  empire  was  the  decisive  defeat  of  Crassus 
at  Carrhae  in  58  b.  c.  e.,  a  victory  that  gave  the 
Parthians   sufficient   prestige   to   maintain   themselves 


266      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

under  conditions  of  domestic  disorder  that  would 
ordinarily  have  been  fatal.  The  Augustan  poets  and 
courtiers  might  magnify  the  return  of  the  Roman 
standards  by  King  Phraates  to  their  hearts'  content. 
They  might,  as  they  did,  exultantly  proclaim  that  the 
Crassi  were  avenged,  that  the  known  world  to  the 
shadowy  confines  of  the  Indus  bowed  to  the  will  of  the 
living  god  Augustus.  The  fact  remained  that,  after 
Carrhae,  the  conquest  of  the  country  beyond  the  Eu- 
phrates ceased  to  be  a  part  of  the  Roman  programme, 
and,  except  for  the  transient  successes  of  Trajan,  was 
never  seriously  attempted. 

In  this  Parthian  kingdom,  of  which  the  capital  was 
the  ancient  and  indestructible  city  of  Babylon,  Jews  had 
dwelt  since  the  time  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  There  is  even 
every  reason  to  believe  that  those  who  remained  at 
Babylon  were  decidedly  not  the  least  notable  of  the 
people  in  birth  or  culture.  And  between  Babylon  and 
Judea  there  was  constant  communication.  When 
Babylon  became  the  seat  of  the  only  power  still  existing 
that  seemed  formidable  to  Rome,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
uninterrupted  communication  between  the  Jews  of  that 
section  and  the  mother-country  would  create  political 
situations  of  no  slight  delicacy,  and  may  have  played  a 
much  more  important  part  in  determining  the  relations 
of  the  governing  Romans  to  the  Jews  than  our  sources 
show. 

That  there  was  at  all  times  a  Parthian  party  among 
the  Palestinian  Jews  there  can  be  no  doubt.  We  know 
too  little  of  the  history  of  Parthia  to  speak  confidently 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  267 

on  the  subject,  but  Parthian  rulers  seem  to  have  brought 
to  the  Jewish  reHgious  philosophy  a  larger  measure  of 
sympathy  and  comprehension  than  most  Roman  repre- 
sentatives. While  the  existence  of  Parthian  sym- 
pathizers may  date  almost  from  the  beginning  of 
Parthian  supremacy,  their  presence  was  very  con- 
cretely manifested  when  Jannai's  son,  Aristobulus, 
appealed  to  Parthia  as  Hyrcanus  had  appealed  to  Rome. 
Indeed  a  Parthian  army  invaded  and  captured  Pales- 
tine, and  gave  Aristobulus'  son,  Mattathiah-Antigonus, 
a  brief  lease  of  royal  dignity.  Every  instance  of  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  Roman  government  was  the  occa- 
sion for  the  rise  of  Parthian  sympathies. 

It  may  further  be  recalled  that  Parthia  was  the  con- 
tinuation of  Persia.  Of  all  foreign  dominations  the 
Persian  rule  was  the  one  most  regretted  by  the  Jews, 
and  the  Persian  king's  claim  to  reverence  never  died 
out  in  the  regions  once  subject  to  him.  We  may  remem- 
ber with  what  humility,  some  years  later,  Izates  of 
Adiabene  dismounted  and  walked  on  foot  before  the 
exiled  Parthian  king,  although  the  latter  had  gone  to 
him  as  a  suppliant,  and  had  been  prostrate  in  the  dust 
before  him.  The  prestige  of  the  Great  King,  diminished 
considerably  to  be  sure,  had  still  not  completely  faded.'' 

The  one  general  term  that  covered  all  the  Jews  of 
various  types  was  ''  race  of  the  Jews,"  gens  Iiidaeoriim, 
yeVo?  ^lov^aLoiv.  It  was  meant  to  be  a  racial  descriptive 
appellation,  and  was  constantly  combined  with  other 
adjectives  denoting  nationality  or  citizenship.  The 
temptation  to  make  an  actual  unit  of  any  group  that 
can  be  covered  by  a  single  term  is  well-nigh  irresistible. 


268      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

and  it  is  strengthened  for  us  by  the  century-old  asso- 
ciations that  have  made  Palestine  the  embodiment  of  an 
ideal.  Varying  as  the  Jews  of  that  time  were  in  tem- 
perament, character,  occupations,  position,  and  mental 
endowments,  the  fate  and  vicissitudes  of  the  mother- 
country,  and  particularly  of  the  holy  metropolis  Jeru- 
salem, went  home  vividly  to  all  of  them,  scattered  as 
they  were  between  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  Sea  and 
Spain.  In  this  respect  the  gens  ludaeorum  was  a  real 
unit.    Their  hearts  were  turned  to  the  Zion  Hill. 

Not  all  Palestine,  however,  formed  this  mother- 
country.  The  mere  fact  that  the  Hasmoneans  had 
brought  a  great  deal  of  the  surrounding  territory  under 
subjection,  and  made  the  boundaries  of  their  power 
almost  as  extensive  as  those  of  David  and  Solomon,  did 
not  make  a  single  country  of  their  dominions.  The 
real  metropolis  was  Jerusalem  and  its  supporting  terri- 
tory of  Judea.  In  this  predominance  of  the  city  in  post- 
Exilic  Judaism,  we  may  see  either  Greek  influence  or 
the  continuance  of  the  ancient  city-state  idea,  as  much  a 
general  characteristic  of  Eastern  civilization  as  it  is 
specifically  of  Greek.  Not  even  undoubted  Jewish 
descent,  or  loyalty  to  the  Jewish  Law,  made  of  the 
adjacent  lands  an  integral  part  of  Judea.  The  Jews 
of  Gaulonitis,  Galilee,  Ituraea,  Peraea,  Trachonitis, 
Idumaea,  were,  like  the  Jews  of  Rome,  of  Alexandria, 
or  of  Babylon,  Jews  of  foreign  nationality  to  inhab- 
itants of  Jerusalem,  although  the  association  was  nota- 
bly closer  and  the  occasion  of  common  performance  of 
Jewish  rites  much  more  frequent  than  was  the  case  with 
the  more  distant  Jews. 


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THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  269 

The  Idumean  Herod  had  been  confirmed  by  Rome 
in  the  sovereignty  of  a  wide  and  miscellaneous  territory, 
which  included  Greek  cities,  as  well  as  these  territorial 
units  enumerated  above.  The  favor  he  enjoyed  granted 
him  practically  all  the  privileges  that  an  independent 
sovereign  could  hold,  except  that  of  issuing  gold  coins/' 
Further,  the  authority  was  only  for  his  life.  The  right 
of  disposing  of  his  dominions  was  no  part  of  his  power. 
His  will  was  merely  suggestive,  and  carried  no  weight 
beyond  that. 

His  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  Romans  was  based  upon 
his  scarcely  disguised  Hellenic  sympathies  and  his 
proven  loyalty  to  his  masters.  The  Parthian  invasion 
of  40  B.  c.  E.  and  the  existence  of  Parthian  sympathizers 
made  the  maintenance  of  order  in  Palestine  a  matter  of 
the  highest  importance.  The  significance  of  these 
Eastern  marches  for  the  stability  and  safety  of  Rome 
was  even  greater  than  those  of  the  North  along  the 
Rhine,  where  also  constant  turbulence  was  to  be  feared, 
and  eternal  vigilance  was  demanded.  In  the  East,  how- 
ever, there  was  not  merely  a  horde  of  plundering 
savages  to  be  repelled,  but  the  aggression  of  an  ancient 
and  civilized  power,  bearing  a  title  to  prestige  compared 
with  which  that  of  Macedonian  and  Roman  was  of 
recent  growth.  And  Parthian  successes  here  immedi- 
ately jeopardized  Egypt,  already  rapidly  becoming  the 
granary  of  the  Empire. 

Quite  in  accordance  with  Roman  policy,  indeed  with 
ancient  policy  in  general,  Augustus  vastly  preferred  to 
have  the  peace  of  this  region  assured  by  means  of  a 
reliable  native  government  than  directly  by  Roman  ad- 


270      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

ministration.  The  Romans  did  not  covet  responsibility. 
If  a  native  prince  was  trustworthy,  it  was  a  matter  of 
common  sense  to  permit  him  to  undertake  the  arduous 
duty  of  poHcing  the  country  rather  than  assume  it  them- 
selves. The  difficulty  was  to  discover  such  a  man  or 
government.  Experience  and  the  suspiciousness  that 
was  almost  a  national  trait  convinced  the  Romans  that 
only  very  few  were  to  be  trusted;  and  these  not  for  long. 
In  Herod,  however,  they  seemed  to  have  discovered  a 
trustworthy  instrument,  and  while  it  is  not  strictly  true 
that  the  powers  conferred  upon  him  were  of  unex- 
ampled extent,  they  were  undoubtedly  unusual  and 
amply  justified  the  regal  splendor  Herod  assumed.  The 
readiness  with  which  Herod's  loyalty  to  Antony  was 
pardoned  demonstrated  the  clear  perception  on  the  part 
of  Augustus  of  how  admirably  Herod  could  serve 
Roman  purposes  here. 

One  of  the  motives  that  generally  impelled  Romans 
to  permit  native  autonomy  was  no  doubt  to  gain  credit 
for  generosity  with  their  subjects.  They  might  be  for- 
given for  supposing  that  Roman  rule  would  be  more 
acceptable  if  it  came  indirectly  through  the  medium  of 
a  king  that  was  himself  of  Jewish  stock.  The  distinc- 
tion between  Idumean  and  Jew  proper  would  hardly 
be  recognized  by  a  Roman,  although  the  distinction 
between  the  geographical  entities  of  Idumaea  and 
Judea  was  familiar  enough. 

But  the  Romans  likewise  knew  and  consciously 
exploited  Herod's  unpopularity.  Strabo  states  that 
the  humiliating  execution  of  Antigonus  was  intended 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  271 

to  decrease  the  prestige  of  the  latter  and  increase  that 
of  Herod."  Josephus  and  the  Talmud  would  be  ample 
evidences  themselves  df  the  hatred  and  the  bitter  antag- 
onism with  which  Herod  was  regarded.'^  None  the 
less  it  may  well  be  that  the  unpopularity  was  largely 
personal,  and  produced  by  the  violence  and  cruelties  of 
which  Herod  was  guilty.  It  appears  so  in  Strabo's 
account.  Idumean  descent  cannot  have  been  the  prin- 
cipal reproach  directed  against  Herod  by  his  subjects. 
On  more  than  one  occasion  the  Idumeans  had  evinced 
their  attachment  to  the  Jewish  Law.^°  Nor  was  Herod 
wholly  without  ardent  supporters.  In  the  cities  which 
he  had  founded  there  were  many  men  devoted  to  him. 
Even — or  perhaps  especially — among  the  priests,  there 
was  a  distinctly  Herodian  faction.^'  It  is  highly  likely 
that  hatred  of  Herod  was  especially  strong  in  those  who 
hated  Rome  as  well,  either  through  Parthian  pro- 
clivities or  because  Rome  seemed  to  present  a  danger 
to  the  maintenance  of  their  institutions.  And  among 
these  men  were,  it  appears,  most  of  those  whose  teach- 
ings have  come  down  to  us  in  the  course  of  later 
tradition. 

To  the  Romans  this  devotion  of  the  Palestinian  Jews 
to  their  Law  seemed  an  excessive  and  even  reprehensi- 
ble thing.  As  we  have  seen,  the  Jews  were  qualified  as 
stiperstitiosi,  "  superstitious  "  (above,  p.  177).  In  gen- 
eral, to  be  sure,  zeal  for  ancestral  institutions  was  sup- 
ported by  the  Romans,  and  they  were  not  particularly 
concerned  that  foreign  institutions  should  resemble 
theirs.     However,   if   there  were  any   from   which  a 


2^2      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


breach  of  the  peace  was  to  be  apprehended,  they  might 
be  regarded  as  practices  to  be  suppressed. 

, The  Romans  had  shown  for  certain  Jewish  customs 

a  very  marked  respect.    The  mtense  Jewish  repugnance 

to  images  was  at  first  difficult  for  Romans  to  reahze, 

/     since  they  had  been  training  themselves  for  generations 

to  test  the  degree  of  civilization  by  the  interest  in  the 

f^      I      plastic  arts.    That  there  might  be  among  barbarians  no 
statues  was  natural  enough :  that  the  barbarians  would 
^w  refuse  to  take  them  when  offered,  was  incomprehensi- 

^  ^  ble.     But,  hard  thoug-h  it  was  to  realize,  the  Romans 

'  '  quickly  enough  did  realize  it.  The  capital  concession 
of  issuing  no  Roman  coins  for  Judea  with  anything 
but  the  traditional  symbols  on  them,  of  carefully 
eliminating  those  which  bore  the  emperor's  effigy, 
undoubtedly  showed  their  good-will  in  the  matter.'^ 
And  the  fact  may  be  noted  that  after  the  coins  cele- 
brating the  triumph  of  Vespasian  and  Titus,  with  the 
Latin  and  Greek  legends  TovSaia?  'EaAwKvta?^  Indaea 
capta,  ''  For  the  Conquest  of  Judea,"  no  Roman  coins 
with  imperial  effigies  appear  till  the  radical  reorganiza- 
tion by  Hadrian.  That  indicated  clearly  enough  the 
extent  to  which  the  Romans  were  willing  to  respect 
what  was  to  them  a  purely  irrational  prejudice. 

One  other  matter  was  easier  for  Romans  to  compre- 
hend, and  that  was  the  inviolable  sanctity  of  certain 
things  and  places.  It  was  a  common  enough  conception 
that  certain  places  were  unapproachable  to  all  but  a  few, 
aSura;  and  that  certain  things,  like  the  Palladium,  suf- 
fered profanation  from  the  slightest  touch.    They  sub- 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  273 


mitted  accordingly  with  a  good  grace  to  exclusion  from 
most  of  the  temple  precincts,  and  Nero^"  readily  gave 
his  consent  to  the  building  of  the  wall  that  prevented 
Agrippa  II  from  turning  the  temple  ceremonies  into  a 
show  for  his  courtiers.  The  punishment  of  a  Roman 
soldier,  who  tore  a  scroll  of  the  Pentateuch,  is  another 
case  in  point.  The  soldier  may  have  been  a  Syrian 
enrolled  from  the  section  in  which  he  served,  and 
not  properly  a  Roman  at  all.  None  the  less  an  arbitrary 
and  distinctly  unsympathetic  procurator  felt  his  respon- 
sibility for  threatened  disorders  keenly  enough  to  make 
this  drastic  example.^*' 

Herod  had  kept  order.  He  had  done  so  with  a  high 
hand,  and  had  met  with  frequent  rebellions.  Himself 
wholly  inclined  to  complete  Hellenization,  he  had  made 
many  efforts  to  conciliate  his  Jewish  subjects.  His 
lust  for  building  he  gratified  only  in  the  pagan  cities 
subject  to  him.  His  coins  bear  no  device  except  the 
inanimate  objects  and  vegetable  forms  allowed  by  law 
and  tradition.  With  cautious  regard  to  certain  openly 
expressed  fears  on  the  part  of  the  Jews,  he  rebuilt  the 
temple  on  a  magnificent  scale.  He  spoke  of  the  Israel- 
ites as  "  our  ancestors."  ^^  As  has  been  said,  he  did  not 
wholly  want  adherents  among  priests  and  people.  That 
he  died  as  an  embittered  and  vindictive  despot,  con- 
scious of  being  generally  detested,  and  contriving 
fiendish  plots  to  make  his  death  deplored,  is  probable 
enough,  and  is  amply  explained  by  the  domestic  diffi- 
culties with  which  he  had  to  contend  all  his  life.'' 

18 


274      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

In  some  cases  at  least,  it  was  his  zeal  for  orderly 
administration  that  caused  friction  with  the  people. 
His  law  sentencing  burglars  to  foreign  slavery  is  an 
instance  (Jos.  Ant.  XVI.  i.  i ).  In  general,  however,  the 
mere  suppression  of  more  or  less  organized  brigandage 
was  a  task  that  took  all  his  attention,  but  this  "  brig- 
andage "  was  often  a  real  attempt  at  revolution,  in  which 
popular  teachers  were  suspected  of  being  implicated, 
and  every  such  suppression  carried  with  it  in  its  train  a 
series  of  executions  that  did  not  increase  the  king's 
popularity. 

These  ''robbers"  or  "brigands"  were  of  different 
types.  The  distinction  which  Roman  lawyers  made 
between  war  proper,  iustum  helium,  and  brigandage, 
latrocinium,  was  in  Syria  and  the  surrounding  regions 
rather  quantitative  than  qualitative.  So,  after  Herod's 
first  defeat  by  the  Arabians,  "  he  engaged  in  robberies," 
TovvrevOev  6  [xev  'H/owS?^?  XrjaTetaLs  Ixp'^To  (Jos.  Ant.  XV. 
V.  I ) ,  which  meant  only  that  he  made  short  incursions 
into  the  enemy's  country,  until  he  had  the  strength  to 
attempt  another  pitched  battle.  So  also  of  the  Tracho- 
nitians  (ibid.  XVI.  ix.  3).  Every  one  of  the  expeditions 
in  which  the  Hasmonean  rulers  had  increased  their 
dominions  had  been  in  the  eyes  of  the  Syrian  historians 
''  robberies."  Itureans  and  other  Syrians  had  been 
guilty  of  them  under  the  last  Seleucids.^^  In  the  pro- 
logue to  Pompeius  Trogus'  Thirty-ninth  Book,  as 
contained  in  Justin's  epitome,^  we  hear  the  conquests  of 
John  Hyrcanus  and  Alexander  Jannai  described  as 
latrocinia.     And  again  (xl.  2)   we  read  that  Pompey 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  275 

refused  the  petition  of  Antiochus,  son  of  Cyzicenus,  to 
be  called  king  of  Syria,  on  the  ground  that  Antiochus 
had  miserably  shirked  his  responsibilities  for  eleven 
years,  and  he,  Pompey,  would  not  give  him  what  he 
could  not  maintain,  "  lest  he  should  again  expose  Syria 
to  Jewish  and  Arabian  brigands,"  ne  rursus  Syriam 
ludaeorum  et  Arahum  latrociniis  infestam  reddat. 

Herod  had  kept  these  robbers  in  check,  and  had 
effectually  fulfilled  his  tacit  engagement  to  the  populus 
Romanus.  His  death  immediately  removed  the  strong 
hand.  His  son  Archelaus  found  an  insurrection  on 
his  hands  almost  at  once,  which  he  suppressed  with 
great  bloodshed.  The  moment  he  left  for  Rome  to 
maintain  his  claims  to  a  part  of  this  inheritance,  the 
governor  of  Syria  suppressed  another  revolt ;  and  hardly 
had  he  turned  his  back,  when  his  procurator  Sabinus 
found  himself  surrounded  by  a  determined  band  of 
rebels  recruited  principally  from  Galilee,  Idumaea, 
Jericho,  and  the  trans-Jordan  territory.  In  spite  of  a 
successful  sortie  by  the  Romans,  Sabinus  was  nothing 
less  than  besieged  in  the  Tower  of  Phasael. 

Innumerable  (fjcvpcoi)  disorders,  Josephus  tells  us 
(Ant.  XVII.  X.  4),  occurred  at  about  the  same  time. 
Some  two  thousand  of  Herod's  soldiers  engaged,  as 
was  so  often  the  case,  in  plunder  on  their  own  account. 
Sepphoris  in  Galilee  was  seized  and  plundered  by  Judah, 
son  of  the  highwayman  ( dpxtATyo-TTys )  Hezekiah,  who 
made  the  neighboring  country  dangerous  with  his  band 
of  "madmen"  (anovevorjiJievoi) .  At  Jericho  Simon,  a 
former  slave  of  Herod,  had  himself  proclaimed  king 


2^^      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

and  sacked  the  palace  there.  But  more  serious  than 
these  was  the  band  of  outlaws  commanded  by  four 
brothers,  of  whom  only  Athronges  is  mentioned.  These 
attacked  both  the  local  troops  and  even  Roman  detach- 
ments and  were  not  suppressed  till  much  later."^"" 

All  these  disorders  required  the  presence  of  Varus  '^ 
once  more.  He  marched  on  Jerusalem  at  the  head  of 
an  army,  turning  over  the  various  towns  on  his  route 
to  be  sacked  by  his  Arabian  allies,  precisely  as  both 
British  and  French  used  their  Indian  allies  during  the 
colonial  wars  in  America. 

The  effect  of  such  conditions  in  so  critical  a  place  as 
Judea,  was  to  call  Roman  attention  to  the  country  to  a 
much  greater  extent  than  was  advantageous  to  the 
Jews.  The  region  very  naturally  appeared  to  them  as  a 
turbulent  and  seditious  section,  much  as  Gaul  did  to 
Julius  Caesar  and  largely  for  the  same  reason,  the 
instinctive  love  of  liberty  and  the  presence  of  ''  innova- 
tors," veo)Tepi(jTai,  cupidi  rerum  novarum,  restless  and 
ambitious  instigators  of  rebellion."  The  Jerusalem 
Jews  are,  to  be  sure,  very  eager  to  escape  the  reproach 
of  disloyalty.  The  rebellion  was  the  work  of  outsiders 
(eTrryAvSes),  to  wit,  the  Galileans  and  Gileadites  above- 
mentioned.^^ 

Varus  crucified  two  thousand  men,  and  then  dis- 
banded his  auxiliary  army.  The  latter,  composed  ob- 
viously of  natives  of  the  country,  proceeded  to  plunder 
on  their  own  account.  Varus'  prompt  action  brought 
them  to  terms.  The  officers  were  seized  and  sent  to 
Rome,  where,  however,  only  the  relatives  of  Herod, 
who  had  added  impiety  to  treason,  were  punished. 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  277 

But  the  reproach  of  being  a  seditious  people  was 
resented  by  other  Jews  than  those  of  Jerusalem.  The 
Jews  in  Rome  were  largely  descended  from  those  who 
had  left  the  country  before  even  Antipater,  Herod's 
father,  had  become  powerful  there.  On  them,  of 
course,  the  house  of  Herod  could  make  no  claim,  and 
for  obvious  reasons  closer  relations  with  Rome  seemed 
to  them  eminently  desirable.  The  Jewish  embassy 
which  Varus  had  permitted  the  Judeans  to  send — how 
selected  and  led  we  have  no  information — was  joined 
by  an  immense  deputation  from  the  Roman  synagogues. 
The  substance  of  their  plea  was  the  petition  that  they 
be  made  an  integral  part  of  the  province  of  Syria.  ''  For 
it  will  thus  become  evident  whether  they  really  are  a 
seditious  people,  generally  impatient  of  all  forms  of 
authority  for  any  length  of  time  "  (Jos.  Ant.  XVH.  ii. 
2;  Wars,  H.  vi.  2). 

This  plea,  to  be  joined  to  Syria,  is  particularly  signifi- 
cant if  we  remember  that  the  motive  of  the  Jews  in 
sending  the  embassy  was,  in  the  words  of  the  Wars  (H. 
vi.  i),  to  plead  for  the  autonomy  of  their  nation  (cf. 
Ant.  XVH.  xi.  i).  We  see  strikingly  confirmed  the 
theory  of  the  Roman  provincial  system,  in  which  the 
proconsul  or  propraetor  was  only  an  official  added  to, 
but  not  superseding,  the  local  authorities. 

The  representative  of  Archelaus,  Nicolaus  of 
Damascus,^^  charged  the  former's  accusers  with  ''rebel- 
lion and  lust  for  sedition,"  with  lack  of  that  culture 
which  consists  in  observance  of  right  and  law.  Nicolaus 
had   in   view   primarily   the   Jewish   accusers   of   his 


27S      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

employer,  but  no  doubt  made  his  remarks  general.  In 
the  earlier  version  of  the  embassy,  as  it  appears  in  the 
Wars  (II.  vi.  2),  it  is  the  whole  nation  that  Nicolaus 
charges  directly  with  "  a  natural  lack  of  submission  and 
loyalty  to  royal  power." 

Augustus  declined  to  continue  the  heterogeneous 
kingdom  of  Herod.  A  brief  trial  of  Archelaus  as 
ethnarch  of  Judea  proper  convinced  him  of  the  latter's 
worthlessness.  The  request  of  the  Jewish  envoys  was 
now  granted.  Judea  became  a  part  of  Syria — and  the 
agent  or  procurator  of  the  Syrian  proconsul  took  up 
official  residence  at  Caesarea.  We  find,  however,  that 
this  step,  which  the  Jews  themselves  had  suggested, 
almost  immediately  provoked  a  serious  rebellion  in 
Galilee,  led  by  one  Judah  of  Gamala  in  Galilee  and  by 
a  Pharisee  named  Zadok,  who,  if  we  may  believe 
Josephus,  were  appreciably  different  from  the  various 
"  robbers,"  Ar^orai,  whom  he  had  formerly  enumerated, 
and,  in  his  eyes,  even  more  detestable  than  they  were. 
They  placed  their  opposition  on  the  basis  of  a  principle. 
This  principle  was  that  of  the  sinfulness  of  all  mortal 
government  and  the  consequent  rejection  of  Roman 
authority  as  well.  Accordingly  they  refused  to  pay 
tribute.  These  advocates  of  a  pure  theocracy  had  of 
course  obvious  Scriptural  warrant  for  their  position, 
but  the  relatively  rapid  spread  of  such  a  doctrine  in 
the  form  of  an  actual  programme  of  resistance  can  be 
accounted  for  only  by  the  extremely  unsettled  state  of 
the  country  and  the  still  more  unsettled  state  of  men's 
minds. 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  279 

That  this  Judah  formed  a  fourth  sect  of  the  Jews 
m  addition  to  the  three,  Pharisees,  Sadducees,  and 
Essenes,  already  in  existence,  as  Josephus  tells  us,  may 
not  be  quite  true."*"  Men  of  his  type  are  scarcely 
founders  of  sects.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
doctrines  which  these  zealots  espoused  were  those  which 
Josephus  has  described.  The  later  history  of  Europe  has 
abundant  examples  of  such  groups  of  fanatic  warriors 
maintaining  one  of  many  current  religious  dogmas, 
especially  in  times  of  economic  and  political  disorder. 
Of  such  incidents  the  Hussite  bands  of  Ziska  and  the 
Anabaptist  insurrection  are  examples.  In  this  case 
the  distress  and  uncertainty  were  largely  spiritual.  The 
economic  conditions,  while  bad,  had  not  become  particu- 
larly worse.  Indeed,  if  anything,  more  direct  adminis- 
tration had  somewhat  lightened  the  burdens,  by  mak- 
ing them  less  arbitrary  and  by  removing  the  heavy 
expense  of  a  court  and  the  need  of  footing  the  bill  for 
Herod's  building  enterprises. 

Josephus  regards  the  great  rebellion  of  68  c.  e.  as 
the  direct  consequence  of  this  insurrection  of  Judah. 
He  is  therefore  very  bitter  against  this  "  fourth  philo- 
sophic system,"  which  spread  among  the  younger  men 
and  brought  the  country  to  ruin.  It  is  at  least  curious 
that  in  his  earlier  work,  the  Wars,  in  which  the  recollec- 
tion of  Jewish  disaster  would  be,  one  would  suppose, 
vastly  more  vivid,  he  does  not  ascribe  to  this  rebellion 
any  such  far-reaching  effects  (Wars,  II.  viii.  i)  ;  nor 
is  it  in  any  degree  likely  that  this  insurrection  was  after 
all  more  than  what  it  appears  to  be  there,  a  sporadic 


28o      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

outburst  in  that  hotbed  of  unrest,  the  GaHlean  hills, 
noteworthy  only  for  the  special  zeal  with  which  the 
theocratic  principles  were  announced. 

No  riots  or  disturbances  are  mentioned  in  Judea  till 
the  famous  image-riots  of  the  time  of  Pontius  Pilate. 
However  we  may  wish  to  discount  the  highly  colored 
narrative  preserved  in  Josephus,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  these  riots  did  take  place.  It  may  even  be  that 
the  representation  of  influential  Jews  induced  the  much 
desired  concession  on  Pilate's  part  of  removing  the 
**  images."  But  what  these  images  were  does  not 
appear  with  any  clearness  from  Josephus'  account,  and 
of  course  we  are  under  no  obligation  to  take  literally 
the  "  five  days  and  five  nights "  during  which  the 
ambassadors  lay  prostrate,  with  bare  necks,  at  Pilate's 
feet. 

Josephus  speaks  of  the  "  images  of  Caesar  which 
are  called  standards  "  (Wars,  II.  ix.  2 ;  Ant.  XVIII.  iii. 
i).  The  Roman  standards,  signa,  o-ry/xatat,  often  con- 
tained representations  of  the  emperor.  But  these  were 
in  the  form  of  medallions  in  flat  relief,  hung  upon  the 
standard.  They  would  have  been  noticed  only  upon 
relatively  close  inspection.  There  were  also  statues  in 
the  camp.  But  it  is  quite  unlikely  that  if  the  Roman 
provincial  administrators  were  instructed  to  issue  no 
coins  with  the  imperial  effigy,  they  would  be  allowed  to 
carry  into  the  city  actual  statues  of  the  emperor.  They 
may  well  have  forgotten  that  the  military  standards 
would  be  themselves  offensive,  if  they  bore,  as  they 
always  did,  the  representation  of  animal  forms.     All 


~> 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  281 

legions  at  this  time  carried  the  eagle,  and  most  of  them 
had  other  heraldic  animals  as  well." 

Now  it  may  be  remembered  that  the  chief  legion 
permanently  encamped  in  Syria,  of  which  detachments 
must  have  accompanied  Pilate  upon  his  transference 
of  the  praetorium  from  Caesarea  to  Jerusalem,  was  the 
Tenth  Legion,  called  Fretensis  (Leg.  X  Fretensis), 
and  that  its  standards  were  a  bull  and  a  pig.'''  To  the 
mass  of  the  Jews  the  carrying,  as  though  in  triumph,  of 
the  gilded  image  of  an  unclean  animal  must  have 
seemed  nothing  less  than  derision,  and  can  easily 
explain  the  fury  of  the  populace. 

Another  of  the  Syrian  legions,  of  which  certain 
divisions  may  have  been  with  Pilate,  was  the  Third 
Gallic  Legion  (Leg.  Ill  Gallica).  This  legion,  like  the 
X  Fretensis,  bore  a  bull  as  a  standard,  which,  while  less 
stimulating  to  the  mass  of  the  population,  must  have 
seemed  even  more  than  the  pig  the  emblem  of  idolatry 
to  those  who  had  the  history  of  their  people  in  mind.'' 

If  this  was  the  occasion  of  the  disturbance,  Pilate 
may  well  have  been  innocent  of  any  provocative  inten- 
tion. That  can  scarcely  have  been  altogether  the  case 
in  the  riots  provoked  by  the  aqueducts.  Pilate  seized 
certain  sacred  funds  for  that  purpose,  and  in  this  case 
no  official,  Roman  or  Greek,  could  have  failed  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  the  funds  or  the  ofifense  involved  in 
using  them  for  secular  purposes. 

A  certain  significance  is  attached  to  the  Samaritan 
episode  mentioned  by  Josephus  (Ant.  XVIII.  iv.  i).  It 
is  one  of  the  incidents  that  become  more  and  more  fre- 


282      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


quent.  The  promises  of  a  plausible  thaumaturg  cause 
an  enormous  throng  to  gather.  It  does  not  appear  that 
he  had  any  other  purpose  than  that  of  obtaining  credit 
as  a  prophet  or  magician.  But  Pilate,  as  most  Roman 
governors  would  no  doubt  have  done,  held  the  un- 
licensed assemblage  of  armed  men  to  be  sedition,  and 
suppressed  it  as  such. 

Shortly  afterwards  Palestine  and  the  closely  con- 
nected Egyptian  communities  were  thrown  into  a 
frenzy  of  excitement  by  the  widely  advertised  attempt 
of  Gains  to  set  up  his  statue  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 
The  imperial  legate  at  Antioch  had  no  desire  whatever 
to  arouse  a  rebellion  in  which  all  the  forces  of  religious 
hatred  would  be  let  loose  upon  him.  He  therefore  tem- 
porized and  postponed  at  his  own  imminent  peril.  In 
view  of  the  constantly  threatening  attitude  of  Parthia, 
Petronius  ^*  may  well  have  felt  his  responsibility  with 
especial  force.  Only  a  few  years  before,  an  invasion 
on  the  part  of  the  Parthian  king  Artabanus  had  been 
generally  feared.  Agrippa  had  even  been  accused  of 
complicity  with  the  Parthians."*^  The  governor  of  Syria 
had  every  reason  to  hesitate  to  gratify  the  caprice  of 
an  obviously  insane  emperor  at  so  great  a  risk  to  the 
state.  Luckily  for  him,  the  assassination  of  Gains 
saved  him  from  the  consequences  of  his  hesitation. 
His  subsequent  procedure  against  the  people  of  Doris  ^ 
indicated  a  lively  comprehension  on  his  part  of  the 
inflammable  character  of  the  people  he  had  to  govern 
and  the  particular  importance  to  be  attached  to  this 
question  of  images. 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  283 

To  the  Roman  historian,  the  incident  of  Gains* 
attempted  erection  of  his  statue  in  the  temple  is  only 
an  illustration  of  the  readiness  with  which  this  nation 
rebelled.  Tacitus"  treats  the  period  between  insur- 
rections as  one  of  smouldering  revolt.  The  incident 
of  Gains  precipitated  an  outbreak  (Hist.  v.  9),  which 
his  death  calmed,  and  enabled  the  Jews  to  suppress 
their  inclinations  a  few  years  longer.  Duravit  tamen 
patientia  ludaeis,  he  tells  us,  usque  ad  Gessium  Florum 
procuratorem,  ''  The  submission  of  the  Jews  lasted 
till  the  procuratorship  of  Gessius  Florus." 

The  short  reign  of  Herod's  popular  grandson. 
Agrippa,  "  the  great  king  Agrippa,  friend  of  Caesar 
and  the  Romans,"  as  he  calls  himself  on  his  coins  and 
inscriptions,'^  rather  confirmed  Roman  anxiety  about 
the  loyalty  of  their  Jewish  subjects  than  lightened  it. 
It  was  by  a  complete  adoption  of  Jewish  customs — 
an  adoption  that  can  hardly  have  been  sincere — that 
Agrippa  secured  and  maintained  his  hold  on  their 
affections.^"  His  deference  to  the  religious  leaders  of 
the  people  was  unqualified.  His  dealing  with  the 
Pharisee  Simon,  who  publicly  challenged  his  right  to 
enter  the  temple  precincts  at  all,  is  an  illustration.'^  The 
Pharisaic  tradition  of  his  reign  as  preserved  in  the 
Talmud  is  that  he  was  a  pious  and  scrupulously  obser- 
vant Jew,  painfully  conscious  that  his  Idumean  origin 
made  him  half  a  stranger  in  Israel. 

But  to  Rome  Agrippa's  methods,  in  spite  of  their 
success,  indicated  only  that  no  real  progress  had  been 
made  in  the  subjugation  of  Palestine.    Rome  was  not 


284      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

without  experience  of  lands  difficult  to  subdue.  Gaul, 
Belgium,  Germany,  Britain,  were  all  lands  where  insur- 
rections might  at  any  time  be  feared  through  the  devo- 
tion of  an  influential  minority  to  their  ancestral  customs. 
But  in  Palestine  there  was  even  less  appreciable  in- 
crease in  Romanization  or  Hellenization  of  customs 
than  in  the  countries  mentioned.  To  an  antiquary  and 
scholar  like  the  emperor  Claudius  there  might  be  some- 
thing interesting  and  admirable  in  the  maintenance  of 
an  historic  culture,  but  to  the  Roman  administrative 
official,  accountable  for  the  security  of  the  East,  there 
was  little  that  was  admirable  about  it. 

A  quarrel  between  the  Jews  of  Peraea  and  the 
neighboring  city  of  Philadelphia  may  have  had  only 
local  significance.  And  the  Ptolemy  executed  by  Fadus 
may  have  been  only  a  common  highwayman."  But 
a  very  little  later  the  success  of  a  certain  Theudas,  an 
*'  impostor,''  yo-q^  n?  avy]p,  Josephus  calls  him,  in  gaining 
adherents  as  a  prophet  is  highly  significant."^  This 
Theudas  undertook  to  divide  the  Jordan,  and  pass 
across  it  with  his  followers.  It  is  noteworthy  that  every 
such  claim  to  miraculous  power  immediately  elicited 
drastic  action  on  the  part  of  the  Romans.  Theudas' 
followers  were  cut  down  in  a  cavalry  raid,  and  he  him- 
self was  captured  and  beheaded.  Roman  officials  appre- 
hended danger  chiefly  from  this  source,  and  were  par- 
ticularly on  their  guard  against  it. 

Such  incidents  as  the  riots  provoked  by  individual 
soldiers  cannot  have  been  frequent.  As  has  been  said 
in  one  case,  the  Roman  commander  executed  a  soldier 


THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  285 

whose  outrage  had  stirred  up  a  revolt.  But  a  garrison 
of  foreign  soldiers  in  a  warlike  country  furnishes  con- 
stant incentives  to  friction,  which  may  at  any  time  burst 
out  into  a  general  war.  In  Samaria  and  Galilee  there 
were  abundant  pretexts  for  mutual  attacks,  the  net 
result  of  which  was  that  the  land  was  full  of  brigand- 
age, which  indicates  that  the  Roman  police  here  were 
strikingly  ineffective.  And  in  all  cases  the  suspicion 
that  attached  to  every  armed  leader  was  that  his  motives 
were  treasonable  as  well  as  criminal.  So  Dortus  of 
Lydda  was  accused  by  the  Samaritans  of  directly 
preaching  rebellion. 

Under  Nero,  says  Josephus,  the  country  went  from 
bad  to  worse,  and  was  filled  with  brigands  and  impos- 
tors.'^ How  little  it  was  possible  to  distinguish  between 
these  two  classes  appears  from  the  fact  that  Josephus 
continually  mentions  them  in  couples.  Those  whom 
he  calls  Assassins,  or  Sicarii,  can  be  placed  in  neither 
category.  One  thing  is  evident.  Their  apparently 
wanton  murders  must  have  had  other  incentives  than 
pillage,  for  even  Josephus  does  not  charge  them  with 
that;  they  were  obviously  animated  by  a  purpose  that 
may  be  called  either  patriotism  or  fanatic  zeal,  depend- 
ing upon  one's  bias.  That  is  shown  plainly  enough  in 
a  casual  statement  of  Josephus  that  these  brigands  were 
attempting  to  foment  by  force  a  war  on  Rome,  rov  Syjfiov 
ci?  Tov  TT/oos    PwjUatots  TToXefjiov  rjpiOit^ov, 

The  usual  ''prophet,"  in  this  case  an  unnamed  Egyp- 
tian, appears  with  his  promise  to  make  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem  fall  at  his  command,  and  the  usual  attack 


286      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

of  armed  soldiers  on  a  helpless  group  of  unarmed 
fanatics.  In  the  Wars,  Josephus  speaks  of  a  great  num- 
ber of  these  self-styled  prophets  (II.  xiii.  4)  :  "Cheats 
and  vagabonds  caused  rebellion  and  total  subversion  of 
society,  under  the  pretense  of  being  divinely  inspired. 
They  infected  the  common  people  with  madness,  and 
led  them  into  the  desert  with  the  promise  that  God 
would  there  show  them  how  to  gain  freedom."  The 
procurator  Felix  took  the  customary  measures  of  treat- 
ing these  expeditions  as  open  sedition  and  crushing 
them  with  all  the  power  at  his  command — acts  which 
can  only  have  inflamed  the  prevailing  disorders. 

The  picture  drawn  by  Josephus  of  the  Judea  of  those 
days  represents  a  condition  nothing  short  of  anarchy. 
Such  a  situation  could  have  existed  only  under  an 
incompetent  Roman  governor.  Whether  the  procu- 
rator Gessius  Florus  was  or  was  not  quite  the  mon- 
ster he  is  depicted  as  being  in  the  W^ars,  he  can 
scarcely  have  been  an  efficient  administrator.  It  is 
very  likely  that  the  various  acts  of  cruelty  imputed  to 
him  by  Josephus  were  examples  of  the  intemperate 
violence  of  a  weak  man  exasperated  by  his  own  failure 
to  control  the  situation.  However  this  may  be,  it  cer- 
tainly was  not  the  excesses  of  an  individual  governor 
that  provoked  the  rebellion  of  68  c.  e.,  even  if  we  accept 
Josephus'  account  of  him  in  full,  and  assume  him  to 
have  been  a  second  and  worse  Verres.  The  outbreak 
of  that  year  was  the  result  of  causes  lying  far  deeper 
in  the  condition  of  the  time  and  the  character  of  the 
people. 


CHAPTER  XVIII      ■ 
THE  REVOLT  OF  68  c.  e. 

The  Jews  were  not  the  only  nation  that  fought  with 
desperate  fury  against  complete  submergence  in  the 
floods  of  Roman  dominance.  The  spread  of  the  Roman 
arms  had  encountered,  from  the  beginning,  seemingly 
small  obstacles  that  proved  more  serious  checks  than 
the  greater  ones.  Thus,  after  the  Second  Punic  War, 
when  Rome  was  already  in  the  ascendant  in  the  world, 
the  relatively  fresh  strength  of  a  conquering  people 
was  all  but  exhausted  in  the  attempt  to  subdue  and 
render  thoroughly  Roman  the  mountain  tribes  of  the 
Ligurians  in  the  northern  part  of  the  peninsula.^  In 
later  times,  after  Caesar's  conquest,  the  subjugation 
of  Belgium  was  a  weary  succession  of  revolts  and 
massacres  and  punitive  expeditions  that  stretched  over 
several  generations.  Similarly  in  Numidia  it  was 
found  that  formal  submission  of  the  tribes  that  filled 
this  region  insured  no  permanence  of  control." 

In  the  last  cases,  however,  the  danger  that  was 
warded  off  seemed  in  Roman  eyes  to  be  remote.  In  the 
case  of  Judea  the  very  existence  of  the  eastern  empire 
was  threatened.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Syrian  desert 
there  was  a  watchful  and  ready  enemy,  who  might 
appear  in  force  at  any  time  and  with  whose  arrival 
there    might   break    out    into    open    conflagration    the 


288      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

smouldering  disloyalty  that  still  was  present  in  the 
Asiatic  provinces. 

The  Jewish  rebellion  of  68  c.  e.  was  not  an  isolated 
phenomenon.  For  the  Jews  it  formed  the  beginning  of 
a  series  of  insurrections  that  did  not  end  till  the  found- 
ing of  Aelia  Capitolina  put  a  visible  seal  on  the  futility 
of  all  such  attempts.  To  us  the  outcome  seems  so  inevi- 
table that  the  heroism  of  the  Zealots  has  stood  for 
centuries  as  a  striking  example  of  unrestrained  fanat- 
icism. To  take  a  modern  instance,  if  the  single  island 
of  Cyprus  were  to  attempt,  by  its  unaided  strength, 
to  cast  off  the  British  rule,  it  would  not  seem  to  be 
engaged  in  a  more  completely  forlorn  enterprise  than 
were  the  Jews  who  undertook  to  defy  the  power  of  the 
legions.  And  yet  those  who  began  and  conducted  the 
revolt  were  neither  fools  nor  madmen,  and  the  hopes 
that  buoyed  them  must  have  been  very  real  when  they 
attempted  the  impossible. 

We  must  first  of  all  remember  that  a  foreign  suze- 
rainty was  not  necessarily  incompatible  with  Jewish 
theocratic  ideals.  Tradition  had  accustomed  the  Jews 
to  Assyrian  and  Persian  dominance,  and  their  most 
sacred  recollections  contained  ample  warrant  for  those 
who  would  bear  the  rule  of  Caesar  with  complete 
equanimity.  But  it  had  been  axiomatic  that  the  rule  of 
a  foreign  master  was  a  divinely  imposed  penalty,  a 
trial,  a  test  of  submission.  At  some  time  the  period  of 
trials  would  cease,  and  the  normal  condition  of  com- 
plete freedom  from  outside  control  under  the  sway  of 
God  would  be  restored.     The  Messianic   hope  made 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  289 

that  situation  more  and  more  vividly  present  to  the 
hearts  of  men. 

Nor  did  actual  experience  of  recorded  history  make 
this  possibility  a  vain  dream.  The  vicissitudes  of  for- 
tune, the  sudden  rise  of  obscure  nations  to  supremacy, 
and  their  quick  destruction,  were  rhetorical  common- 
places. The  East  knew  abundant  cases  of  the  kind. 
Empires  had  risen  and  crumbled  almost  within  the 
recollection  of  living  men.  That  was  particularly  so 
after  Alexander,  when  sudden  glories  and  eclipses  were 
too  common  to  be  noteworthy. 

And  we  must  further  reckon  with  the  fact  that  a 
potent  incentive  was  the  living  faith  in  an  actual  God, 
who  could  and  did  hurl  the  mighty  from  their  seat.  To 
these  men  the  destruction  of  Sennacherib  or  the  triumph 
of  Gideon  was  no  legend,  but  a  real  event,  which  might 
occur  in  their  days  as  in  the  days  of  their  fathers.  The 
attempt,  accordingly,  to  secure  the  independence  of  a 
small  portion  of  the  empire  need  not  have  seemed  to 
the  men  that  undertook  it  quite  as  insensate  a  proceed- 
ing as  it  does  to  us. 

Our  most  complete  source  for  the  period  is  dis- 
credited by  the  parti  pris  of  the  author,  the  disloyal 
Josephus.  The  Roman  sources  indicate  that  in  the 
Jewish  revolt  there  was  nothing  diiTerent  from  the 
revolts  in  other  parts  of  the  w^orld,  revolts  to  which 
Romans  were  accustomed.  There  was  no  direct  exter- 
nal provocation.  There  was  no  one  event  that  seemed 
to  account  adequately  for  an  outburst  just  then.  But 
we  find  no  indication  that  Romans  felt  it  to  be  a  strange 
19 


290      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


or  inexplicable  fact  for  men  to  rise  in  order  to  recover 
their  freedom.  The  imperial  interests  demanded  that 
the  hopelessness  of  such  rising  should  be  made  ap- 
parent. It  was  therefore  to  the  leaders  of  the  com- 
munity, the  aristocracy,  that  Romans  looked  to  keep  in 
check  the  ignorant  multitude  to  whom  the  superiority 
of  Romans  in  war  or  civilization  might  not  at  all  be 
apparent. 

The  contemptible  young  rake  who,  as  Agrippa  II, 
continued  for  some  years  the  empty  title  of  *'  king  of 
the  Jews,"  was  no  doubt  at  one  with  the  smug  Josephus 
in  his  sincere  conviction  of  the  overwhelming  might  of 
the  Romans  and  the  folly  of  attacking  it.  We  cannot 
sufficiently  admire  the  successful  way  in  which  the  king 
concealed  his  heartfelt  pity  for  the  sufferings  of  the 
Jews,  *'  since  he  wished  to  humble  the  exalted  thoughts 
they  were  indulging,"  as  Josephus  naively  tells  us 
(Wars,  II.  xvi.  2).  However,  not  mere  truckling  to  the 
Romans,  but  sober  conviction,  would  sufficiently  account 
for  the  pro-Roman  leanings  of  men  like  Agrippa  and 
Josephus.  The  long  speech  put  in  the  king's  mouth 
{ihid.  11.  xvi.  4)  was  perhaps  never  delivered,  but  it 
states  the  feeling  of  the  pro-Roman  party  and  of  the 
Romans  themselves  eminently  well. 

Both  Josephus  and  Agrippa  could  hold  no  other  view 
than  that  it  was  some  single  act  or  series  of  acts  of  the 
procurator  Florus  that  animated  the  leaders  of  the 
revolt.  It  seemed  to  them  a  "  small  reason  "  for  engag- 
ing in  what  was  conceded  even  by  the  most  hopeful  to 
be  a  desperate  and  frightful  war.    The  burden  of  the 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  291 

king's  supposed  speech,  however,  in  which  we  are  jus- 
tified in  seeing  the  sentiment  of  the  historian,  is  this : 
"Who  and  what  are  these  Jews  that  they  can  refuse  to 
submit  to  that  nation  to  which  all  others  have  sub- 
mitted?"^ We  find  enumerated  for  us  the  extent  and 
wealth  of  the  Roman  possessions  with  a  fervor  of 
patriotism  that  might  have  shamed  many  a  Roman. 
"  Are  you  richer  than  the  Gauls,  more  powerful  in 
body  than  the  Germans,  wiser  than  the  Greeks,  more 
numerous  than  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  put 
together?"  he  asks,  and  enforces  his  question  with  a 
detailed  account  of  the  enormous  numbers  of  people 
who  in  the  several  provinces  are  kept  in  check  by  a 
handful  of  legionaries. 

As  an  appeal  to  common  sense,  the  speech,  in  spite  of 
its  obvious  exaggerations,  ought  to  have  been  success- 
ful. But  what  the  Romans  and  the  Romanized  Jews 
chose  to  overlook  was  that  common  sense  was  scarcely 
a  factor  in  producing  the  "  exalted  opinions  "  which 
Agrippa  sought  to  abase.  The  glowing  assurance  of 
direct  divine  interposition  was  of  course  lacking  to  the 
speaker,  and  the  wilder  and  more  exuberant  fancies 
that  made  the  present  time  big  with  great  upheavals  and 
opened  vistas  of  strange  and  sweeping  changes,  could 
not  be  answered  by  a  statistical  enumeration  of  the 
forces  at  the  disposal  of  Romans  and  Jews  respectively. 

In  the  previous  chapter  one  fact  has  been  frequently 
mentioned  which  Josephus  states  quite  casually  as  an 
ordinary  incident  of  the  events  he  is  describing.  That 
fact   is  the   readiness   with   which  the   Romans  took 


292      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

alarm,  not  only  at  the  armed  ''  brigands,"  who  were 
really  at  all  times  in  open  revolt,  but  at  anyone  who, 
posing  as  preacher  or  prophet,  gathered  a  crowd  about 
him  for  thoroughly  unwarlike  purposes.  We  do  not 
find  elsewhere  in  the  empire  this  quickness  of  animad- 
version on  the  part  of  the  authorities  to  such  acts. 
The  Armenian  Peregrinus  was  quite  unmolested  by  the 
Roman  officials  when  he  undertook  to  perform  before 
the  eyes  of  the  assembled  crowd  the  miracle  of  Hercules 
on  Mount  Oeta."  Nor  is  there  any  evidence,  however 
large  the  multitude  was  that  surrounded  the  itinerant 
magician  elsewhere,  that  riot  and  subversion  were 
apprehended  from  that  fact.  Yet  when  the  Egyptian 
promised  to  divide  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  (above,  p. 
285),  or  Theudas  to  pass  dryshod  over  the  Jordan,  or 
another  man  to  discover  the  hidden  treasures  on  the 
Gerizim  (above,  p.  284),  a  troop  was  sent  at  once  to 
crush  with  bloody  effectiveness  an  incipient  rebellion. 
Obviously,  in  Judea,  and  not  elsewhere,  the  assertion 
of  divine  inspiration  carried  with  it  a  claim  to  certain 
political  rights,  or  was  deemed  to  do  so,  which  was 
incompatible  with  Roman  sovereignty. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  understand  what  that  claim  was, 
and  easy  enough  to  understand  why  it  does  not  stand 
forth  more  clearly  in  Josephus'  narrative.  The  coming 
of  the  Messianic  kingdom  had  been  looked  for  by 
previous  generations  as  well,  but  in  the  generation  that 
preceded  68  c.  e.  it  became  more  and  more  strongly 
believed  to  be  immediately  at  hand  and  to  demand 
from  those  who  would  share  in  it  a  more  than  passive 
reception. 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  293 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  every  one  of  these  impos- 
tors or  thaumaturgs  claimed  Messianic  rank.  That  it 
is  not  expressly  stated  by  Josephus  proves  little,  since 
he  actively  strove  to  suppress  any  indication  that  there 
were  rebellious  incentives  among  his  people  other  than 
the  brutal  oppressions  of  Florus.  But  to  claim  to  be 
Messiah  was  a  serious  matter  both  to  the  people  and  to 
the  Roman  officials,  and  we  assume  that  these  rather 
vulgar  swindlers  hardly  dared  to  go  so  far.  However, 
whether  individuals  did  or  did  not  make  these  pre- 
tensions, it  is  clear  that  during  the  reign  of  Nero  the 
sense  of  an  impending  cataclysm  was  growing,  and  the 
most  fondly  held  dreams  of  the  Jews,  which  clustered 
about  the  Messianic  idea,  seemed  to  come  near  to 
realization. 

Besides  the  cumulative  force  which  the  Jewish  escha- 
tology  and  Messianic  hope  acquired  by  the  mere  tradi- 
tion from  generation  to  generation,  there  was  another 
and  more  general  factor.  The  constitution  established 
by  Augustus  might  strive  as  it  would  to  resemble  with 
only  slight  modifications  the  republican  forms  it  dis- 
placed. The  East,  for  its  part,  had  never  been  deceived 
into  regarding  it  otherwise  than  a  monarchy.  And  as 
such  it  was  an  unmistakable  notch  in  the  course  of 
events.  At  a  specific  moment,  whether  it  was  Caesar's 
entry  into  Rome  or  Augustus'  investiture  with  the  prin- 
cipate,  living  men  had  seen  and  noted  a  page  turned  in 
the  history  of  the  world. 

In  this  new  monarchical  constitution,  the  weak  point 
was  the  succession.     The  glamour  of  acknowledged 


294      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


divinity  rested  upon  Julius  Caesar  and  Augustus,  and 
in  their  blood  there  seemed  to  be  an  assurance  of  title  to 
the  lordship  of  the  world.  What  would  happen  if  this 
blood  should  fail  ?  No  machinery  existed  that  would 
automatically  indicate  who  the  successor  would  be. 
Changes  of  dynasty,  whether  regular  or  violent,  were 
of  course  no  new  thing  to  the  East,  but  this  was 
not  the  same.  The  Roman  empire  was  unique.  The 
imperator,  or  avroKparayp,  was  as  new  in  conception 
as  in  title.  Divinely  established,  the  imperial  dignity 
would  be  divinely  maintained  in  those  who  by  their 
origin  could  claim  an  unbroken  chain  of  divine  descent. 
He  whom  we  know  as  Nero  was  on  the  monuments 
"  Nero  Claudius  Caesar,  son  of  the  god  Claudius  and 
great-great-grandson  of  the  god  Augustus  " ;  and  the 
last  was  at  all  times  officially  styled  Divi  Ulius,  "  son 
of  the  God."' 

But  Nero's  childlessness  made  it  plain  that  the  divine 
maintenance  would  be  wanting.  With  Nero,  the  line  of 
Augustus  would  become  extinct.  For  Rome  that  pre- 
saged confusion  and  civil  war.  For  the  little  stretch  of 
country  between  the  Lebanon  and  the  River  of  Egypt, 
it  loosed  all  the  hopes  and  fears  and  expectations  to 
which  each  generation  had  added  a  little,  and  which 
were  to  be  realized  in  the  dissolution  that  was  hurrying 
on. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  the  reign  of  Nero  had  been 
marked  by  frequent  rebellions.  Armenia  had  revolted 
and  been  subdued.  At  the  other  end  of  the  Roman 
world,  the  Britons  had  risen  in  a  bloody  insurrection. 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  295 

And  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Jewish  war,  the  inevitable 
GalHc  rebelHon  broke  out,  ostensibly  against  Nero  per- 
sonally, but  doubtless  impelled  by  motives  of  national 
feeling  as  well.  Perhaps,  if  we  had  as  detailed  a  narra- 
tive of  the  British,  Armenian,  and  Gallic  insurrections 
as  we  have  of  the  Jewish,  we  should  find  many  prelimi- 
nary conditions  the  same.  Perhaps  in  those  countries 
too  "  brigands  "  and  "  impostors  "  stirred  the  people  to 
revolt  by  playing  upon  their  sacred  traditions  and 
appealing  to  their  hopes  of  a  national  restoration." 

One  very  curious  circumstance  is  the  association  of 
this  last  emperor  of  the  Julian  house  with  the  Jews 
generally  and  the  Messiahship  particularly.  How  far 
it  is  possible  to  discover  the  real  Nero  under  the  mass 
of  slanderous  gossip  and  poisonous  rhetoric  which 
Suetonius  and  Tacitus  have  heaped  upon  him,  is  not 
easy  to  determine,  nor  is  it  necessary  to  do  so  at  this 
point.  One  thing  may,  however,  be  insisted  upon.  He 
courted  and  achieved  a  high  degree  of  popularity.  This 
is  hinted  at,  not  only  in  the  fact  noted  in  Suetonius 
(Nero,  37),  that  in  a  public  prayer  he  ostentatiously 
referred  only  to  himself  and  the  people,  and  omitted 
any  mention  of  the  senate,  but  is  expressly  referred  to 
in  the  same  writer  (ibid.  53)  :  Maxime  autem  popu- 
laritate  eiferehatur,  omnium  aemtilus  qui  quoquo  modo 
animum  vulgi  moverent,  *'  Above  all,  his  chief  desire 
was  for  popularity,  and,  to  gain  this,  he  imitated  all  who 
in  any  way  had  caught  the  fancy  of  the  mob.''  To  this 
may  be  added  the  confirmatory  evidence  of  the  lasting 
veneration  felt  for  his  memory  by  the  populace  {ibid. 


296      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

57)  and  the  assumption  of  his  name  by  Otho  when 
the  latter  desired  to  court  popular  favor  (Suetonius, 
Otho,  7); 

This  favor  among  the  masses  in  the  city  would  of 
itself  indicate  a  hold  on  the  Oriental  part  of  his  sub- 
jects, which  Nero's  personal  traits  make  especially 
likely.  And  of  these  Oriental  or  half-Oriental  Romans 
a  very  considerable  fraction  were  Jews.  The  all-power- 
ful Poppaea  Sabina,  Nero's  mistress  and  afterwards  his 
wife,  is  on  good  grounds  believed  to  have  been  a  semi- 
proselyte,  a  metuens.^  Josephus  ascribes  Nero's  inter- 
ference to  her  influence  when  Agrippa  II  attempted  to 
make  a  display  of  the  temple  ceremonies.  It  is  also  not 
unlikely  that  the  change  of  attitude  on  the  part  of 
Josephus  toward  Nero  was  due  to  the  general  feeling  of 
the  Roman  Jewry  toward  his  memory — a  feeling  of 
which  Josephus  had  no  cognizance  in  writing  the 
Wars,  but  which  had  come  to  his  attention  when  the 
Antiquities  was  composed.  In  the  Wars  (IV.  ix. 
2)  we  hear  "  how  he  abused  his  power  and  intrusted  the 
control  of  affairs  to  unworthy  freedmen,  those  wicked 
men,  Nymphidius  and  Tigellinus.'^  In  the  Antiqui- 
ties (XX.  viii.  3)  we  find  a  temperate  paragraph  warn- 
ing readers  that  the  extant  accounts  of  Nero  are  thor- 
oughly unreliable,  especially  the  accounts  of  those  ''  who 
have  impudently  and  senselessly  lied  about  him." " 

That  among  the  Roman  populace  there  were  some 
who  believed  that  Nero  was  not  dead,  but  still  alive,  and 
would  return  to  be  avenged  upon  his  foes,  is  not  strange. 
But  it  is  particularly  strange  that  in  the  extreme  East 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  297 

the  hereditary  rivals  of  Rome,  the  Parthians,  cherished 
his  memory,  so  that  their  king  Vologaesus  expressly 
asked  for  recognition  of  that  fact  when  he  strove  to 
renew  his  alliance  with  Rome.  It  was  among  the 
Parthians  that  the  man  who  claimed  to  be  Nero  found 
enthusiastic  support  about  ^'8i  c.  e.  (Suet.  Nero,  57). 
The  Parthians  seem  to  have  been  ready  to  invade  the 
Roman  empire  to  re-establish  this  "  Nero  "  (Tac.  Hist. 
I.  ii.  6).  That,  it  is  true,  happened  long  afterward  ;  but 
directly  after  Nero's  death,  in  the  very  throes  of  the 
Jewish  war,  a  similar  belief  spread  like  wildfire  over 
Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  and  a  slave,  by  calling  him- 
self Nero,  secured  temporary  control  of  the  island  of 
Cythnus  (Tac.  Hist.  I.  ii.  8). 

One  phrase  of  Suetonius  is  especially  noteworthy. 
Long  before  Nero's  death  it  had  been  prophesied  that 
he  would  be  deposed,  and  would  return  as  lord  of  the 
East :  Nonnulli,  Suetonius  goes  on  to  say,  nominatim 
regmim  Hierosolymorum  [spoponderant],  ''Some  as- 
sured him  specifically  that  he  would  be  king  of  Jeru- 
salem." 

There  is  no  direct  confirmation  in  the  Jewish  sources 
of  this  association  of  Nero  with  a  restored  kingdom  at 
Jerusalem.  The  very  late  Talmudic  legend  which  states 
that  Nero  became  a  convert  and  was  the  ancestor  of 
Rabbi  Meir"  must,  of  course,  be  disregarded.  No 
notable  heathen  sovereign  escaped  conversion  in  the 
Jewish  legends.  To  the  Christians,  Nero  was  Belial  or 
Antichrist  for  reasons  obvious  enough,  and  the  Sibylline 
verses  which  so  represent  him  are  probably  of  Chris- 


298      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

tian  origin.  But  since  the  Messianic  idea  of  the  Jews 
was  well-known  throughout  the  Roman  world  (Suet. 
Vespasian,  4),  the  prediction  made  to  Nero  meant  noth- 
ing less  than  that  he  was  the  promised  Messiah,  a  con- 
ception startling  enough,  but  perhaps  less  so  to  Nero's 
generation  than  to  ours. 

It  may  further  be  possible  to  find  an  association 
between  Nero  and  the  Jews  in  the  words  that  Philos- 
tratus  "  (Life  of  Apollonius,  v.  33)  puts  in  the  mouth  of 
the  Alexandrian  Euphrates.  The  Jews,  Euphrates 
says,  are  the  enemies  of  the  human  race  almost  as  much 
as  Nero,  but  it  is  the  latter  against  whom  Vespasian 
should  direct  his  arms,  not  the  former. 

Whether,  however,  it  was  Nero  or  someone  else, 
the  intense  force  of  the  Messianic  idea  of  the  time  of 
the  revolt  is  attested  explicitly  by  Suetonius  in  the 
passage  alluded  to  above.  Percrebuerat  Oriente  toto 
vetus  et  constans  opinio  esse  in  fatis  ut  eo  tempore 
ludaea  profecti  rerum  potirentur,  ''  Throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  East  there  was  current  an 
old  and  unvarying  belief  to  the  effect  that  it  was  decreed 
by  fate  that  supreme  power  would  fall  into  the  hands  of 
men  coming  from  Judea."  If  to  Tacitus  the  insurrec- 
tion was  merely  the  expected  outbreak  of  a  turbulent 
province,  repressed  with  difficulty  in  previous  genera- 
tions, and  inevitable  under  all  circumstances;  if,  to 
Josephus,  the  revolt  was  the  foolish  attempt  of  deluded 
but  unfortunate  men,  driven  mad  by  the  oppressions  of 
officials  and  led  by  selfish  rascals,  Suetonius,  who 
retailed  the  gossip  of  the  seven  seas,  had  clearer  insight 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  299 

when  he  referred  the  actual  outbreak  of  hostilities  to 
the  general  conviction  that  the  result  of  the  war  would 
determine  the  fate  of  the  empire.  The  Law  would  go 
out  from  Zion :  ludaea  profecti  rerum  potirentur. 

The  war,  which  resulted  in  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
was  in  the  eyes  of  Josephus  (Wars,  Preface,  §1)  the 
greatest  war  in  recorded  history.  The  words  he  uses 
are  very  much  like  those  of  Livy  when  he  is  about  to 
describe  the  Second  Punic  War  (Livy,  XXL  i.),  where, 
it  must  be  admitted,  the  statement  seems  somewhat 
more  fitting.  The  Roman  historians  naturally  enough 
do  not  attach  quite  the  same  importance  to  a  rebellion 
in  a  border  province,  however  dangerous  or  desperate. 
But  no  one  regarded  it  as  an  insignificant  episode  in 
the  maintenance  of  the  imperial  frontier.  There  were 
many  accounts  of  it,  most  of  them  written  ''  sophistic- 
ally ''  (ibid.  L  i.  i),  i.  e.  with  a  definite  purpose  that 
was  quite  apart  from  that  of  presenting  a  true  version 
of  the  facts.  These  men,  we  are  told  by  the  author, 
wrote  from  hate  or  for  favor.  They  desired  to  flatter 
the  Romans  or  to  vent  their  spleen  on  the  Jews.  The 
accurate  truth  was,  of  course,  to  be  found  only  in  the 
austerely  veridical  account  written  by  Josephus  in 
Aramaic,  and  translated  by  him  into  Greek. 

It  is,  accordingly,  strange  that  in  the  one  narrative 
which  we  have  from  a  source  independent  of  Josephus, 
there  should  appear  details  which  suggest  that  flattery 
of  the  Roman  conqueror  was  not  wholly  absent  from 
Josephus'  own  narrative.  In  the  Roman  History  of 
Cassius  Die  (known  principally  by  the  Greek  form  of 


300      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

his  name,  Dion  Cassius),  who  wrote  about  225  c.  e.,  we 
find  a  version  of  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  in  which  Titus 
is  something  less  than  a  demi-god,  and  the  Jews  some- 
thing different  from  the  wretched  and  besotted  fanatics 
Josephus  makes  of  them.  Dio  has  little  sympathy 
for  the  Jews  in  general,  and  finds  their  institutions 
repellent  on  the  whole,  but  his  account  is  simpler  and 
actually  more  favorable  to  the  Jews  than  the  one  pre- 
sented in  the  pages  of  the  Wars. 

Such  details  as  the  wound  received  by  Titus  (Dio, 
Ixvi.  5),  which  Josephus  omits  or  modifies  (Wars,  V. 
vi.  2),  are  of  minor  significance,  although  even  they 
indicate  the  strain  Josephus  was  put  to  in  his  attempt 
to  make  Titus  move  in  the  midst  of  dangers  like  a 
present  divinity.  But  there  are  other  matters  that 
Josephus  does  not  mention,  e.  g.  the  desertion  of  Roman 
soldiers  to  the  Jews  in  the  very  midst  of  the  siege,  the 
awe  of  the  Romans  toward  the  temple,  so  that  they  had 
to  be  actually  forced  to  enter  upon  the  forbidden  pre- 
cinct even  when  the  building  was  in  flames.  But  espe- 
cially it  is  the  Asiatic  Roman,  and  not  the  Jew,  who  lays 
stress  upon  the  heroic  pride  which  the  Jews  displayed 
in  the  moment  of  their  utmost  extremity.  ''  All  believed 
it  was  not  destruction,  but  victory,  safety,  happiness,  to 
die  with  their  temple  "  (Dio,  Ixvi.  6). 

That  the  conquest  of  the  capital  seemed  no  usual 
triumph  is  evidenced  by  the  closing  words  of  Dio  {ibid. 
7)  and  by  the  inscription  which  was  carved  on  one 
of  the  arches  erected  to  Titus.  Several  such  arches 
were  erected.    One  on  the  lower  ridges  of  the  Palatine, 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  301 

at  the  edge  of  the  forum,  contains  the  famous  rehef  of 
the  triumph  of  Titus.  The  other  was  in  the  Circus 
Maximus,  and  of  this  we  have  only  the  copy  of  the 
inscription  (C.  I.  L.  vi.  944).    It  runs  as  follows:" 

The  Senate  and  People  of  Rome  have  erected  this  arch  to 
the  first  of  their  citizens,  His  Sacred  Majesty,  Titus  Caesar 
Vespasian,  son  of  the  God  Vespasian,  High  Priest,  invested 
for  the  tenth  time  with  tribunician  power,  hailed  commander 
seventeen  times,  chosen  consul  eight  times,  Father  of  his 
Country,  because,  led  by  the  guidance,  wisdom,  and  divine 
favor  of  his  father,  he  subdued  the  race  of  the  Jews,  and 
destroyed  their  city  of  Jerusalem,  a  city  which  all  kings,  com- 
manders, and  nations  before  him  have  either  attacked  in  vain, 
or  left  wholly  unassailed. 

Dio  notes  that  the  title  ''  Judaicus  "  was  not  assumed 
by  either  Vespasian  or  Titus.  The  inscription  just 
quoted  makes  it  clear  that  their  motive  in  doing  so  was 
not  any  desire  to  minimize  the  importance  of  their 
victory.  Relatively  less  important  triumphs  over  such 
people  as  the  Adiabeni  or  Carpi  resulted  in  the  assump- 
tion of  the  titles  of  Adiabenicus  or  Carpicus.  It  has 
been  urged  with  considerable  plausibility"  that  the 
term  ''  Judaicus  "  would  suggest  to  the  general  public  a 
"  convert  to  Judaism,"  and  at  a  moment  when  the  spread 
of  Judaism  was,  if  anything,  greater  and  more  success- 
ful than  ever,  despite  the  fall  of  the  temple,  that  was 
an  impression  dangerous  to  convey,  particularly  since 
Titus  was  himself  under  a  strong  suspicion  of  Eastern 
procHvities  (Suet.  Titus,  5).  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
■however,  Dio's  surprise  is  due  to  the  conditions  of  his 
own  time,  when  the  emperors   freely  assumed  these 


302      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

gentile  cognomina.  So  Septimius  Severus  is  Parthicus, 
Arabicus,  Adiabenicus,  Britannicus.  In  Vespasian's 
time  that  was  distinctly  not  customary.  None  of  his 
predecessors  assumed  these  titles.  The  name  Ger- 
nanicus,  used  by  Gaius,  Claudius,  and  Nero,  is  a  hered- 
itary cognomen,  and  its  assumption  by  Vitellius  is  due 
to  a  desire  on  the  latter's  part  to  associate  himself  with 
the  memory  of  a  name  at  all  times  endeared  to  the 
people. 

But  that  the  conquest  of  Judea  seemed  at  the  time 
quite  equal  to  those  which  justified  the  assumption  of 
such  honoring  titles,  may  be  seen  in  the  epigram  of 
Martial  (ii.  2)  : 

Creta  dedit  magnum,  maius  dedit  Africa  nomen 
Scipio   quod  victor  quodque  Metellus  habet, 

Nobilius  domito  tribuit  Germania  Rheno, 
Et  puer  hoc  dignus  nomine,  Caesar,  eras. 

Prater  Idumaeos  meruit  cum  patre  triumphos. 
Quae  datur  ex  Chattis  laurea,  tota  tua  est. 

Crete  granted  a  great  name ;  Africa,  a  greater ;  the  former 
to  Metellus,  the  latter  to  Scipio.  Even  more  renowned  a  title 
was  derived  from  Germany  and  the  conquered  Rhine.  That 
title,  Caesar,  your  boyhood  valor  also  earned.  The  Idumean 
triumph  "  you  must  share  with  your  brother  and  father.  The 
laurel  wreath  inscribed  with  the  name  of  the  Chatti — that  is 
all  your  own. 

The  destruction  of  the  city  and  temple  affected  the 
imaginations  of  all  men,  Jew  and  non-Jew,  very  power- 
fully. A  large  number  of  the  various  apocryphal  books 
are  referred  to  this  period,  especially  those  which  are 
filled  with  lamentations  over  the  desolate  condition  of 
the  former  princess  among  provinces.     But  dramatic 


THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C.  E.  303 

and  affecting  as  it  was,  the  destruction  of  the  temple 
was  not  at  the  time  the  epochal  event  it  seems  to  us  now. 
It  made  only  a  slight  change  in  the  political  condition 
even  of  Palestinian  Jews,  and  even  in  the  spiritual  con- 
dition of  the  Jews  at  large  it  played  seemingly  a  sub- 
ordinate part. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ROMAN 

JEWISH  COMMUNITY 

The  Jews  in  Rome  at  the  time  of  Cicero  formed,  we 
have  seen,  an  important  and  numerous  class  amidst  the 
largely  orientalized  plebs  of  the  city.  With  the  other 
foreigners  resident  in  the  city  they  had  a  powerful 
patron  in  Caesar,  as  their  grief  at  his  death  attested. 
Under  his  successor  they  found  at  least  an  indulgent, 
if  somewhat  contemptuous,  toleration,  which  however 
was  directed  not  toward  them  specially,  but  toward  the 
other  foreigners  in  the  capital  as  well.  And  as  we  have 
seen,  the  religious  reformation  of  Augustus,  and  his 
active  disapproval  of  foreign  cults,  did  not  prevent  the 
Jews  from  spreading  rapidly  in  all  classes  of  society. 

Under  Tiberius  we  hear  of  a  general  expulsion  of  the 
Jews,  as  afterward  under  Claudius.  "  Expulsion  of 
Jews  "  is  a  term  with  which  later  European  history  has 
made  us  familiar.  In  the  case  of  such  expulsions  as  the 
Jews  suffered  in  England,  France,  Spain,  and  Portugal, 
we  know  that  the  term  is  literally  exact.  Practically  all 
Jews  were  in  the  instances  cited  compelled  to  leave  the 
country  and  settle  elsewhere.  The  expulsion  ordered 
by  Tiberius  was  unquestionably  wholly  ineffective  in 
practice,  since  there  were  many  Jews  in  Rome  shortly 
after,  although  we  have  no  record  that  the  decree  was 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  305 

repealed.     But  it  may  be  questioned  whether  even  in 
theory  it  resembled  the  expulsions  of  later  times. 
The  facts  are  given  fully  by  Suetonius   (Tiberius, 

36): 

Externas  caerimonias  Aegyptios  ludaicosque  ritus  com- 
pescuit,  coactis  qui  superstitione  ea  tenebantur  religiosas 
vestes  cum  instrumento  omni  comburere.  ludacorum  iuven- 
tutem  per  speciem  sacramenti  in  provincias  gravioris  caeli 
distribuit:  reliquos  gentis  eiusdem  vel  similia  sectantes  urbe 
summovit  sub  poena  perpetuae  servitutis  nisi  obtemperassent. 

He  checked  the  spread  of  foreign  rites,  particularly  the 
Egyptian  and  Jewish.  He  compelled  those  who  followed  the 
former  superstition  to  burn  their  ritual  vestments  and  all  their 
religious  utensils.  The  younger  Jews  he  transferred  to  prov- 
inces of  rigorous  climate  under  the  pretense  of  assigning  them 
to  military  service.  All  the  rest  of  that  nation,  and  all  who 
observed  its  rites,  he  ordered  out  of  the  city  under  the  penalty 
of  being  permanently  enslaved  if  they  disobeyed. 

Undoubtedly  the  same  incident  is  mentioned  by  Taci- 
tus in  the  Annals  (ii.  85),  where  we  hear  that  ''action 
was  taken  about  the  eradication  of  Egyptian  and  Jew- 
ish rites.  A  senatusconsultum  was  passed,  which  trans- 
ferred four  thousand  freedmen  of  military  age  who 
were  affected  by  this  superstition  to  Sardinia  in  order 

to  crush  brigandage  there The  rest  were  to 

leave  Italy  unless  they  abandoned  their  impious  rites 
before  a  certain  day.'' 

Between  these  two  accounts  there  are  discrepancies 
that  cannot  be  cured  by  the  simple  process  of  amalga- 
mating the  two,  as  has  generally  been  done.  These 
divergences  will  be  treated  in  detail  later.  For  the 
present  it  will  be  well  to  compare  an  independent 
account,  that  of  Josephus,  with  the  two. 
20 


3o6      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Josephus  (Ant.  XVIII.  iii.  5)  tells  us  of  a  Jew,  *' a 
thoroughly  wicked  man,"  who  was  forced  to  flee  from 
Judea  for  some  crime,  and  with  three  worthy  associates 
supported  himself  by  swindling  in  Rome.  This  man 
persuaded  Fulvia,  a  proselyte  of  high  rank,  the  wife 
of  a  certain  Saturninus,  to  send  rich  gifts  to  the  temple. 
The  presents  so  received  were  used  by  the  four  men 
for  themselves.  Upon  the  complaint  of  Saturninus, 
"Tiberius  ordered  all  the  Jews  [-rrav To''lovhdiK6v]  to  be 
driven  from  Rome.  The  consuls  enrolled  four  thou- 
sand of  them,  and  sent  them  to  the  island  of  Sardinia. 
He  punished  very  many  who  claimed  that  their  ances- 
tral customs  prevented  them  from  serving."  Apart 
from  the  incident  which,  Josephus  says,  occasioned  the 
expulsion,  we  have  a  version  here  which  is  not  quite  in 
accord  with  the  one  either  of  Tacitus  or  of  Suetonius. 

Of  these  men  Josephus  is  probably  the  nearest  in 
time  to  the  events  he  is  describing,  but  also  the  most 
remote  in  comprehension.  Besides  the  story  just  told, 
Josephus  tells  another,  in  which  it  is  a  votary  of  Isis 
who  is  deceived,  with  the  connivance  of  the  priests  of 
the  Egyptian  goddess.  The  two  incidents  which  he 
relates  are  placed  in  juxtaposition  rather  than  connec- 
tion by  him,  but  the  mere  fact  that  they  are  told  in  this 
way  indicates  that  a  connection  did  exist  in  the  source, 
written  or  oral,  from  which  he  derived  them.  Josephus 
does  not  mention  that  the  Egyptian  worship  was 
attacked  as  well  as  the  Jewish,  and  indeed  he  takes  pains 
to  suggest  that  the  two  incidents  were  not  really  con- 
nected at  all 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  307 

From  all  these  statements,  and  from  the  reference 
that  Philo  makes  in  the  Legatio  ad  Gaium/  there  is 
very  little  that  we  can  gather  with  certainty.  This 
much,  however,  seems  established:  an  attempt  was 
made  to  check  the  spread  both  of  Judaism  and  of 
Isis-worship.  In  this  attempt  a  certain  number  of 
Jews  were  expelled  from  the  city  or  from  Italy.  Four 
thousand  soldiers — actual  or  reputed  Jews — were 
transferred  to  Sardinia  for  the  same  reason.  There  are 
certain  difficulties,  however,  in  the  way  of  supposing 
that  it  really  was  a  general  expulsion  of  all  Jews,  as 
Josephus  and  Suetonius,  but  not  Tacitus,  say. 

Tacitus'  omission  to  state  it,  if  such  a  general  expul- 
sion took  place,  is  itself  a  difficulty ;  but  like  every  argu- 
menhim  ex  silentio,  it  scarcely  permits  a  valid  infer- 
ence. It  seems  strange,  to  be  sure,  that  a  severe  and 
deserved  punishment  of  the  taeterrima  gens,  "  that  dis- 
gusting race,"  should  be  represented  to  be  something 
much  milder  than  really  was  the  case.  But  Tacitus  is 
neither  here  nor  in  other  places  taking  pains  to  cite  the 
decree  accurately,  and  the  omission  of  even  a  significant 
detail  may  be  laid  to  inadvertence. 

But  what  Tacitus  does  say  cannot  be  lightly  passed 
over.  Four  thousand  men,  libertini  generis,  '*of  the 
freedmen  class,"  were  transferred  to  Sardinia  for  mili- 
tary service.  All  these  four  thousand  were  ea  super- 
stitione  infecti,  "  tainted  with  this  superstition."  Now, 
the  Jews  who  formed  the  community  at  Rome  in  the 
time  of  Cicero  may  have  been  largely  freedmen,  but 
their  descendants  were  not  classed  as  libertini  generis. 


3o8      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

The  phrase  is  not  used  in  Latin  of  those  who  were  of 
servile  origin,  but  solely  of  those  who  were  themselves 
emancipated  slaves.  There  is,  however,  scarcely  a  pos- 
sibility that  there  could  have  been  at  Rome  in  19  c.  e.  so 
large  a  body  of  Jewish  freed  slaves  of  military  age. 
There  had  been  no  war  in  recent  times  from  which  these 
slaves  could  have  been  derived.  We  may  assume  there- 
fore that  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  men  were  freedmen 
of  other  nationalities  who  were  converts  to  Judaism. 

This  is  confirmed  by  the  words  ea  superstitione 
infecti,  "  tainted  with  this  superstition."  These  words 
are  meaningless  unless  they  refer  to  non-Jewish  prose- 
lytes.^ Men  who  were  born  Jews  could  not  be  so  char- 
acterized. If  Tacitus  had  meant  those  who  were  Jews 
by  birth,  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  he  would  have 
used  a  phrase  that  would  suggest  just  the  opposite.  The 
words,  further,  imply  that  many  of  these  four  thou- 
sand were  rather  suspected  of  Jewish  leanings  than 
definitely  proselytes.  Perhaps  they  were  residents  of 
the  districts  largely  inhabited  by  Jews,  notably  the 
Transtiberine  region. 

Again,  to  suppose  that  all  the  Jews  were  banished  by 
Tiberius  involves  an  assumption  as  to  that  emperor's 
methods  wholly  at  variance  with  what  we  know  of  him. 
A  very  large  number  of  Jewish  residents  in  Rome  were 
Roman  citizens  (Philo,  569  M),  and  so  far  from  being 
a  meaningless  distinction  in  the  early  empire,  that  term 
through  the  influence  of  the  rising  science  of  juris- 
prudence was,  in  fact,  just  beginning  to  have  its  mean- 
ing and  implications  defined.    A  wholesale  expulsion  of 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  309 

Roman  citizens  by  either  an  administrative  act  or  a 
senatusconsultum  is  unthinkable  under  Tiberius.  Exile, 
in  the  form  of  relegation  or  expulsion,  was  a  well- 
known  penalty  for  crime  after  due  trial  and  conviction, 
which  in  every  instance  would  have  to  be  individual. 
Even  in  the  Tacitean  caricature^  we  find  evidence  of 
the  strict  legality  with  which  Tiberius  acted  on  all 
occasions.  No  senatusconsultum  could  have  decreed  a 
general  banishment  for  all  Jews,  whether  Roman  citi- 
zens or  not,  without  contravening  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Roman  law. 

How  thoroughly  confused  the  transmission  of  this 
incident  had  become  in  the  accounts  we  possess,  is 
indicated  in  the  final  sentence  from  Suetonius :  ''  He 
ordered  them  out  of  the  city,  under  the  penalty  of  being 
permanently  enslaved  if  they  disobeyed."  The  very 
term  perpetua  servitus,  as  though  there  were  a  limited 
slavery  in  Rome  at  the  time,  is  an  absurdity.  It  becomes 
still  more  so  when  we  recall  that  slavery,  except  in  the 
later  form  of  compulsor}^  service  in  the  mines  and 
galleys,  was  not  known  as  a  penalty  at  Roman  law. 
The  state  had  no  machinery  for  turning  a  freeman  into 
a  slave,  except  by  his  own  will,  and  then  it  did  so 
reluctantly.  We  shall  be  able  to  see  what  lies  behind 
this  confusion  when  we  have  considered  one  or  two 
other  matters. 

The  alleged  expulsion  is  not  mentioned  by  Philo  in 
the  extant  fragments.  The  allusion  to  some  oppressive 
acts  of  Sejanus  (In  Flaccum,  §  i.  ii.  p.  517  M  ;  and  Leg. 
ad  Gaium,  §  24.  ii.  p.  569  M)  is  not  clear.     But  it  is  diffi- 


310      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

cult  to  understand  the  highly  eulogistic  references  to 
Tiberius,  then  long  dead,  if  a  general  Jewish  expulsion 
had  been  ordered  by  that  emperor. 

That  the  senatusconsultum  in  question  was  general, 
and  was  directed  indiscriminately  at  all  foreign  re- 
ligions, appears  not  merely  from  the  direct  statement  of 
Suetonius  and  Tacitus,  and  the  association  of  the  two 
stories  by  Josephus,  but  also  from  a  reference  of  Seneca. 
In  his  philosophic  essays,  written  in  the  form  of  letters 
to  his  friend  Lucilius  (io8,  22),  he  says:  "I  began 
[under  the  teaching  of  Sotion]  to  abstain  from  animal 

food You  ask  me  when  I  ceased  to  abstain. 

My  youth  was  passed  during  the  first  years  of  Tiberius 
Caesar's  rule.  At  that  time  foreign  rites  were  expelled  ; 
but  one  of  the  proofs  of  adherence  to  such  a  supersti- 
tion was  held  to  be  the  abstinence  from  the  flesh  of 
certain  animals.  At  the  request  of  my  father,  who  did 
not  fear  malicious  prosecution,  but  hated  philosophy,  I 
returned  to  my  former  habits." 

The  words  of  Seneca,  sacra  movebantur,  suggest  the 

Twv  Iv  'IraAta    TrapaKLVrjdevTMV  of  Philo   (loc.  cit.),  *' when 

there  was  a  general  agitation  [against  the  Jews?]  in 
Italy."  It  is  further  noticeable  that  the  mathematici,  i.  e. 
the  soothsayers,  against  whom  the  Roman  laws  were  at 
all  times  severe,  were  also  included  in  this  decree.* 

It  has  been  pointed  out  before  (above,  p.  242)  that 
the  observance  of  foreign  religious  rites  was  never  for- 
bidden as  such  by  Roman  laws.  From  the  first  of  the 
instances,  the  Bacchanalian  persecution  of  186  b.  c.  e., 
it  was  always  some  definite  crime,  immorality  or  impos- 


SYMBOLS  AND  INSCRIPTIONS  FROM  JEWIS^   CATACOMBS  AND  CEMETERIES  IN  ROME 


(From  G 


rucci) 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  311 

ture,  that  was  attacked  and  of  which  the  rites  mentioned 
were  alleged  to  be  the  instruments.  The  **  expulsion  " 
of  the  Isis-worshipers  during  the  republic  meant  only 
that  certain  foreigners  were  summarily  ordered  to 
leave  the  city,  something  that  the  Lex  Junia  Penni  in 
83  B.  c.  E.  and  the  Lex  Papia  of  65  b.  c.  e.  attempted  to 
enforce,  and  which  the  Roman  police  might  do  at  any 
time  when  they  thought  the  public  interest  demanded 
it.  Roman  citizens  practising  these  rites  could  never  be 
proceeded  against,  unless  they  were  guilty  of  one  of  the 
crimes  these  foreign  practices  were  assumed  to  involve. 

The  two  stories  cited  by  Josephus,  one  concerning  an 
Isis-worshiper,  the  other  a  Jew,  may  not  be  true. 
Whether  true  or  not,  the  incidents  they  record  surely  did 
not  of  themselves  cause  the  expulsion  of  either  group. 
But  these  are  fair  samples  of  the  stories  that  were  prob- 
ably told  and  believed  in  Rome,  and  similar  incidents  no 
doubt  did  occur.  The  association  of  the  mathematici 
with  the  other  two  makes  it  probable  that  the  senatus- 
consultum  was  directed  against  fraud,  the  getting  of 
money  under  false  pretenses,  and  that  the  Jewish,  Isiac, 
and  other  rites,  as  well  as  astrology,  were  mentioned 
solely  as  types  of  devices  to  that  end. 

What  actually  happened  was  no  doubt  that  in  Rome 
and  in  Italy  overzealous  officials  undertook  to  treat  the 
observance  of  foreign  rites  as  conclusive  or  at  least  pre- 
sumptive evidence  of  guilt  under  this  act.  Perhaps,  as 
Philo  says,  it  was  one  of  the  instances  of  Sejanus' 
tyranny  to  do  so.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
Philo's    express    testimony    that    Tiberius    promptly 


312      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

checked  this  excess  of  zeal  and  enforced  the  decree  as 

it  was  intended  {loc.  cit.)  :  w?  ovk  eTriTraVTas  Trpo/Sdarfs  t'^<s 
eVc^eAcvo'cw?,  aAA.'    cttI  jxovovs  Toy's   airtous — oAiyot   Se   ijaav 

— KLvrjaai  8k  fiijSkv  e^  eOovs ;  i.  e.  ''  since  the  prosecution 
was  not  directed  against  all,  but  only  against  the  guilty, 
who  were  very  few.  Otherwise  there  was  to  be  no 
departure  from  the  customary  attitude." 

The  transference  of  the  four  thousand  recruits, 
libertini  generis,  to  Sardinia  undoubtedly  took  place, 
and  was  very  likely  the  expression  of  alarm  on  the  part 
of  Sejanus  or  Tiberius  at  the  spread  of  Judaism  in 
Rome.  It  may  well  be  that  the  removal  of  these  men 
was  caused  rather  by  the  desire  to  withdraw  them  from 
the  range  of  proselytism  than  by  the  purpose  of  allow- 
ing them  to  die  in  the  severe  climate  of  Sardinia.  There 
is  as  a  matter  of  fact  no  evidence  that  Sardinia  had  a 
noticeably  different  climate  from  that  of  Italy.  It  was 
one  of  the  granaries  of  the  empire.^ 

Perhaps  we  may  reconstitute  the  decree  as  follows: 
The  penalty  imposed  was,  for  foreigners,  expulsion ; 
for  Roman  citizens,  perhaps  exile ;  for  f reedmen,  for- 
feiture of  their  newly  acquired  liberty  in  favor  of  their 
former  masters  or  the  latter's  heirs.  This  last  fact  will 
explain  the  statement  of  Suetonius.  Many  of  the 
people  affected  were  no  doubt  freedmen,  and  several 
instances  where  such  a  penalty  was  actually  inflicted 
would  account  quite  adequately  for  the  words  perpetua 
servitus  of  Suetonius.  The  ''  malicious  prosecution," 
calumnia,  which  Seneca  asserts  his  father  did  not  fear, 
would  be  based,  as  against  Roman  citizens,  on  the  viola- 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  313 

tion  of  this  law  against  fraudulent  practices,  of  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  adoption  of  foreign  rites  would  be 
taken  as  evidence. 

The  personal  relations  between  Gaius  and  the  Jewish 
king  Agrippa  seemed  to  guarantee  an  era  of  especial 
prosperity  for  the  Roman  Jews.  However,  the  entire 
principate  of  that  indubitable  paranoiac  was  filled  with 
the  agitation  that  attended  his  attempt  to  set  up  his 
statue  at  Jerusalem.  His  death,  which  Josephus 
describes  in  gratifyingly  minute  detail,  brought  per- 
manent relief  on  that  point. 

It  is  during  the  reign  of  his  successor  Claudius 
that  we  hear  of  another  expulsion :  ludaeos  impulsore 
Chresto  adsidue  tumultuantis  Roma  expulit  (Suet. 
Claud.  25),  "The  Jews  who  engaged  in  constant 
riots  by  the  machinations  of  a  certain  Chrestus,  he 
expelled  from  Rome."  It  has  constantly  been  stated 
that  this  refers  to  the  agitation  in  the  Roman  Jewry 
which  the  preaching  of  Christianity  aroused.  For  that, 
however,  there  is  no  sufficient  evidence.  Jesus,  to  be 
sure,  is  called  Chrestus,  Xprjaros,  the  Upright,  in  many 
Christian  documents.^  This  play  upon  words  is  practi- 
cally unavoidable.  But  Chrestus  is  a  common  name 
among  all  classes  of  society.^  Jews  would  be  especially 
likely  to  bear  it,  since  it  was  a  fairly  good  rendering  of 
such  a  frequently  occurring  name  as  Zadok.  The  riot  in 
question  was  no  doubt  a  real  enough  event,  and  the 
expulsion  equally  real,  even  if  it  did  not  quite  imply  all 
that  seems  to  be  contained  in  it. 


314      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

If  it  were  a  decree  of  general  expulsion  of  all  Jews, 
it  would  be  strikingly  at  variance  with  the  edicts  in 
favor  of  the  Jews  which  Claudius  issued,  and  which 
are  contained  in  Josephus  (Ant.  XIX.  v.).  As  in  the 
case  of  other  documents  cited  here,  there  is  no  reason 
to  question  the  substantial  accuracy  of  their  contents, 
although  they  are  surely  not  verbatim  transcriptions 
from  the  records.  It  is  as  clearly  impossible  in  the  case 
of  Claudius  as  in  that  of  Tiberius  to  suppose  an 
arbitrary  disregard  of  law  on  his  part,  so  that  a  general 
ejection  of  all  Jews  from  the  city,  including  those  who 
were  Roman  citizens,  is  not  to  be  thought  of. 

Neither  Tacitus  nor  Josephus  mentions  the  expulsion. 
The  silence  of  neither  is  conclusive,  but  it  lends  strong 
probability  to  the  assumption  that  the  decree  cannot 
have  been  so  radical  a  measure  as  a. general  expulsion 
of  all  Jews  from  the  city  would  be.  The  passage  from 
Suetonius  is  concerned  wholly  with  acts  of  Claudius 
affecting  foreigners — non-Romans,  i.  e.  Lycians, 
Rhodians,  Gauls,  Germans — and  if  we  keep  in  mind 
Suetonius'  habits  of  composition,  it  is  highly  likely  that 
he  has  put  together  here  all  that  he  found  together  in 
his  source.  We  are  to  understand  therefore  by  the 
ludaei  of  this  passage  only  foreign  Jews,  which  implies 
that  the  majority  of  the  Jews  were  not  affected  by  it 
at  all. 

But  were  even  all  foreign  Jews  included?  Is  there 
anything  in  the  passage  that  is  not  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  assumption  that  some  relatively  small  group  of 
Jews  led  by  a  certain  Chrestus  was  ejected  from  the 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  315 

city  for  disorderly  conduct?  The  silence  of  the  other 
writers,  the  total  absence  of  effect  on  the  growth  of  the 
Jewish  population,  would  seem  to  make  this  after  all  the 
simplest  meaning  of  Suetonius'  words. 

The  fact  of  the  expulsion  is  confirmed  by  that  pas- 
sage in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  in  which  the  meeting 
of  Paul  and  Aquila  at  Corinth  is  mentioned  (Acts 
xviii.  I,  2)  :  "  [Paul]  found  a  certain  Jew  born  in 
Pontus,  lately  come  from  Italy  with  his  wife  Priscilla, 
(because  that  Claudius  had  commanded  all  Jews  to 
depart  from  Rome)."  The  testimony  is  late,*  but  it 
will  be  noticed  that  Aquila  is  an  Asiatic  by  birth,  and 
so  very  likely  had  no  legal  right  of  residence  at  Rome 
in  any  circumstances. 

Finally,  expulsion  "  from  Rome  "  may  have  meant 
only  exclusion  from  the  pomoerium,  the  sacral  limit 
of  the  city  that  followed  an  imaginary  line  not  at  all 
coincident  with  its  real  walls.  To  escape  from  the  oper- 
ation of  the  decree,  it  would  merely  have  been  necessary 
to  cross  the  Tiber,  where  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Jews 
generally  lived,  since  the  Transtiberine  region  was  not 
included  in  the  pomoerium.  In  general,  expulsion  from 
the  city  specified  that  the  expelled  person  might  not 
come  within  the  first  milestone,  but  in  view  of  the  diffi- 
culties presented  by  the  assumption  of  a  real  expulsion, 
this  supposition  may  also  be  considered. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  special  asso- 
ciation of  Claudius'  successor,  Nero,  with  the  Jews. 
The  success  that  attended  their  efforts  at  propaganda 
during  that  emperor's  reign  is  evidenced  by  the  fact 


3i6      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

that  Poppaea  Sabina  became  a  semi-proselyte.  And 
during  Nero's  reign  occurs  an  event  of  special  im- 
portance to  the  Jews  of  Rome,  the  first  Christian 
persecution. 

In  the  reign  of  Nero,  possibly  in  that  of  Claudius, 
there  was  brought  to  the  various  Jewish  congregations 
of  the  Roman  world,  seemingly  not  beyond  that, 
the  "  good  news,"  evayyiXtov,  that  a  certain  Jesus,  of 
Nazareth  in  Galilee,  was  the  long-promised  Messiah. 
To  most,  perhaps,  the  facts  cited  of  his  life  indicated 
only  that  he  was  one  of  the  ''  many  swindlers,"  yorfTe<s 
avOpoiiToi,  like  those  whom  Felix  captured  and  put  to 
death  (Jos.  Ant.  XX.  viii.  5).  But  some  beHeved.  If 
we  are  to  credit  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  this  belief  at 
once  produced  a  bitter  conflict  between  those  who  did 
so  believe,  afterwards  called  Christians,  and  those  who 
did  not.'  But  the  Acts  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  come 
down  to'  us  represents  a  recension  of  much  later  date, 
made  when  the  enmity  between  Jew  and  Christian  was 
real  and  indubitable. 

It  may  be  that  in  certain  places  those  Jews  who 
accepted  the  evangel  almost  at  once  formed  congrega- 
tions of  their  own,  synagogues  or  ecclesiae  (the  terms 
are  practically  synonymous),"  different  from  the  syna- 
gogues of  those  who  rejected  it.  But  there  were  from 
the  beginning  differences  of  degree  in  its  acceptance, 
and  even  in  the  existing  recension  of  the  Acts  there  is 
good  evidence  that  its  acceptance  or  rejection  did  not 
immediately  and  everywhere  produce  a  schism. 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  317 

In  the  city  of  Rome  a  persecution  of  Christians,  as 
distinct  from  Jews,  took  place  under  Nero.  That  fact 
is  attested  by  both  Suetonius  and  Tacitus  and  by  the 
earliest  of  the  Christian  writers.  Tertullian  quotes  the 
commentarii,  the  official  records,  for  it. 

The  record  as  it  appears  in  Suetonius  is  character- 
istically different  from  that  in  Tacitus.  In  Suetonius 
we  have  a  brief  statement  (Nero,  16):  Afdicti  sup- 
pliciis  Christiani,  genus  hominiim  superstitionis  novae 
ac  maleficae,  "  Punishment  was  inflicted  upon  the 
Christians,  a  class  of  men  that  maintained  a  new  and 
harmful  form  of  superstition."  This  statement  is  made 
as  one  item,  apparently  of  minor  importance,  in  the 
list  of  Nero's  creditable  actions,  as  Suetonius  tells  us 
later  {ihid.  19)  :  Haec  partim  nulla  reprehensione, 
partim  etiam  non  mediocri  laude  digna,  in  unum  con- 
tuli,  "These  acts,  some  of  which  are  wholly  blameless, 
while  others  deserve  even  considerable  approbation,  I 
have  gathered  together."  Whether  the  punishment  of 
the  Christians  is  in  the  former  or  the  latter  class  does 
not  appear. 

In  Tacitus,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  famous 
account  that  Nero  sought  to  divert  from  himself  the 
suspicion  of  having  set  Rome  on  fire,  by  fastening  it 
upon  those  ''  whom  the  people  hated  for  their  wicked- 
ness, the  so-called  Christians"  (Ann.  xv.  44).  These 
were  torn  by  dogs,  or  crucified,  or  tied  to  stakes  and 
burned  in  a  coat  of  pitch  to  serve  as  lanterns  to  the 
bestially  cruel  emperor.  The  truth  of  these  stories 
depends  upon  the  reliability  of  Tacitus  in  general.  They 


3i8      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

have  been  received  with  justifiable  doubt,  ever  since  the 
quite  conscienceless  methods  of  Tacitus'  rhetorical  style 
have  been  made  evident.  The  last  form  of  punishment, 
the  tunica  molesta,  has  made  a  particular  impression  on 
the  ancient  and  modern  world.  It  is  referred  to  by 
Seneca,  Juvenal,  and  Martial,  but  by  none  of  them 
associated  with  the  Christians.  From  the  passage  in 
Seneca  (Epist.  ad  Lucil.  xiv.  4)  it  is  simply  a  standard 
form  of  cruelty,  such  as  the  rack,  thumbscrew,  and 
maiden  of  later  times.  The  very  fact  that  the  courtier 
Seneca  dares  to  mention  it  as  a  form  of  saevitia  would 
indicate  that  it  was  not  used  by  Seneca's  master,  Nero. 
But  what  is  particularly  striking  is  that  Tertullian  "  in 
his  Apology  does  not  mention  any  cruelties,  in  the  sense 
of  savage  tortures,  inflicted  upon  the  Christians.  The 
context  (Apologeticus,  §  5)  indicates  that  the  punish- 
ment was  banishment  to  some  penal  colony,  relegatio, 
a  punishment  considered  capital  at  law,  but  still  dif- 
ferent from  the  tunica  molesta. 

But  a  new  element  was  introduced  in  the  case  of  the 
Christians,  which,  except  in  the  treatment  of  the  Druidic 
brotherhoods  among  the  Gauls,  is  unusual  in  Roman 
methods.  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  read  the  Apology  of 
Tertullian  without  being  convinced  that  the  profession 
of  Christianity  was  in  and  for  itself  an  indictable  offense 
at  Roman  law  since  the  time  of  Nero,  quite  apart  from 
the  fantastic  crimes  of  which  the  Christians  were  held 
to  be  guilty.''  Tertullian  undoubtedly  had  legal  train- 
ing, and  his  exposition  of  the  logical  absurdities  into 
which  the  fact  led  Roman  officials  is  convincing  enough, 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  319 

but  the  fact  remains.  The  nonien  Christianum,  "  the 
profession  of  Christianity,"  was  considered  a  form  of 
maiestas,  ''  treason,"  and  punished  capitally.  In  effect 
this  was  an  attempt  to  stamp  out  a  religion,  just  as 
Claudius  had  sought  to  stamp  out  the  Druids  (Sue- 
tonius, Claud.  25).     (Comp.  above,  p.  142.) 

When  TertuUian  wrote,  perhaps  even  in  the  time  of 
Tacitus  and  Suetonius,  the  gulf  between  Jew  and 
Christian  was  wide  and  impassable.  It  can  hardly 
have  been  so  in  Nero's  time.  The  statement  that  Nero's 
measures  were  instigated  by  Jews  is  a  later  invention 
for  which  there  is  simply  no  evidence  whatever.^^  The 
fact  that  the  nomen  Christianum  was  either  actually 
considered  treason  or  partook  of  the  nature  of  treason, 
makes  it  probable  that  the  Messianic  idea,  which  was  the 
very  essence  of  the  evangel,  was  the  basis  of  the  Roman 
statute.  In  Judea  the  special  and  drastic  crushing  of 
every  ''  impostor  "  has  been  spoken  of,  and  its  signifi- 
cance indicated  (above,  p.  292).  The  preaching  of 
Christianity  in  Rome  itself  could  only  have  seemed  to 
Nero,  or  his  advisers,  an  attempt  at  propagating,  under 
the  guise  of  religion,  what  had  long  been  considered  in 
the  East  simple  sedition.  While  therefore  the  spread  of 
Judaism,  Isis-worship,  Mithraism,  was  offensive,  and 
attempts  were  made  to  check  it,  the  spread  of  Chris- 
tianity was  an  increase  in  crime  and  was  treated  as  such. 
Perhaps  a  partial  analogy  may  be  offered  in  the  attitude 
of  conservative  Americans  to  doctrines  they  regard  as 
mischievous,  like  Socialism,  and  to  those  which  are 
directly  criminal,  like  some  forms  of  organized 
Anarchism. 


320      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


The  elaborate  scheme  of  salvation  prepared  by  the 
Cilician  Jew  Paul "  gradually  gained  almost  general 
acceptance  among  Christians,  although  in  the  mother 
ecclesia  at  Jerusalem  it  found  determined  and  obstinate 
resistance  long  after  Paul's  death/'  The  fundamental 
doctrine,  that  the  Law  was  not  necessarily  the  way  of 
salvation  for  any  but  born  Jews,  and  even  for  them  was 
of  doubtful  efficacy,  was  the  direct  negation  of  the 
Pharisaic  doctrine  that  through  the  Law  there  was 
effected  immediate  communion  of  man  with  God  in 
this  world  and  the  next. 

As  long  as  the  Christians  were  merely  a  heretical 
Jewish  sect,  their  fortunes  affected  the  whole  Jewish 
community.  When  their  propaganda  became,  not  a 
supplement  to  that  of  the  Jews,  but  its  rival,  and  soon 
its  successful  and  triumphant  rival,  its  history  is  wholly 
separated,  and  the  measures  that  dealt  with  the  Chris- 
tians and  those  that  concerned  the  Jews  were  no  longer 
in  danger  of  being  confused.  To  the  Jews  the  success 
of  the  propaganda  of  Paul  seemed  to  depend  on  the  fact 
that  he  had  abolished  the  long  and  severe  ritual  of  initi- 
ation ;  he  had  increased  his  numbers  by  decreasing  the 
cost  of  admission.  So  we  find,  shortly  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  temple,  R.  Nehemiah  ben  ha-Kannah  assert- 
ing (Ab.  iii.  6)  that  to  discard  the  yoke  of  the  Law  was 
to  assume  the  yoke  of  the  kingdom  and  of  the  world ; 
i.e.  so  far  from  making  the  path  to  unworldliness  easier, 
it  laid  insuperable  obstacles  in  the  way.  The  statement 
is  applicable  to  Jews  of  lax  observance,  but  it  seems 
particularly  applicable  to  the  Pauline  Christians,  who 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  321 

had  not  merely  lightened  the  load,  but  deliberately  and 
ex  professo  wholly  discarded  it. 

Outside  of  the  references  that  give  us  certain  data 
about  the  external  history  of  the  Roman  Jewish  com- 
munity of  the  first  century,  we  have  other  data  of  a 
wholly  different  sort,  data  that  allow  of  a  more  intimate 
glimpse  into  its  actual  life.  They  are  furnished  us  by 
the  Roman  satirists,  whose  literary  labors  have  scarcely 
an  analogue  in  our  days.  Satire  itself  was  assumed  to 
be  a  Roman  genre."  Whether  or  not  it  was  of  Roman 
invention,  the  miscellanies  that  have  given  us  so  many 
and  such  vivid  pictures  of  ancient  life  are  known  to  us 
wholly  in  Latin.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  if  satirists  such 
as  Horace,  Persius,  Juvenal,  and  Martial  had  not  come 
down  to  us,  ancient  history  would  be  a  vastly  bleaker 
province  than  it  is. 

Of  Horace  and  his  representation  of  Jewish  life  we 
have  already  spoken.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
one  aspect  which  earned  for  the  Jews  his  none  too 
respectful  raillery  was  their  eager  proselytism.  And  it 
is  excellent  evidence  of  how  important  this  proselytism 
was  in  the  Jewish  life  of  the  time,  that  in  the  two 
generations  that  stretched  from  Nero  to  Nerva  the 
same  aspect  is  present  to  men  of  such  diverse  types  as 
Persius  and  Juvenal. 

With  Persius  we  enter  a  wholly  different  stratum  of 
society  from  that  of  Horace  and,  as  we  shall  later  see, 
of  Juvenal.  Persius  was  by  birth  and  breeding  an 
aristocrat.  He  was  descended  from  an  ancient  Etruscan 
house,  and  could  boast,  accordingly,  of  a  nobility  of 

21 


Z22      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

lineage  compared  with  which  the  Roman  Valerii  and 
Caecilii  were  the  veriest  mushrooms."  But  he  was 
almost  wholly  devoid  of  the  vices  that  often  mark  his 
class.  An  austere  Stoic,  his  short  life  was  dedicated  to 
the  severe  discipline  that  his  contemporary  and  fellow- 
Stoic  Seneca  found  it  easier  to  preach  than  to  practise. 

Persius  wrote  little,  and  that  little  has  all  come  down 
to  us.  His  Latin,  however,  is  so  crabbed  and  difficult 
that  he  is  easily  the  least  read  of  Roman  poets/*  His 
productions  are  called  Satires.  They  are  less  that  than 
homilies,  in  which,  of  course,  the  virtues  he  inculcates 
are  best  illustrated  by  the  vices  he  attacks. 

One  of  these  vices  is  superstition.  The  mental  con- 
dition that  is  terrified  by  vain  and  monstrous  imagin- 
ings of  ignorant  men  is  set  forth  in  the  Fifth  Satire:'^ 

But  when  the  day  of  Herod  comes  and  the  lamps  on  the 
grimy  sills,  garlanded  with  violets,  disgorge  their  unctuous 
smoke-clouds;  when  the  tail  of  a  tunny-fish  fills  its  red  dish 
and  the  white  jar  bursts  with  wine,  you  move  your  lips  in  silent 
dread  and  turn  pale  at  the  Sabbath  of  the  circumcised. 

As  a  picture  of  Jewish  life  on  the  eve  of  the  Sabbath, 
this  passage  is  invaluable.  We  can  readily  imagine  how 
the  activities  of  a  squalid  suburb  inhabited  by  a  brawl- 
ing class  of  men,  mostly  of  Oriental  descent,  must  have 
impressed  both  the  grandee  and  the  Stoic. 

But  the  passage  is  cited  here,  not  merely  as  a  genre- 
picture,  but  more  especially  because  it  is  again  the 
phase  of  Jewish  life,  so  often  neglected  in  histories, 
that  has  brought  the  Jews  to  Persius'  attention.  The 
ordinary  Roman,  not  saved  from  carnal  weakness  by 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  323 

Stoicism,  is  found  to  stand  in  particular  dread  of  the 
strange  and  nameless  God  of  the  Jews,  to  whom  he 
brings  a  reverence  and  awe  that  ought  legitimately  to 
be  directed  only  to  the  gods  of  his  ancestors. 

Persius  wrote  while  the  temple  was  still  standing.  In 
70  the  temple  was  destroyed.  A  gaping  mob  saw  the 
utensils  of  the  inner  shrine  carried  in  triumph  through 
the  city,  and  could  feast  its  eyes,  if  it  chose,  on  the 
admirable  portrayal  of  that  procession,  on  the  Arch  of 
Titus  near  the  Forum.  It  might  be  supposed  that  the 
God  who  in  Roman  eyes  could  not  save  His  habitation 
from  the  flames,  could  hope  for  no  adherents  among 
His  conquerors.  But  after  the  destruction  of  the  temple, 
in  the  lifetime  of  the  very  men  who  cheered  Titus  when 
he  returned  from  Palestine,  we  see  the  propaganda 
more  vigorous,  if  anything,  than  before. 

It  is  in  the  pages  of  Juvenal  that  we  find  evidence  of 
that  fact,  and  here  again  we  are  confronted  with  a 
sharply  outlined  personality.  Decimus  Junius  Juvenalis 
was  born  near  Aquinum  in  Southern  Italy,  where  the 
Italic  stock  had  probably  suffered  less  admixture  with 
foreign  elements  than  was  the  case  at  Rome.  What  his 
intellectual  training  was  we  can  only  conjecture  from 
its  results,  the  turgid  but  sonorous  and  often  brilliant 
eloquence  of  his  Satires.  Whether  they  are  true  pic- 
tures of  Roman  life  and  society  or  not  may  be  doubted. 
But  they  indubitably  reflect  his  own  soul.  We  see  there 
a  soured  rate,  a  man  embittered  by  his  failure  to  receive 
the  rewards  due  to  his  merits.     In  the  capital  of  the 


324      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


world,  the  city  where  he,  the  man  of  undoubted  Roman 
stock,  should  have  found  a  career  open  before  him,  he 
discovered  himself  to  be  a  stranger.  He  was  no  match 
for  the  nimble-witted  Greeks  that  thronged  every  pro- 
fession and  crawled  into  entrances  too  low  to  admit  the 
scion  of  Cincinnatus  and  Fabricius.  How  much  of  this 
was  the  venom  of  defeated  ambition,  and  how  much 
was  honest  indignation  at  the  indescribable  meanness  of 
the  lives  he  depicted,  we  cannot  now  determine. 

Throughout  all  his  work  one  note  may  be  heard,  the 
note  of  rage  at  a  Rome  where  everything  characteris- 
tically Roman  was  pushed  into  the  background,  a  Rome 
in  the  hands  of  Greeks,  Egyptians,  and  Jews.  And  in 
the  case  of  the  last  it  is  particularly  the  danger  noted  by 
Strabo  and  Seneca,^"  of  an  actual  conquest  of  Rome  by 
the  Jewish  faith,  that  rouses  his  savage  indignation. 

The  lines  in  which  he  states  his  feeling  are  well- 
known  (Juvenal,  Sat.  xiv.  96  seq.)  : 

Some  whose  lot  it  is  to  have  a  father  that  reveres  the 
Sabbath,  worship  nothing  but  the  clouds  and  the  sky  and  think 
that  the  flesh  of  swine  from  which  their  father  abstained  is 
closely  related  to  that  of  man.  Soon  they  become  circumcised. 
Trained  to  despise  the  laws  of  Rome  they  learn,  maintain,  and 
revere  the  Law  of  the  Jews,  which  Moyses  has  transmitted  in 
a  mystic  volume; — laws  that  forbid  them  to  show  the  way  to 
any  but  members  of  their  cult,  and  bid  them  guide  to  a  spring 
none  but  their  circumcised  brethren. 

We  need  be  at  no  pains  to  correct  Juvenal's  estimate 
of  Jewish  beliefs  or  Jewish  theology.  As  in  the  case  of 
Persius,  the  interest  of  the  passage  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  gives  additional  testimony  to  the  success  with  which 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  325 

the  Jewish  synagogues,  despite  official  frowns  and  even 
repressive  measures,  despite  the  severe  conditions  they 
imposed  upon  initiates,  were  constantly  gaining  in 
membership. 

Juvenal's  other  references  to  the  Jews "'  show  us  cer- 
tain unlovely  aspects  of  their  life.  The  hawkers  and 
fortune-tellers  whom  he  describes  are  certainly  not  the 
best  representatives  of  the  Roman  community.  It  is  no 
part  of  his  purpose  to  give  a  complete  picture  of  the 
community.  But  it  is  his  purpose  to  denounce  the 
degeneration  which  made  the  imperial  city  a  disagree- 
able place  for  real  Romans  to  sojourn  in,  and  the  Jewish 
peddler  at  the  Grove  of  Egeria  and  the  swindling  hags 
who  sell  potent  spells  for  cash  give  him  the  colors  he 
requires. 

One  other  writer  must  be  mentioned.  Martial.  With 
him  we  are  in  the  very  heart  of  Grub  Street.  Marcus 
Valerius  Martialis  came  from  Spain  to  the  capital.  He 
had  evidently  no  definite  expectation  of  any  career 
beyond  that  of  a  man  of  letters,  and  such  a  career 
involved  at  that  time  (as  it  continued  to  do  until  the 
nineteenth  century)  something  of  the  life  of  a  parasite. 
He  had  at  least  some  of  the  characteristics  of  a  parasite 
— a  ready  tongue,  a  strong  stomach,  and  an  easy 
conscience.  But  within  his  own  field  of  poetry,  the 
epigram,  he  was  a  real  master.  Subsequent  centuries 
have  rarely  equaled  the  mordancy  of  his  wit  or  the 
sting  of  his  lampoon.  At  the  foot  of  the  banquet 
tables,  jostled  by  hungry  mountebanks  and  the  very 
dregs  of  Roman  society,  he  kept  his  mocking  eyes  open 


326      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

to  the  foibles  of  his  host  no  less  than  to  the  disgustingly 
frank  vices  of  his  fellows. 

And  Martial  meets  Jews  on  his  way  through  the 
teeming  city.  But  if  Horace,  Persius,  and  Juvenal  have 
their  eyes  upon  Romans  that  were  being  Judaized, 
Martial  presents  to  us  the  counterpart,  Jews  that 
actually  were,  or  sought  to  be,  as  Greek  or  Roman  as 
possible.  In  speech  it  is  likely  that  most  Roman  Jews 
(and  Roman  Christians  as  well)  were  Greek.""  But 
Greek  was  almost  as  well  understood  at  Rome  as  Latin, 
and  perhaps  even  better  understood  among  the  masses. 
Two  of  his  Epigrams  (vii.  30,  and  xi.  94)  make  it  clear 
enough  that  the  Jew  at  Rome  did  not  live  aloof  from 
his  fellow-citizens,  and  wealthy  Jews  did  not  scruple 
to  purchase  in  the  market  the  gratifications  they  were 
especially  enjoined  by  their  faith  to  forego.  We  can 
readily  believe  that  Martial  is  recounting  real  experi- 
ences, but  these  cases  must  have  been  exceptional.  As 
we  shall  see  later,  the  Jewish  community  was  certainly 
not  a  licentious  one.  That  point  appears  specifically 
from  the  controversial  literature.  But  it  is  equally  well 
to  remember  that  as  individuals  they  were  subject  to 
human  passions,  and  the  excesses  found  in  other  classes 
of  society  might  also  be  met  with  among  them. 

Grecized  in  speech  and  name,  and  no  doubt  in  dress, 
the  Jews  accepted  for  their  conduct  the  external  forms 
and  standards  about  them.  One  very  interesting  indica- 
tion of  the  completeness  with  which  they  identified 
themselves  with  the  city  in  which  they  lived  is  the 
expression  ''  fatherland"  that  they  used  of  it;  e.  g.  m 


THE  ROMAN  JEWISH  COMMUNITY  327 

Akmonia  (Ramsay,  Cities  and  Bishops  of  Phrygia,  no. 
561).  Again,  in  Ostia  a  large  and  well-carved  slab  was 
recently  found  in  which  a  decree  of  the  Jews  at  Ostia 
was  set  forth.  The  corporation  grants  to  its  gerusiarch, 
Gains  Julius  Justus,  a  place  for  a  sepulchre.  The  offi- 
cers are  Livius,  Dionysius,  Antonius,  and  another  man 
whose  name  is  lost  (Not.  Scav.  1907,  p.  479).  Surely 
but  for  the  unambiguous  statement  of  the  inscription 
itself  one  would  not  have  looked  for  Jews  in  this  assem- 
blage of  Julii,  Livi'i,  and  Antonii. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS 

In  the  generations  that  followed  the  fall  of  the  temple, 
changes  of  great  moment  took  place,  which  we  can  only 
partially  follow  from  the  sources  at  our  disposal. 

The  Mishnah  gives  in  considerable  detail  the  laws 
that  governed  the  life  of  the  Jew  at  this  period,  and 
also  those  that  regulated  the  intercourse  of  Jew  and 
non-Jew.  But  the  Mishnah  may  after  all  have  been 
the  expression  of  an  ideal  as  often  as  it  was  the  record 
of  real  occurrences,  and  the  range  of  its  influence 
during  the  time  of  its  compilation  may  have  been  more 
limited  than  its  necessarily  general  phraseology  indi- 
cates. The  Mishnah  of  Rabbi  Judah  became  the 
standard  text-book  in  the  Jewish  academies  of  Pales- 
tine and  Babylonia,  although  not  to  the  total  exclusion 
of  other  sources  of  Halakah.  That  did  not  occur  at 
once;  and  even  when  it  was  complete,  the  authority  of 
the  presidents  of  the  schools  over  the  Jews  resident 
throughout  the  world  is  more  or  less  problematic. 

For  that  reason  it  is  especially  necessary  to  note  the 
invaluable  records  of  actual  life  that  appear  in  the 
papyri  and  inscriptions,  especially  where  they  show  that 
the  intercourse  between  Jews  and  pagans  was  far  from 
being  as  precisely  limited  as  the  Mishnah  would  compel 
us  to  suppose,  and  men  who  are  at  no  pains  to  con- 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  329 

ceal  their  Jewish  origin  permitted  themselves  certain 
indulgences  that  would  certainly  not  have  met  with  the 
approval  of  the  doctors  at  Jamnia  and  Tiberias. 

The  tractate  of  the  Mishnah  which  is  called  Aboda 
Zara,  *'  Idolatry  "  or  "  Foreign  Worship,"  lays  down 
the  rules  under  which  Jew  and  heathen  may  transact 
such  business  as  common  citizenship  or  residence  made 
inevitable.  The  essential  point  throughout  is  that  the 
Jew  must  not  either  directly  or  indirectly  take  part,  or 
seem  to  take  part,  in  the  worship  accorded  the  Abomina- 
tion. Nor  are  the  seemingly  trivial  regulations  despic- 
able for  their  anxious  minuteness.  In  all  probability 
they  are  decisions  of  actual  cases,  and  derive  their 
precision  from  that  fact.^ 

Certain  passages  in  Aboda  Zara  (ii.  i)  would  un- 
questionably have  made  intercourse  between  Jew  and 
pagan  practically  impossible  except  in  public  or  semi- 
public  places.  But  in  the  very  same  treatise  it  is  implied 
that  a  pagan  might  be  a  guest  at  the  Jew's  table  (v.  5)  ; 
and  indeed  much  of  the  detail  of  the  entire  tractate 
would  be  unnecessary  if  the  provision  contained  in  ii.  i 
were  literally  followed  out. 

The  Epigrams  of  Martial  (above,  p.  326),  if  we 
believe  them,  indicate  that  so  far  from  fleeing  the 
society  of  pagans  for  its  sexual  vices,  some  Jews  at 
least  sought  it  for  the  sake  of  these  vices,  as  was  the 
case  with  the  rival  of  the  Syrian  Greek  Meleager,  more 
than  two  centuries  before  Martial.  But  it  will  be 
noticed  that  the  subject  of  the  last  Epigram  (xi.  94)  is  a 
renegade,  who  swears  strange  oaths,  and  is  taunted  by 


330      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Martial  with  what  he  is  obviously  trying  to  conceal. 
Besides,  as  to  the  particular  vice  there  mentioned,  it 
rests  on  the  malice  of  the  satirist  alone.  The  victim 
of  his  wit  denies  his  guilt. 

Indeed  it  is  just  this  particular  vice,  so  widely 
prevalent  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  world,  that  the 
Jewish  antagonists  of  the  pagans  seized  upon  at  all 
times.  It  unquestionably  characterized  continental 
Greece  and  Italy  much  more  than  the  eastern  portions 
of  the  empire.  For  the  Jews  it  seemed  to  justify  the 
application  of  the  words  "  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,"  par- 
ticularly to  the  general  city  life  of  the  Greeks.  Some 
Jew  or  Christian  scratched  those  names  on  a  house  wall 
of  Pompeii.^ 

It  is  quite  untrue  to  say  that  unnatural  sexual  excesses 
were  so  prevalent  as  to  pass  without  comment  among 
Greeks  and  Romans  generally.  However  large  they 
loom  in  the  writings  of  extant  poets,  we  may  remember 
that  poets  are  emotionally  privileged  people.  The  sober 
Roman  and  Greek  did  not  find  any  legal  or  moral 
offense  in  illicit  love,  but  unnatural  lust  was  generally 
offensive  from  both  points  of  view,  and,  however 
widely  practised,  it  was  at  no  time  countenanced.  Still, 
Jews  and  Christians  would  be  justified  in  corhparing 
their  own  unmistakable  and  specific  condemnations  in 
this  matter  with  the  mere  disapproval  with  which  decent 
heathens  regarded  it.  For  the  Greek  legend  that  made 
the  fate  of  Laius,  father  of  Oedipus,"  a  punishment  of 
his  crime  in  first  bringing  pederasty  into  the  world,  the 
Jews  had  the  much  more  drastic  punishment  of  Sodom ; 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  331 

and,  in  many  passages  of  the  Apocrypha,  the  fact  of 
this  vice's  prevalence  is  dwelt  upon  as  a  characteristic 
difference  between  Jewish  and  gentile  life." 

In  many  other  matters  there  are  evidences  that  not 
all  the  regulations  of  Aboda  Zara  were  carried  out 
by  all  Jews.  In  the  Tosefta^  we  meet  the  express 
prohibition  of  theatrical  representations  to  the  Jews,  a 
prohibition  which,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  dramatic 
performances  were  at  all  times  theoretically  and  actually 
festivals  in  honor  of  Dionysus,  seems  perfectly  natural. 
But  in  spite  of  that,  in  the  great  theater  at  Miletus, 
some  extremely  desirable  seats  in  the  very  front  rows 
are  inscribed  tottos  twv  'Etlovhaloiv  </)tAocre/?ao-Twv^  "  Re- 
served for  His  Imperial  Majesty's  most  loyal  Jews."** 
It  will  therefore  not  be  safe  to  assume  that  the  Halakic 
provision  which  forbade  Jews  to  attend  the  theater 
actually  meant  that  Jews  as  a  class  did  not  do  so. 

But  we  find  even  stronger  evidences  of  the  fact  that 
the  amenities  of  social  life  in  Greek  cities  seemed  to 
some  Jews  to  override  the  decisions  of  the  law  schools 
in  Palestine..  In  Asia  Minor  a  Jew  leaves  money  not 
merely  for  the  usual  purposes  of  maintaining  his  monu- 
ment, but  also  for  the  astounding  purpose  of  actually 
assisting  a  heathen  ceremonial.^  The  instance  is  a  late 
one,  but  perhaps  more  valuable  for  that  reason,  because 
the  spread  of  the  schools'  influence  increased  constantly 
during  the  third  century. 

At  the  fall  of  the  temple  the  voluntary  tax  of  the 
shekel  or  didrachm,  which  had  formerly  been  paid  to 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  which  was  a  vital  factor 


332      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

in  the  very  first  instances  of  conflict  between  the  Jews 
and  the  Roman  authorities  (comp.  above,  p.  226),  was 
converted  into  an  official  tax  for  the  support  of  the 
central  sanctuary  of  the  Roman  state  on  the  Capitoline 
Hill.  Whether  Roman  citizens  who  were  Jews  paid  it, 
does  not  appear.  All  others  however  did.  The  bureau 
that  enforced  it  was  known  as  the  Hscus  ludaicus,  the 
word  Rscus  indicating  here,  as  always,  that  the  sums  so 
collected  were  considered  as  belonging  to  the  treasury 
of  the  reigning  prince  during  the  time  of  his  reign, 
rather  than  to  the  public  treasury. 

It  does  not  seem  that  this  tax,  except  for  its  destina- 
tion, was  believed  by  the  Jews  to  be  an  act  of  notable 
oppression,  nor  was  its  enforcement  more  inquisitorial 
than  that  of  other  taxes;  but  it  became  an  especial 
weapon  of  blackmail  in  Rome  and  in  all  Italy,  and  this 
blackmail  grew  into  dimensions  so  formidable  that 
action  had  to  be  taken  to  suppress  it. 

In  Rome,  we  may  remember,  there  was  no  officer  at 
all  resembling  our  public  prosecutor  or  district-attorney. 
The  prosecution  of  criminals  was  an  individual  task, 
whether  of  the  person  aggrieved  or  of  a  citizen  acting 
from  patriotic  motives.  Indeed  it  had  at  one  time 
been  considered  a  duty  of  the  highest  insistence,  and 
innumerable  Romans  had  won  their  first  distinction  in 
this  way.  The  delators  of  the  early  empire  were  in 
theory  no  different,  though  the  reward  of  their  activity 
was  not  the  glory  or  popularity  achieved,  but  the  sub- 
stantial one  of  a  lump  sum,  or  a  share  in  the  fine 
imposed,  a  practice  still  in  vogue  in  our  own  juris- 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  333 

dictions.  Plainly,  under  such  circumstances,  there  were 
temptations  to  a  form  of  blackmail  which  the  Greeks 
knew  as  (TVKo<f)dvTeLa^  and  the  Romans  as  calumnia;  i.  e. 
the  bringing  of  suits  known  to  be  unjustified,  or  with 
reckless  disregard  of  their  justification,  for  the  purpose 
of  sharing  in  some  reward  for  doing  this  quasi-public 
service.  Private  prosecutors  at  Roman  law  were 
required  to  swear  that  they  were  not  proceeding 
calumniae  causa,  "  with  blackmailing  intent."  * 

The  opportunities  presented  to  delators  by  the  Hscus 
ludaicus  consisted  in  the  fact  that  anyone  of  Jewish 
origin,  with  the  possible  exception  noted  above,  was 
liable  to  the  tax,  and  that  there  must  have  been  many 
who  attempted  to  conceal  their  Jewish  origin  in  order 
to  evade  it.  In  view  of  the  wide  extent  of  the  spread 
of  the  Jewish  propaganda,  the  delation  was  plausible 
from  the  beginning.  Suetonius  tells  us  at  first-hand 
recollection  of  a  case  in  which  the  charge  of  evading 
the  tax  was  made  and  successfully  established.^  In  a 
very  large  number  of  cases,  however,  the  charge  was 
not  established,  but  in  these  cases  it  was  often  appar- 
ently the  policy  of  prudence  to  buy  off  the  accuser  rather 
than  risk  the  uncertainties  of  a  judicial  decision.  It  is 
upon  people  who  act  in  just  such  a  way  that  black- 
mailers, crvKocj>dvTai,  calumniatores,  grew  fat.  And  the 
charge  of  evading  the  Jewish  tax  was  easily  made, 
and  disproved  with  difficulty,  since  all  who  followed 
Jewish  customs  were  amenable  to  it,  and  many  Jewish 
customs  so  closely  resembled  the  practices  of  certain 
philosophic  sects  that  confusion  on  the  subject  was  per- 


334      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

fectly  natural.  We  have  seen  this  in  the  case  of  Seneca 
some  years  before  this  (comp.  above,  p.  310). 

The  emperor  Nerva,  in  96-98  c.  e.,  removed  the 
occasion  of  this  abuse.  Coins  are  extant  with  the 
legend  Fisci  ludaici  calumnia  suhlata,  ''  To  commem- 
orate the  suppression  of  blackmail  arising  from  the 
Jewish  tax."  The  iiscus  hidaicus  itself  continued  into 
much  later  times,  but  blackmail  by  means  of  it  was 
ended.  How  this  was  done  we  are  not  told.  But  an 
obvious  and  natural  method  would  be  to  abolish  the 
money  reward  which  the  delator  or  prosecuting  witness 
received  for  every  conviction.  Plainly  there  would  be 
no  blackmail  if  there  was  no  incentive  thereto. 

But  this  reform  of  Nerva  affected  rather  those  who 
were  not  Jews  than  those  who  were,  since  in  the  case  of 
actual  Jews,  whether  by  birth  or  conversion,  the  tax 
was  enforceable  and  the  accusation  of  evading  it  was 
not  calumnia,  but  patriotic  zeal.  It  is  likely  enough  that 
the  measure  of  Nerva  discouraged  prosecution,  even 
where  it  was  justified,  but  the  losses  which  the  imperial 
fiscus  sustained  by  reason  of  the  successful  evasion  of 
the  tax  on  the  part  of  some  individuals  cannot  have 
been  great,  since  the  Jews  not  only  publicly  professed 
their  faith,  but  openly  and  actively  spread  it. 

In  the  epitome  of  the  sixty-eighth  book  of  Cassius  Dio 
(i.  2),  we  read  that  this  measure  of  Nerva  was  one  of 
general  amnesty  for  the  specific  crime  of  "  impiety,"  or 
acri/SeLa:  ''  Nerva  ordered  the  acquittal  of  those  on  trial 
for  impiety,  and  recalled  those  exiled  for  that  crime. 
....  He  permitted  no  one  to  bring  charges  of  impiety 
or  of  Jewish  method  of  living." 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  33S 

Unfortunately  this  passage  is  extant  only  in  the 
epitome  made  of  this  book  by  Xiphilinus,  a  Byzantine 
monk  of  the  eleventh  century.  We  have  no  means  of 
knowing  to  what  extent  the  epitomator  is  stating  the 
impression  he  received  from  his  reading,  largely  colored 
by  his  time  and  personality,  and  to  what  extent  he 
is  stating  the  actual  substance  of  the  book.  If  there 
really  was  in  Rome  an  indictable  offense  which  con- 
sisted in  adopting  Jewish  customs  as  distinguished 
from  the  general  charge  of  impiety,  such  an  offense 
does  not  appear  elsewhere  in  our  records.  We  must 
remember  that  there  is  no  indication  that  the  men 
freed  by  Nerva  had  been  suffering  under  the  despotic 
caprice  of  Domitian,  but  on  the  contrary  there  is  the 
specific  statement  that  they  were  being  duly  prosecuted 
under  recognized  forms. 

It  is  highly  likely  that  the  two  accusations  which 
Xiphilinus  gives  are  really  one  :  that  Nerva  discouraged 
prosecutions  for  impiety,  and  that  among  the  instances 
of  men  acquitted,  which  Dio  gave,  were  some  who  were 
converts  to  Judaism,  or  believed  to  be  so.  In  one 
instance,  a  constantly  cited  one,  that  is  precisely  what 
is  the  case,  and  that  is  the  condemnation,  in  the  last 
year  of  Domitian's  reign,  of  Flavins  Clemens  and 
Flavia  Domitilla,  both  of  them  kinsmen  of  the  emperor." 

In  the  case  of  these,  we  hear  that  Clemens  was 
executed  for  "  atheism,"  and  that  under  this  charge 
many  others  who  had  lapsed  into  the  customs  of  the 
Jews  were  condemned,  some  of  them  to  death,  others 
to  loss  of  their  property,  Domitilla  to  exile. 


336      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

In  Suetonius  we  have  a  wholly  different  version 
(Dom.  15).  Flavins  Clemens,  we  read,  was  a  man 
contemptissimae  inertiae,  ''of  thoroughly  contemptible 
weakness  of  character,"  but  enjoying  till  the  very  last 
year  of  Domitian's  life  the  latter's  especial  favor. 
Clemens'  two  children  were  even  designated  for  the 
succession.  The  emperor  was,  during  this  year,  a  prey 
to  insane  suspicions,  which  amounted  to  a  real  mania 
persecutoria,  and  on  a  sudden  fit  had  Clemens  executed. 
The  context  and  general  tone  of  the  passage  suggest 
that  the  charge,  real  or  trumped  up,  against  Clemens 
was  one  of  treason,  not  impiety. 

Clemens'  relationship,  his  undoubted  connection  with 
the  palace  conspiracy  that  ultimately  resulted  in  the 
assassination  of  Domitian,  make  this  account  the  more 
likely  one,  but  the  "  many  "  mentioned  in  the  epitome  of 
Xiphilinus  require  us  to  assume  that  at  least  some  of 
the  men  actually  prosecuted  for  "  impiety,"  or  atheism, 
were  so  charged  upon  the  evidence  of  Jewish  practices. 

It  has  been  stated,  and  it  must  be  constantly  re- 
iterated, that  impiety  was  a  negative  offense,  that  it 
implied  deliberate  refusal  to  perform  a  religious  act 
of  legal  obligation,  rather  than  the  actual  doing  of  some 
other  religious  act.  If  ''impiety"  were  really  the 
offense  here,  the  "many"  that  were  charged  with  it 
under  Domitian  and  Nerva  must  have  been  so  charged 
because  they  neglected  certain  ceremonies  which  the 
laws  made  obligatory.  In  Greek  communities  do-e/^eta 
was  a  relatively  common  offense,  and  indictment  for  it 
of  frequent  occurrence.     But  it  is  doubtful  whether 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  337 

there  was  such  an  indictment  at  Roman  law.  There 
is  no  Latin  term  for  aaejSeia,  The  word  impietas  is 
generally  used  in  a  different  sense.  The  Greek  Dio  or 
his  late  Byzantine  epitomator  has  evidently  used  that 
term  here  to  describe  in  his  own  words  what  seemed  to 
him  to  be  the  substance  of  the  accusation  rather  than 
to  give  a  technically  exact  account  of  the  charge  against 
these  men. 

In  later  law  writers  certain  offenses  are  discussed 
under  which  forms  of  impiety  or  dae/Seta  might  be 
included.  But  these  offenses  are  treated  either  as 
sedition  or  as  violations  of  the  Sullan  Lex  Cornelia 
de  Sicariis  et  Veneficis,  "  Statute  of  Assassins  and 
Poisoners."  The  latter  law  seems  to  have  been  a 
general  statute  containing  a  varied  assortment  of  pro- 
visions, but  all  of  them  relating  to  acts  that  tended  to 
the  bodily  injury  of  anyone,  whatever  the  motive  or 
pretext  of  that  injury." 

The  ''  many,"  then,  who,  as  Xiphilinus  says,  were 
prosecuted  for  ''  impiety,"  because  they  lapsed  into  Jew- 
ish rites,  may  have  been  indicted  under  the  Lex  Cornelia 
— no  doubt  as  a  pretext — or  charged  with  treason  upon 
proof  of  Jewish  proclivities.  The  Palestinian  Jews, 
we  may  remember,  were  until  recently  in  arms  against 
Rome.  In  all  these  cases,  the  indictments  were  prob- 
ably far-fetched  pretexts  devised  by  the  morose  and 
suspicious  Domitian  during  his  last  year  of  veri- 
table terror  in  order  to  get  rid  of  men  whom  he  sus- 
pected (often  justly)  of  plotting  his  assassination. 
These  are  the  men  whom  Nerva's  act  of  amnesty  freed. 
22 


338      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

The  famous  jurist  Paul,  who  wrote  in  the  first  part 
of  the  third  century,  discusses  the  restrictions  imposed 
upon  the  spread  of  Jewish  rites,  under  the  heading  of 
''sedition"  or  "treason."  The  justification  for  that 
treatment  Hes  in  the  series  of  insurrections  of  the  East- 
ern Jews  of  which  the  rebelHon  of  68  c.  e.  was  merely 
the  beginning.  Our  sources  for  the  events  of  these 
rebellions  are  remote  and  uncertain,  and  the  transmis- 
sion is  more  than  usually  troubled ;  but  a  chance  frag- 
ment, as  well  as  the  kernel  of  the  lurid  account  pre- 
sented by  Xiphilinus'  epitome  of  Dio,  leaves  no  doubt 
that  the  struggle  was  carried  on  with  memorable  feroc- 
ity, and  left  a  lasting  impression  on  the  people  whom 
it  concerned. 

If  Dio  is  to  be  believed,  the  outbreak  that  took  place 
in  the  reign  of  Trajan  (115  c.  e.)  in  Cyprus,  Cyrene, 
and  Egypt  (Ep.  Ixviii,  32)  was  marked  by  scenes  of 
indescribable  horror.  In  Cyrene,  Dio  states,  the  Jews 
devoured  the  flesh  of  their  victims,  clothed  themselves 
in  their  skins,  threw  them  to  wild  beasts,  or  compelled 
them  to  engage  in  gladiatorial  combats.  In  Cyrene,  two 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men  perished ;  in  Cyprus, 
two  hundred  and  forty  thousand.  One  may  say  with 
Reinach,  Les  chiffres  et  les  details  de  Dion  inspirent  la 
mefiance.^^ 

It  will  not  be  possible  to  assign  the  responsibility  for 
these  statements  to  the  epitomator  Xiphilinus.  Unless 
they  were  found  in  Dio,  he  could  not  have  ventured  to 
place  them  here,  since  the  epitome  and  the  text  were 
extant  together  for  a  long  time. 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  339 

In  the  Church  History  of  Eusebius  (IV.  ii.)  the 
revolt  is  described  somewhat  differently.  Eusebius 
mentions  the  Cyprian  revolt  in  his  Chronicon  (ii.  164). 
Here  however  he  speaks  only  of  the  insurrection  in 
Cyrene  and  Egypt.  The  name  of  the  leader  is  given  as 
Lucua,  not  Andreas,  as  Dio  has  it,  and  the  whole  event 
is  described  as  an  ordinary  revolt,  a  o-rao-t?,  reviving  the 
revolt  of  68  c.  e.  At  first  the  Jews  were  generally  suc- 
cessful, driving  their  opponents  to  take  refuge  in  the 
city  of  Alexandria,  while  they  harried  the  land.  At 
last  the  Roman  prefect,  Q.  Marcius  Turbo,  crushed 
them  completely. 

As  far  as  Egypt  is  concerned,  many  papyri  mention 
the  revolt.  Appian  Arab.  Liber  (Eg.  hist.  gr.  v.  p.  65) 
gives  us  a  first-hand  view  of  the  situation. 

Both  the  papyri  and  Appian  are  in  complete  accord- 
ance with  Eusebius'  account,  and  emphasize  the  extent 
of  the  Jewish  insurrection  and  the  impression  it  pro- 
duced upon  others. 

In  Jewish  writings  the  references  to  what  must  have 
been  a  matter  of  prime  importance  to  all  Jews  are  vague 
and  confused.  The  punishment  of  the  Mesopotamian 
Jews  by  Lusius  Quietus  ^^  is  mentioned,  but  beyond  that 
we  have  only  much  later  statements,  in  which  a  deal 
of  legend-making  has  been  imbedded.  The  *'  day  of 
Trajan,"  which  appears  as  a  festival  day,  is  connected 
by  a  persistent  tradition  with  the  permission  to  rebuild 
the  temple,  alleged  to  have  been  given  by  that  emperor. 
The  Roman  and  Greek  writers  know  nothing  of  this, 
and  in  Jewish  tradition  likewise  the  permission  is  repre- 


340      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

sented  as  abortive,  and  the  "day  of  Trajan"  ceased, 
according  to  another  story,  to  be  observed  when  the 
martyrs  Papius  and  LolHanus  were  executed." 

However,  it  must  be  noted  that  for  Palestine  in 
particular  details  are  lacking.  Indeed  we  might  well 
believe  that  Palestine  itself  took  no  part  in  it  whatever. 
The  expedition  of  Quietus  to  Mesopotamia  may  have 
been  an  ordinary  military  expedition  against  the  Par- 
thians'  territory,  with  whom  the  Romans  had  been  then 
at  war.  There  is  evidence  that  the  Jews  of  Parthia 
were  almost  autonomous,  and  a  foray  into  the  section 
which  they  happened  to  control  would  not  be  considered 
as  anything  more  than  an  attack  on  other  Parthian 
dominions.  The  Mesopotamian  provinces  of  Parthia 
were  then  under  the  theoretical  rule  of  Rome,  but  the 
precarious  character  of  the  conquest  was  apparent  to 
everyone,  so  that  the  first  act  of  the  conqueror's  suc- 
cessor, Hadrian,  was  to  abandon  both  Mesopotamia  and 
Armenia.  The  revolt  of  the  Mesopotamian  Jews  was, 
in  consequence,  a  somewhat  different  thing  from  that 
of  the  Jews  in  Cyprus  or  Cyrene. 

Perhaps  the  difficulties  in  Cyprus,  Cyrene,  and  Egypt 
are  to  be  considered  nothing  more  than  magnified  race 
riots,  which,  however,  assumed  the  dimensions  of  a 
real  war,  and  demanded  systematic  military  operations 
to  suppress  them.  But  the  friction  between  the  Jews 
and  Greeks  of  Salamis  or  Alexandria  could  scarcely 
have  resulted  in  such  serious  outbreaks,  if  the  con- 
ditions that  led  to  the  revolt  of  68  c.  e.  were  not  still 
operative.    The  fall  of  the  temple  did  not  paralyze  the 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  341 

Jewish  propaganda.  We  find  it  as  vigorous  afterward 
as  before.  The  Messianic  hopes,  which  were  one  form 
of  the  prevaiHng  spiritual  unrest,  had  not  died  out  in 
the  East  among  Jews  or  non-Jews."  The  calamity  of 
the  empire,  which  the  death  of  Nero  seemed  to  bring 
with  it,  did  not  after  all  take  place. 

Our  sources  represent  the  era  begun  by  Vespasian, 
except  for  a  few  years  of  Domitian's  reign,  as  one  of 
general  and  increasing  felicity.  These  sources,  how- 
ever, are  in  the  highest  degree  suspect,  and  while  the 
period  between  Vespasian  and  Marcus  Aurelius  repre- 
sents an  undoubted  rise  in  administrative  and  legal 
development,  they  represent  a  deterioration  in  the 
economic  condition  due  to  the  gathering  pressure  of 
the  huge  state  machinery  itself.  The  increase  of  the 
more  degraded  forms  of  superstition  marks  the  spiritual 
destitution  of  the  time. 

The  Jewish  communities  in  Cyprus,  Egypt,  and 
Cyrene  consisted  largely  of  craftsmen  and  small  mer- 
chants. Perhaps  among  them  were  a  number  of  former 
Palestinian  rebels,  sold  as  slaves  in  the  neighboring 
markets,  and  since  ransomed.  The  conditions,  the  active 
Messianic  hope,  the  presence  of  former  soldiers,  were 
themselves  provocative  of  riot,  and  the  outbreaks  in  the 
places  indicated  are  scarcely  surprising.  We  hear  only 
of  those  that  became  formidable  insurrections.  It  is 
possible  that  slighter  ones  have  failed  wholly  to  be 
recorded. 

But  during  the  reign  of  Hadrian  there  broke  out  an 
unmistakable   insurrection   in   Palestine,   which   more 


342      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

clearly  than  its  predecessors  showed  the  motive  force  of 
these  movements.  In  131  c.  e.  a  certain  Simeon  bar 
Kosiba  led  his  people  again  to  war  on  the  all-over- 
whelming power  of  the  empire.  The  occasion  for  the 
revolt  is  variously  given,  but  that  it  was  in  the  eyes  of 
those  that  fought  in  it  vastly  more  than  an  attempt  to 
shake  off  a  foreign  yoke  is  shown  by  the  Messiahship 
to  which  Simeon  openly  laid  claim,  and  for  which  he 
had  the  invaluable  support  of  the  head  of  the  Pales- 
tinian schools,  the  eloquent  and  passionate  Akiba." 

Dio^^  states  that  the  immediate  instigation  of  the 
revolt  was  the  building  on  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem  the 
new  city  and  temple  that  were  to  be  the  ofificial  home  of 
the  colony  of  Aelia  Capitolina,  a  community  founded 
by  Hadrian  and  composed  perhaps  of  native  Syrians, 
since  it  did  not  possess  the  ius  Italicum,  the  full  rights  of 
citizenship/^  This  statement  is  much  more  probable 
than  that  of  Eusebius,  which  reverses  the  order  of 
events,  and  makes  the  founding  of  the  Colonia  Aelia 
Capitolina  a  consequence  and  not  the  cause  of  the 
revolt." 

The  rebellion  of  68  had  enormously  depopulated 
Judea.  Those  that  were  left  had  neither  the  power  nor 
the  inclination  to  try  conclusions  with  the  legionaries 
again,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  remained  passive  when 
closely  related  communities  rose  in  arms.  But  the 
hopes  they  nourished,  no  doubt  systematically  fostered 
by  the  powerful  communities  in  Mesopotamia  and  the 
Parthian  lords  of  the  latter,  were  none  the  less  real  for 
their   suppression.     The   erection   of   Aelia   was   the 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  343 

signal.  Just  as  the  desecration  of  the  temple  by 
Epiphanes  was  the  last  measure  of  oppression,  which 
brought  upon  the  king  the  vengeance  of  Heaven, 
so  this  second  desecration,  the  dedication  of  the  holy 
hill  to  one  of  the  elillini,  one  of  the  Abominations  of 
the  heathen,  roused  the  frenzy  of  the  people  that  wit- 
nessed it  to  such  a  pitch  that  the  chances  of  success 
could  no  longer  be  considered.  At  the  same  time,  assur- 
ances of  ultimate  help  from  Parthia  were  perhaps  not 
lacking.  Among  those  who  streamed  to  aid  the  rebel- 
lious Jews  were  doubtless  many  of  Rome's  hereditary 
enemies,  since  of  other  rebellions  within  the  empire  at 
that  time  we  have  no  evidence. 

The  Jewish  tradition  speaks  of  a  systematic  and 
cruel  persecution  instituted  by  Hadrian.  The  details 
mentioned  are  very  much  like  the  remembered  incidents 
of  the  persecution  by  Epiphanes.  We  must  keep  in 
mind  that  every  one  of  the  statements  connected  with 
this  persecution  is  late,  and  is  in  so  far  of  dubious  his- 
torical value.^"  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  character  of 
Hadrian  makes  the  reality  of  the  persecution  in  the 
highest  degree  improbable.  No  doubt  the  revolt  was 
punished  with  ruthless  severity,  and  for  the  per- 
manent prohibition  against  the  entrance  of  a  Jew  into^ 
Aelia  Capitolina  there  is  excellent  evidence ;  ^  but  to 
attempt  to  root  out  Judaism  as  Antiochus  had  done  is 
something  that  simply  cannot  be  credited  to  Hadrian, 
if  only  for  the  fact  that  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
Jews  did  not  dwell  in  Palestine  at  all,  and  all  the  alleged 
persecutions  of  Hadrian  are  localized  only  in  Palestine. 


344      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

In  Hadrian's  letter  of  134  c.  e.,  to  his  brother-in-law 
Servianus,  the  Jews  of  Egypt  are  referred  to  in  a  man- 
ner quite  irreconcilable  with  the  theory  that  Judaism 
was  then  a  proscribed  religion.''^ 

In  this  connection  we  may  mention  a  decree  which, 
according  to  Jewish  tradition,  constituted  one  of  the 
most  deeply  resented  of  Hadrian's  persecutions — the 
prohibition  of  circumcision.  Here  again  the  late  biog- 
rapher of  Hadrian,  Spartianus,  makes  this  edict  precede 
and  not  follow  the  war ;  but  the  reliability  of  the  His- 
toria  Augusta,  of  which  Spartianus'  biography  is  part, 
is  not  very  high.  We  have  the  Historia  Augusta,  if  it 
is  not  wholly  a  fabrication  of  the  fourth  century,  only 
in  a  recension  of  that  time,  so  that  its  testimony  on 
such  a  detail  is  practically  valueless.^' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  bodily  mutilation  had  been 
under  the  ban  of  the  Roman  law,  but  that  prohibition 
applied  only  to  Roman  citizens.  In  practice  circum- 
cision had  been  openly  carried  on  both  by  Jews  who 
were  Roman  citizens  and  by  their  converts,  in  dis- 
regard of  this  provision,  probably  under  the  tacit 
assumption  that  the  privileges  of  the  Jewish  corpora- 
tions covered  this  as  well.  Primarily  the  prohibition 
was  directed  against  castration,  but  it  was  quite  general. 
The  only  formulation  which  the  edict  against  these 
practices  had  received  was  in  the  Sullan  Lex  Cornelia 
de  Sicariis  et  Veneficis  (above,  p.  241).  This  was  a  lex 
per  saturam,  or  miscellaneous  statute.  Under  one  of 
its  captions,  any  act,  perhaps  any  act  performed  with 
a  weapon  or  instrument  of  any  kind,  that  resulted  in 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  345 

bodily  injury,  was  prohibited.  A  senatorial  decree  of 
the  year  83  c.  e.  specified  castration  as  one  of  the 
mutilations  referred  to ;  similarly  abortion  was  punished 
as  a  violation  of  the  Lex  Cornelia/* 

Hadrian's  rescripts  seem  to  have  dealt  on  several 
occasions  with  this  law.  His  obvious  intention  to 
extend  the  statute  may  have  caused  him  to  use  terms 
of  general  effect.  Perhaps  an  isolated  case  of  the  prac- 
tice of  circumcision  among  people  outside  of  those  to 
whom  it  was  an  ancient  custom  may  have  been  fol- 
lowed by  indictment  and  punishment.  If  Hadrian 
really  had  attempted  to  carry  out  this  prohibition  gener- 
ally, he  would  have  provoked  a  rebellion  in  Egypt  as 
well  as  in  Judea,  since  in  Egypt  the  priests  practised  it 
likewise."*  The  rescript  of  Antoninus,  a  few  years  later, 
which  expressly  exempted  Jews  from  the  broad  con- 
demnation of  the  practice,  simply  restated  established 
law.^  Indeed  it  may  well  be  that  the  occasion  of  Pius' 
rescript  was  rather  one  that  restricted  the  Jews  than 
one  that  enlarged  their  privileges.  Even  in  the  case 
of  the  severest  form  of  mutilation,  it  is  forbidden  if  it  is 
done  promercii  aut  libidinis  causa.  A  similar  insistence 
on  criminal  intent  must  have  been  present  in  the  case  of 
the  lesser  mutilation  involved  in  the  Jewish  rite.  There 
could  of  course  never  have  been  any  question  that  cir- 
cumcision was  not  performed  promercii  aut  libidinis 
causa,  and  therefore  there  seems  to  be  little  reason  for 
the  rescript  of  Pius,  unless  we  assume  it  to  have  been  a 
direct  attempt  to  check  the  spread  of  Judaism  by  mak- 
ing the  performance  of  the  rite  in  the  case  of  non- 


346      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Jews  criminal  per  se,  without  proof  of  wrongful  intent. 

Paul,  writing  about  seventy-five  years  later,  states 
the  limitation  on  the  performance  of  the  rite  even  more 
broadly,  by  including  within  it  slaves  of  non-Jewish 
origin.^  In  all  circumstances  there  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  any  real  effort  to  enforce  it.  The  Jewish 
propaganda  went  on  in  spite  of  it,  not  surreptitiously,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  still-proscribed  Christians,  but  quite 
frankly.  The  statement  of  Paul  is  the  stranger  because 
of  the  open  favor  shown  by  Paul's  master,  the  Syrian 
Severus  Alexander,  toward  all  foreign  cults,  including 
that  of  the  Jews.  The  Sentences  of  Paul  may  have  been 
written  before  the  decree  of  the  emperor  which  his 
biographer  mentions,  by  which,  he  says,  Severus 
strengthened  the  privileged  position  of  the  Jews, 
ludaeis  privilegia  reservavit.  ^*  When  one  contrasts 
this  with  the  immediately  following  statement,  Chris- 
tianas esse  passus  est,  ''  He  allowed  the  Christians  to 
profess  their  faith,"  it  is  plain  that  in  the  case  of  the 
Jews  there  is  no  question  of  mere  toleration,  but  of 
the  recognition  of  an  established  position,  and  that  is 
not  quite  in  accord  with  the  statement  in  Paul's  Sen- 
tences, according  to  which  the  spread  of  Judaism  was 
rigorously  checked,  even  to  the  extent  of  modifying  one 
of  the  fundamental  concepts  of  the  law — the  unlimited 
character  of  the  master's  dominion  over  his  slaves. 

As  has  been  said,  the  authenticity  of  the  Historia 
Augusta  is  dubious,  but  the  number  of  details  offered 
to  show  the  interest  of  both  Alexander  and  his  pre- 
decessor Elagabalus  in  Judaism  and  Christianity  is  too 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  347 

great  to  be  ignored.  The  Sentences  of  Paul,  it  must  be 
noted,  have  come  down  to  us  only  in  the  abridged  and 
perhaps  interpolated  form  in  which  they  are  found  in 
the  Lex  Romana  Wisigothorum,  a  code  issued  by 
Alaric  II  in  506,  and  called  therefore  the  Breviarium 
Alaricianum.  At  that  time,  however,  proselytizing  on 
the  part  of  the  Jews  had  been  expressly  prohibited  by 
a  rescript  of  Theodosius  (Cod.  Theod.  16,  8,  9,  19)  of 
415.  Even  then  it  was  completely  ineffective,  but  at  any 
rate  the  rite  of  circumcision  was  definitely  under  a 
legal  ban."^ 

Whether  or  not  a  qualified  restriction  on  the  spread 
of  Judaism  has  been  changed  in  our  texts  of  the  Sen- 
tences into  a  general  and  all-embracing  one,  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  but  that  some  such  change  has  taken 
place  may  be  called  even  likely,  by  reason  of  the  point 
just  raised;  viz.,  that  it  is  wholly  contrary  to  the  spirit 
and  principles  of  the  Roman  law  to  impose  any  restric- 
tions whatever  on  the  master's  authority. 

We  have  examined  the  decrees  that  regulated  the  ' 
rite  of  circumcision,  merely  because  general  inferences 
have  been  drawn  from  it — inferences  that  are  in  no  1 
sense  justified.  The  Roman  law  regarded  bodily 
mutilation,  when  practised  as  part  of  a  religious  rite, 
and  especially  for  sordid  purposes,  as  against  public 
policy.  It  was  a  privilegium  of  the  Jew^s,  that  to  the 
members  of  their  organizations  the  general  rule  of  the 
law  did  not  apply,  and  the  various  statements  quoted 
from  the  jurists  were  simply  judicial  decisions  limiting, 


348      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

by  a  well-known  principle  of  interpretation,  the  exercise 
of  the  privilege  to  the  narrowest  possible  bounds. 

The  rebellion  of  Bar-Kosiba  was  probably  the  last 
time  that  the  Jews  confronted  the  Roman  troops  on 
issues  that  were  even  partly  national.  We  hear  that 
between  150  and  161,  under  Antoninus  Pius,  another 
rebellion  broke  out,  but  we  have  no  other  record  of  it 
than  the  notices  in  the  Historia  Augusta,^''  upon  which 
little  reliance  can  be  placed.  After  the  death  of 
Commodus  and  Pertinax,'^  the  eastern  empire,  includ- 
ing Palestine,  sided  with  the  local  claimant  Pescennius 
Niger,  and  Palestine  became  the  scene  of  battles  suf- 
ficiently important  to  jiistify  the  decreeing  of  a  "Jew- 
ish triumph "  to  Caracalla.  It  is  likely  that  these 
various  "  rebellions "  were  the  more  or  less  serious 
insurrections  of  bandits,  who  terrorized  the  country- 
side until  suppressed  by  the  authorities.  This  view 
derives  some  support  from  the  fact  that  of  one  of  these 
bandits  who  submitted  to  Severus  we  know  the  name, 
Claudius  (Dio  Cass.  Ep.  Ixxv.  2).  There  is  even  no 
certainty  as  to  whether  those  who  took  part  in  them 
were  wholly  or  mainly  Jews.  At  any  rate,  there  were 
no  national  ends  which  they  attempted  to  serve. 

A  fact,  which  may  be  accidental,  and  is  certainly 
noteworthy,  is  that,  of  all  the  struggles  of  the  Jews  with 
their  surroundings,  after  68,  none  are  localized  in  Asia 
Minor. 

It  was,  however,  in  Asia  Minor  that  the  Jews  were 
especially  numerous  and  influential.  To  a  certain  extent 
their  propaganda  had  become  most  firmly  established 


THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS  349 

there,  and  their  position  was  so  intrenched  that  even 
the  hostile  legislation  of  the  later  Byzantine  emperors 
found  them  in  successful  resistance.  We  find  evidences 
of  certain  laxity  in  the  practice  of  Jewish  rites,  but 
neither  in  68  nor  under  Trajan  or  Hadrian  did  the 
Asiatic  Jews  take  part  in  the  movements  that  con- 
vulsed that  section  of  the  Jews  of  the  empire.  And  yet 
it  was  in  the  cities  of  Asia  that  the  Jews  in  earlier  days 
did  meet  hostility  and  direct  attacks,  and  needed  the 
assistance  of  the  Roman  central  government,  to  be 
maintained  in  the  position  which  they  claimed  for  them- 
selves.^' However,  in  that  most  ancient  and  fertile 
nursery  of  beliefs  and  mysteries,  the  Jewish  mystery 
evidently  found  a  grateful  soil  and,-  as  we  have  seen, 
sent  its  roots  deep.^^ 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  LEGAL  POSITION  OF  THE  JEWS  IN 
THE  LATER  EMPIRE 

The  empire  established  by  Augustus  was,  as  has 
been  set  forth  (above,  p.  259),  a  more  or  less  abstract 
thing.  It  was  the  imperium,  or  supreme  authority, 
which  a  single  community,  the  city-state  of  Rome, 
exercised  over  all  the  other  communities  existing 
within  certain  not  over  sharply  defined  geographic 
limits.  This  imperium  was,  by  Roman  statute  or  series 
of  statutes,  almost  completely  delegated  to  a  single 
individual.  The  delegation  however  was  not  quite 
complete,  and  the  legal  theory  that  "made  it  incomplete 
remained  to  work  no  little  mischief  in  a  crisis  like  the 
death  of  Nero  or  Domitian  or  Commodus. 

When  Diocletian  reorganized  the  empire  in  286  c.  e., 
the  theory  was  completely  changed.  The  imperium  was 
now  a  dominium ;  it  was  the  authority  that  a  single  man 
possessed  over  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  region  greater 
even  than  it  was  under  Augustus,  and  that  authority 
was  in  point  of  law  as  limitless  as  that  of  a  master  over 
his  slaves. 

Between  Augustus  and  Diocletian  the  reign  of  the 
Severan  emperors,  particularly  the  promulgation  of 
the  Edict  of  Caracalla,  the  Constitutio  Antonina,  which 
extended   Roman   citizenship   to   almost   all   the   free 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         351 

inhabitants  of  the  empire,  may  be  considered  the  turn- 
ing-point of  the  tendency  toward  absolutism/  It  broke 
finally  and  completely  with  the  legal  theory  that  the 
populus  Romanus  was  a  paramount  community  within 
a  complex  of  other  similar  and  inferior  communities. 
From  that  time  on  nearly  all  those  who  could  possess 
rights  and  obligations  at  all,  whether  in  regard  to  one 
another  or  to  the  state,  were  members  of  the  paramount 
community,  and  the  delegation  of  the  imperium  to  the 
prince ps,  which  had  until  then  been  subject  to  the 
remote  but  still  conceivable  possibility  of  revocation, 
became  irrevocable  by  the  sheer  impossibility  of  con- 
ceiving the  populus  as  acting  in  the  only  way  the 
populus  could  legally  act,  by  direct  vote  when  assembled 
in  mass  in  the  Campus  Martins. 

In  the  period  between  Caracalla  and  Diocletian  the 
vast  political  machine  snapped  at  many  points.  Dio- 
cletian's skill  enabled  it  to  go  on  for  a  considerable  time, 
and  yet  the  changes  he  instituted  were  administrative 
rather  than  social.  Internally  the  new  populus  Romanus 
took  its  form  in  the  third  century. 

A  calculation  of  doubtful  value  makes  the  population 
of  the  empire  at  that  time  about  85,000,000.''  Of  these 
about  half  were  slaves,  i.  e.  at  law  not  participants  in 
the  empire  at  all.  The  other  half  were  nearly  all  cives 
Romani,  Roman  citizens,  and  it  is  the  position  of  these 
cives  that  now  concerns  us. 

Upon  the  civis  Romanus  devolved  the  task  of  main- 
taining a  frightfully  expensive  governmental  machin- 
ery.    The  expense  consisted  in  the  fact  that  a  huge 


352      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 


army  had  to  be  maintained  on  what  was  practically  a 
war  footing  all  the  time,  because,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
war  with  the  barbarians  on  the  northern  frontier  and 
with  the  Parthians  in  the  East  was  always  going  on. 
Compared  with  that,  the  expenses  of  the  court  itself, 
although  considerable,  were  scarcely  important ;  but  an 
important  item  was  the  vast  horde  of  civil  employees 
which  the  execution  of  so  tremendous  a  budget  neces- 
sitated. Then  the  local  civic  centers,  generally  the 
remains  of  old  independent  communities,  had  an  organ- 
ization of  their  own  that  was  partly  ornamental,  but 
in  all  circumstances  costly.  That  is  to  say,  a  very  large 
share  of  the  available  wealth  of  the  empire  was  diverted 
into  unproductive  channels,  since  it  was  devoted  to  the 
purpose  of  maintaining  a  machinery  not  altogether 
necessary  to  guard  that  wealth. 

Many  of  the  nations  of  modern  Europe  have  a  mili- 
tary budget  relatively  and  absolutely  greater  than  that 
of  the  Roman  empire  of  the  third  century ;  but  in  these 
nations  the  economic  system  has  a  high  degree  of 
efficiency,  compared  with  that  of  the  older  state,  and 
the  waste  is  incalculably  less.  The  great  difference  lies 
in  the  slave  system,  which  was  the  foundation  of  ancient 
society.  The  total  absence  of  individual  incentive 
wherever  the  slaves  were  worked  in  gangs — and  that 
was,  perhaps,  true  of  the  majority  of  slaves — made  the 
efficiency  and  consequent  productivity  of  each  laborer 
much  less. 

We  must  further  remember  that  human  waste  was 
also  much  greater,  owing  to  the  absence  of  all  measures 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         353 

to  restrict  it.  Only  the  most  elementary  of  sanitary 
precautions  existed,  and  they  were  directed  against 
definite  diseases  of  plainly  infectious  character.  With 
a  great  percentage  of  the  population  undernourished, 
the  ravages  of  any  disease  with  epidemic  tendencies 
must  have  been  enormous.  Even  in  the  absence  of  any 
plague,  such  a  scourge  as  consumption  alone  must  have 
been  much  more  generally  destructive  than  it  is  now. 
As  has  been  recently  suggested,  malaria  in  Italy  had  a 
heavy  account  to  answer  for  in  producing  the  physical 
debilitation  of  the  populus  Romanus,  and  was  therefore 
a  real  factor  in  the  gradual  decay  of  the  Roman  state.^ 

The  incidence  of  the  state  burdens  was  not  regulated 
as  it  is  at  the  present  time.  Taxes  were  imposed  within 
certain  districts,  and  upon  each  district  devolved  the 
duty  of  satisfying  the  impost.  For  a  long  time  Italy 
had  been  free  from  such  a  burden,  but  even  this  excep- 
tional position  was  abrogated  by  Constantine  in  300 
c.  E. 

How  each  district  accomplished  its  task  was  a  local 
matter,  and  was  determined  by  its  individual  develop- 
ment. Until  the  reorganization  effected  by  Diocletian, 
the  old  national  units  had  in  the  main  been  kept  intact. 
That  is  to  say,  Egypt  remained  what  it  had  been  under 
the  Ptolemies  and  for  thousands  of  years  before — a 
strongly  centralized  kingdom,  rigidly  bureaucratic,  but 
measurably  well  organized.  Asia,  again,  was  a  group 
of  independent  cities  and  certain  larger  districts,  prin- 
cipally rural,  the  kingdoms  of  Bithynia,  Cappadocia, 
Galatia,  etc.    The  tax  which  the  particular  province  had 

23 


354      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

to  deliver  was  apportioned  among  the  various  units 
according  to  their  apparent  capacity.  Here  and  there  a 
poll-tax  existed,  levied  upon  every  inhabitant  alike,  and 
on  the  existence  of  this  poll-tax  far-reaching  theories 
have  been  constructed. 

The  obligation  of  the  individual  toward  the  state 
was  determined  by  one  fundamental  fact,  viz.,  domicile, 
or  right  of  residence.  Before  the  Constitutio  Antonina 
there  was  only  one  class  of  inhabitants  that  possessed  an 
almost  unlimited  right  of  residence,  the  cives  Romani. 
But  even  these  could  not  live  indiscriminately  in  Egypt, 
for  example,  which  was  at  all  times  an  exceptional  prov- 
ince, and  was  considered  a  sort  of  imperial  appanage. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  in  Egypt  that  we  see  the  first 
development  of  the  colonatiis,  destined  to  be  of  so 
fundamental  importance  in  the  creation  of  the  feudal 
system.  It  may  be  that  the  colonatits  was  found  prac- 
tically everywhere  in  the  Hellenistic  states,  but  its 
growth  in  Egypt  goes  back  to  Pharaonic  times,  and  its 
fullest  expansion  was  found  there. 

The  principle  of  the  colonatus  was  the  permanent 
obligation  of  the  agricultural  free  laborer  to  remain 
on  the  soil  he  tilled.  Originally  it  applied  only  to  the 
state  lands,  but  in  the  third  century  these  state  lands 
became  largely  private  property,  and  the  serf-like 
coloni  went  with  them.  All  over  the  empire  there 
were  still,  in  spite  of  the  latifundia,  or  agriculture  on 
a  big  scale,  a  large  number  of  peasant  proprietors; 
but  with  the  impossibility  of  competing  with  the  pro- 
duction of  the  latifundia,  these  peasant  proprietorships 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         355 

were  soon  converted  into  holdings  resembling  the 
colonatus,  or  actually  that. 

Now,  as  long  as  the  civis  Romanus,  as  a  prerogative 
of  his  position,  paid  no  tax,  his  right  of  residence  was 
unqualified.  When  he  too  had  to  submit  to  a  direct 
tax,  the  place  where  he  resided  became  a  matter  of 
prime  importance.  The  tax  that  was  imposed  upon  any 
given  locality  could  be  met  only  if  all  those  subject  to 
tax,  living  there,  paid  their  dues.  Consequently  those 
who  by  birth  were  domiciled  there  could  not  remove 
themselves  without  lessening  to  that  extent  the  power 
of  that  district  to  meet  its  state  obligations.  At  first,  to 
be  sure,  this  cannot  have  been  a  matter  of  first-rate 
importance.  Changes  of  domicile  after  all  were  rare, 
and  took  place  principally  among  the  wealthier  classes, 
a  fact  that  made  it  easy  to  insure  that  no  loss  would 
accrue  to  the  community  abandoned.  But  as  conditions 
of  ordinary  living  deteriorated,  the  practice  of  deserting 
one's  legal  residence  became  more  frequent,  and  needed 
the  intervention  of  the  central  authorities,  since  the 
local  magistrate  had  no  jurisdiction  whatever  beyond 
the  strictly  circumscribed  limits  of  his  commune.  As 
soon  as  it  was  possible  for  a  commune  to  claim  from 
its  members,  wherever  they  happened  to  be,  their  con- 
tribution to  the  communal  tax,  there  arose  the  corollary 
that  for  all  practical  purposes  the  tax-paying  member 
might  not  leave  the  place  where  his  tax  was  due.  The 
colonatus  had  been  applied  to  the  urban  laborer. 

But  the  chaining  of  the  individual  to  his  commune 
was  not  sufficient  unless  his  paying  power  was  main- 


356      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

tained.  The  same  motives  that  impelled  men  to  evade 
their  fiscal  duties  by  change  of  domicile,  would  make 
them  idle  and  sullen  paupers  in  the  places  where  they 
were  forced  to  remain.  It  was  a  part  of  the  state 
system  which  the  Severan  emperors  introduced  to  make 
the  paying  power  of  the  citizen  certain  by  means  of  the 
compulsory  guilds.*  These  latter  were  natural  out- 
growths of  former  voluntary  associations.  The  forma- 
tion of  guilds  of  laborers,  either  free  or  consisting 
partly  of  freemen  and  slave  laborers,  was  as  old  as 
the  state  itself.  The  evident  superiority  of  training 
which  such  groups  insured  alone  justified  them.  From 
time  to  time  certain  privileges  and  exemptions  were 
conferred  upon  them — always  in  return  for  definite 
state  functions '  which  they  took  upon  themselves  as 
well  as  the  industrial  functions  which  were  their  reason 
for  existence.  Indeed,  in  the  municipal  towns  the 
collegiati,  or  members  of  these  publicly  sanctioned 
industrial  guilds,  formed  an  order  of  citizenship  second 
only  to  that  of  the  decurions,  or  municipal  senate. 

While  the  various  collegia  were  at  first  voluntary 
associations,  it  is  evident  that  the  sons  of  members 
would  tend  to  follow  the  callings  of  their  fathers  with- 
out statutory  command  to  that  effect.  When,  however, 
the  dues  of  the  corporation  to  the  state  became  onerous, 
the  voluntary  choice  of  a  calling  might  leave  certain 
collegia  quite  deserted.  At  what  time  this  danger  , 
became  so  serious  that  special  legislation  was  required, 
we  do  not  know,  but  there  is  a  vague  and  textually 
uncertain  passage  in  the  Life  of  Alexander  Severus,  in 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         357 

the  Historia  Augusta,  which  indicates  that  a  reorgan- 
ization of  the  trade-guilds  was  undertaken  by  that 
emperor.  If  it  was  so,  the  appearance  soon  afterwards 
of  the  compulsory  guild  in  full  development  makes  it 
likely  that  the  compulsory  principle  was  officially  recog- 
nized or  perhaps  extended  then. 

But  it  was  not  merely  the  artisans  of  the  empire  that 
were  included  in  any  organization  or  reorganization  of 
the  collegia.  Like  all  other  corporate  bodies  the  trade- 
guilds,  if  not  wholly  religious  in  form,  possessed  a  com- 
mon cult  or  ceremony,  and  this  common  possession 
made  it  easy  to  consider  them  as  not  essentially  different 
from  collegia  directly  and  solely  religious — the  Greek 
OtaaoL,  for  example.  In  these,  the  voluntary  principle 
remained  even  after  the  compulsory  guilds  were  fully 
developed,  although  in  point  of  fact  they  were  generally 
rigidly  hereditary  at  all  times.  Here  too,  after  Alex- 
ander Severus,  there  must  have  been  a  certain  legal 
restriction  placed  upon  arbitrary  withdrawal  from  such 
cult-organizations,  even  if  their  ritual  was  openly  and 
unmistakably  foreign,  such  as  that  of  the  Jews,  the 
orgies  of  Atthis,  or  the  mysteries  of  Mithra.  Some 
restriction  would  be  necessary,  because  membership  in 
these  organizations,  as  far  as  they  were  tolerated  by 
law,  involved  the  payment  of  certain  dues  to  the  state, 
and  the  state  could  not  see  with  equanimity  the  obliga- 
tion to  pay  these  dues  discarded  and  no  new  ones 
assumed  in  its  place. 

The  dues  to  the  state  did  not  consist  altogether,  and 
soon  not  even  principally,  in  the  actual  taxes  levied 


358      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

upon  a  community,  and  portioned  among  its  constituent 
members,  whether  individuals  or  corporations.  Indeed 
these  latter  were  paid  to  what  seems  to  us  a  wholly  dis- 
proportionate extent  by  a  small  and  wealthy  class  in  the 
community.  The  taxes,  whether  they  consisted  of 
ground-rent  for  state  lands,  harbor-dues,  or  taxes  on 
certain  sales,  were  principally  paid  by  the  large  traders 
and  investors,  who  were  in  every  case  the  governing 
body  of  the  local  communes.  In  provinces  where  a  poll- 
tax  was  levied,  and  where  a  tribute  was  imposed  as  on 
conquered  territory,  which  the  province  really  was, 
these  direct  taxes,  when  brutally  executed  on  the 
peasant's  grain,  were  oppressive  enough,  but  in  many 
parts  of  the  Roman  world  they  were  in  effect  Aa- 
rovpytai,  "  liturgies,"  i.  e.  the  burdens  assumed  by  or 
imposed  upon  private  persons  of  making  large  contri- 
butions in  service  to  the  state  in  proportion  to  their 
means.  The  principle  of  the  liturgy  was  common  to 
most  Greek  states,  and  was  capable  of  indefinite 
extension. 

And  there  was  one  state  burden  rapidly  increasing  in 
gravity,  which  was  generally  met  on  the  principle  of  the 
liturgy,  although  the  state  too,  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Trajan,*  was  compelled  to  attempt  it  in  part.  That  was 
the  care  of  incompetents,  by  which  term  we  may  under- 
stand all  free  individuals  who  could  not  support  them- 
selves wholly  by  their  personal  efforts,  i.  e.  widows  and 
orphans,  as  well  as  destitute  freemen.  The  proletariat 
of  the  empire  not  only  had  no  share  in  its  burdens,  but 
itself  formed  the  empire's  chief  economic  burden. 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         359 

The  organization  of  the  system  was  of  very  old 
standing.  From  time  immemorial  the  minor  children 
and  the  women  of  a  family  and  of  a  clan  had  been  under 
the  legal  control  and  care  of  the  family's  head.  In 
the  developed  system  of  law,  the  technical  terms  were 
tufela  and  cura,  the  former  being  the  guardianship  of 
a  child  until  fourteen,  the  latter  the  guardianship  of  a 
youth  until  tw^enty-five,  as  well  as  the  care  of  an  adult 
incompetent.  This  system  of  guardianship  was  further 
extended,  but  always  remained  the  same  in  principle. 
It  was  the  duty  of  the  family  to  provide  for  its  destitute 
members,  and  the  legal  extension  the  system  underwent 
was  simply  that  of  widening  the  family  circle.  Not 
merely  close  relatives  but  remoter  kinsmen  were  drawn 
into  it  as  far  as  the  obligations  of  guardianship  were 
concerned ;  and  in  default  of  kinsmen,  the  guild,  society, 
or  commune  assumed  the  wardship  of  minors,  and  was 
answerable  for  their  maintenance. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  important  this  item  of 
state  service  became,  when  we  recall  how  large  a  part 
of  the  municipal  budgets  in  England  during  many  cen- 
turies was  concerned  with  the  care  of  the  poor.  But 
after  the  disintegration  of  the  slave  system  on  its 
economic  side,  the  number  of  persons  for  whose  care 
this  provision  had  to  be  made  must  have  been  much 
greater  than  it  was  in  England  at  any  time.  If  nothing 
else,  the  minute  care  with  which  the  burdens  of  ward- 
ship were  apportioned,  the  precautions  against  their 
evasion,  the  great  part  its  discussion  played  in  legal 
literature,'  will  make  it  evident  that  wardship  of  minors 


36o      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

was  a  vitally  important  matter,  and  its  administration 
one  of  the  chief  functions  of  citizenship  in  the  empire. 
Many  groups  of  men  were  practically  exempted  from 
all  other  state  dues,  provided  the  guardianship  of 
minors  within  that  group  was  assumed. 

The  maintenance  of  the  poor  is  almost  a  corollary  of 
the  compulsory  wardship  of  women  and  minors.  The 
artisan  whose  efforts  no  longer  sufficed  to  maintain  his 
family  often  absconded,  or  in  very  many  cases  suc- 
cumbed physically  to  his  tasks,  leaving  in  either  case  a 
family  for  whose  wardship  his  kinsmen  or  colleagues 
had  to  provide.  The  state  foundations  instituted  and 
maintained  by  Trajan  and  his  successors  were  probably 
abandoned  during  the  third  century,  when  the  tutela 
was  systematized  and  minutely  regulated. 

All  in  all,  every  member  of  the  state  as  such  had  cer- 
tain fiscal  duties  to  the  state,  munera,  and  his  perform- 
ance of  these  munera  determined  his  place  in  the  state. 
The  social  cleavage  between  the  honestiores,  the  "  better 
classes,"  and  the  humiliores,  "  the  lower  classes,"  was 
of  very  great  importance  in  criminal  law,  since  the 
severity  of  the  penalty  varied  according  to  the  class 
to  which  the  convicted  criminal  belonged;  but  we  are 
not  told  on  what  basis  the  judge  determined  whether 
any  given  man  was  honestior  or  humilior,  and  the  whole 
distinction  seems  somewhat  un-Roman.^  For  other 
purposes  the  various  honors  and  ranks  which  multiplied 
in  spite  of  the  sinking  significance  of  the  many  con- 
stituent communities  were  much  less  important  than 
the  drastically  enforced  classification  of  citizens  by  the 
taxes  they  paid. 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         361 

The  Jews  of  the  Roman  empire  were  to  be  found  in 
all  the  classes  that  existed.  As  long  as  innumerable 
forms  of  local  citizenship  existed,  distinct  from  citizen- 
ship in  the  Roman  state,  Jews  might  be  met  in  all  those 
groups.  But  when  the  Constitution  of  Caracalla  merged 
all  the  local  forms  of  citizenship  in  the  civitas  Romana, 
practically  all  the  Jews  then  living  in  the  empire 
became  Roman  citizens,  although  it  is  highly  likely  that 
the  old  names  did  not  at  once  disappear. 

Only  one  exception  is  known  to  have  been  made  by 
Caracalla.  A  certain  class  of  inhabitants  known  as  the 
dediticii  were  excluded  from  his  general  grant.  To 
analyze  the  exact  position  of  these  dediticii  would 
demand  more  detailed  argument  than  can  here  be 
offered,  especially  since  it  is  a  highly  controversial 
matter.  Recently  it  has  been  urged  that  all  those  who 
paid  a  poll-tax,  particularly  in  Egypt  and  Syria,  were 
classed  as  dediticii  and  consequently  excluded  from 
Roman  citizenship.  For  this,  however,  there  is  not  the 
remotest  evidence.  In  the  Institutes  of  Gains  ^  there 
is  an  unfortunate  lacuna  where  the  matter  is  discussed, 
but  from  what  is  said  there,  it  is  likely  that  as  early  as 
the  Antonines  the  dediticii  in  Rome  were  a  class  of 
f  reedmen  suffering  legal  disabilities  for  proven  offenses, 
and  that  there  were  few  others.  The  exemption  of  the 
dediticii  from  the  benefits  of  the  Edict  of  Caracalla  was 
therefore  perfectly  natural,  and  did  not  in  the  least 
imply  the  exemption  of  those  who  paid  the  poll-tax  in 
Egypt  and  Syria,  among  whom  were  many  Jews. 


362      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

As  Roman  citizens  domiciled  in  the  various  quarters 
of  the  empire,  the  Jews  were  subjected  to  the  obliga- 
tions that  went  with  that  domicile.  So  in  Egypt  a  great 
number  of  Jews  paid  a  poll-tax,  although  many  of  them, 
especially  in  Alexandria,  were  exempt.  In  Syria  and 
Asia,  where  many  communities  still  had  tribute  to  pay, 
the  Jewish  members  of  those  communities  were  equally 
assessed. 

But  besides  being  legally  domiciled  in  some  definite 
place,  the  Jews  in  every  place  formed  cult-organizations. 
Apostasy  in  the  case  of  the  Jew  meant  no  more  than  the 
abandoning  of  this  organization,  "  separating  himself 
from  the  congregation."  ^"  Those  who  did  so  found 
themselves  at  once  obliged  to  perform  the  rites  of  the 
state  worship  in  the  many  cities  where  such  rites  were 
legally  enforced,  or  to  enter  other  cult-associations, 
since  it  was  only  as  a  member  of  the  Jewish  corporation 
that  he  secured  the  privilege  of  abstention. 

These  Jewish  corporations  were  known  as  "  syna- 
gogues," a  term  more  properly  denoting  the  meetings  of 
the  societies.  The  word  was  used  of  other  associations 
as  well  as  of  the  Jewish.  A  word  of  kindred  origin  and 
meaning,  synodos,  was  almost  a  general  term  for  cor- 
poration everywhere."  However  "  synagogue  "  became 
gradually  appropriated  by  the  Jewish  collegia,  and  in 
inscriptions  in  which  the  word  occurs  it  is  generally 
safe  to  assume  a  Jewish  origin. 

Like  all  other  similar  corporations  or  guilds,  the 
Jewish  synagogues  had  special  munera.  One  which 
was   almost    unique   was   the   Jewish   tax,   the    fiscus 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         363 

ludaicus,  or  didrachm,  which,  since  70,  had  been  levied 
on  all  the  Jews,  originally  for  the  support  of  the  Capi- 
toline  temple,  but  probably  long  merged  into  the  gen- 
eral fiscus,  or  imperial  treasury.  It  is  unique,  because 
there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  other  tax  which, 
like  this  one,  was  wholly  devoid  of  local  basis,  and  did 
not  depend  on  domicile  at  all.  Otherwise  membership 
in  the  Jewish  synagogue  conferred  a  highly  valued  and 
general  exemption.  The  Jews  could  not  be  required  to 
perform  any  task  that  violated  their  religious  convic- 
tion. This  privilege  is  formulated  in  a  constitution  of 
Caracalla,  but  it  seems  rather  a  confirmation  of  one 
already  existing  than  a  new  grant." 

According  to  this  privilege,  Jews  were  immediately 
relieved  from  all  dues  connected  with  local  or  state 
worship  or  with  the  temples.  As  many  Jews  were  in  a 
financial  position  that  would  ordinarily  invite  the 
imposition  of  just  these  liturgies,  that  meant  a  very 
great  relief.  All  other  liturgies,  including  the  tutela 
both  of  Jews  and  of  non-Jews,  we  are  expressly  told 
the  Jews  were  subject  to. 

We  know  further  that  the  demands  upon  them  did 
not  end  there.  In  Palestine  the  organization  of  the 
Sanhedrin  had  maintained  itself,  although  only  in  the 
form  of  several  schools  under  the  general  presidency 
of  the  Nasi,  whom  Romans  and  Greeks  called  the 
Patriarch.  The  maintenance  of  these  schools  and  those 
who  labored  in  them  was  a  religious  duty  which  most 
Jews  voluntarily  assumed.  The  money  was  collected 
by  apostoli, ''  envoys,"  despatched  to  the  various  Jewish 


364      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

synagogues  for  that  purpose/^  The  early  Christian 
emperors  beHeved,  or  professed  to  beHeve,  that  the  pay- 
ment of  this  tax  was  a  grave  burden  to  the  poorer  Jews, 
and  that  irregularities  were  committed  in  its  enforce- 
ment. The  Jewish  sources,  all  of  which  are  Palestinian, 
naturally  show  no  trace  of  this  complaint ;  nor  is  it  likely 
that  there  was  much  foundation  for  it  except  in  certain 
localities  already  grievously  burdened  by  constantly 
increasing  dues. 

Besides  these  various  classes  into  which  the  tax- 
paying  Jewish  citizens  fell,  there  were  also  Jews  who 
did  not  share  in  the  support  of  the  state  at  all.  Jewish 
slaves  existed  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  too,  but 
they  can  scarcely  have  been  numerous.  A  Jewish  slave 
belonging  to  a  Jewish  master  was  practically  only  a 
servant  bound  for  a  term  of  years."  Within  a  relatively 
short  space  of  time  he  could  demand  his  freedom  by 
Biblical  law.  If  his  master  was  a  pagan,  a  religious 
duty  devolved  upon  all  other  Jews,  and  particularly  the 
local  synagogue,  to  redeem  him.*'  Often,  to  be  sure, 
that  duty  could  not  be  carried  out.  Not  every  master 
would  sell,  and  not  every  synagogue  was  financially  able 
to  supply  the  necessary  funds.  In  general,  however,  it 
added  another  motive  to  those  already  existing  that 
made  emancipations  frequent. 

The  social  position  and  occupations  of  the  Jews 
throughout  the  empire  are  only  slightly  known.  For 
Egypt  and  Rome  we  have  fuller  documents  than  else- 
where, except  for  Babylon,  which  was  outside  the 
empire.      We  have  no  means  of  determining  whether 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         365 

the  facts  found  in  Egypt  and  Rome  are  in  any  way 
typical.  One  negative  statement  may  however  be  safely 
made.  They  were  only  to  a  very  slight  extent  mer- 
chants or  money-lenders.  In  most  cases  they  seem  to 
have  been  artisans.  The  inscriptions  in  the  Jewish  cat- 
acombs show  us  weavers,  tent-makers,  dyers,  butchers,  _ 
painters,  jewelers,  physicians.^^  In  Egypt  we  meet 
sailors  and  handicraftsmen  of  all  description."  Ven- 
dors, of  course,  on  a  small  and  large  scale  were  not 
wholly  lacking.  Indeed  it  would  be  impossible  to  under- 
stand the  individual  prosperity  of  some  Jews  or  of  some 
communities  except  on  the  assumption  of  commercial 
occupations  and  success.  However,  in  general,  com- 
merce was  principally  in  the  hands  of  Syrians  and 
Greeks,  especially  the  former,  whose  customs  and  cults 
spread  with  them  over  the  Mediterranean. 

We  may  say,  in  conclusion,  that  the  economic  and 
political  position  of  the  Jews  in  the  empire  was  unique 
in  one  sense.  There  were  no  other  groups  that  had 
exactly  the  same  rights,  or  were  subject  to  exactly  the 
same  demands  as  the  Jews.  But  in  another  sense  that 
position  was  not  at  all  unique.  Many  other  groups  of 
men  had  rights  somewhat  like  those  of  the  Jewish  syna- 
gogues, and  played  a  part  in  the  social  economy  similar 
to  theirs ;  and,  as  individuals,  there  was  probably  noth- 
ing to  mark  out  the  Jew  from  his  fellows  in  the 
community. 

We  cannot  tell  how  far  and  how  long  the  Jews  would 
have  been  able  to  maintain  their  position.  There  seems 
however  to  have  been  nothing  in  the  conditions  of  the 


366      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

Diocletianic  empire  that  threatened  the  stabiHty  of  the 
synagogues  in  the  form  in  which  they  were  then  found. 
The  reHgious  basis  of  the  state — the  maintenance  of  a 
common  cult  for  the  whole  empire — had  practically 
been  abandoned.  At  one  time,  under  Aurelian/*  the 
emperor's  devotion  to  the  solar  cult  had  almost  made  of 
that  the  state  religion.  But  in  general  it  may  be  said 
that  the  absolutism  of  Diocletian  rendered  such  bonds 
unnecessary.  Where  all  men  were  born  subjects  or 
slaves  (''slaves  of  their  duties,"  servi  functionum,  the 
guild-men  are  called  explicitly  ^^)  of  the  same  master,  it 
could  be  considered  indifferent  whether  they  all  main- 
tained the  same  theology. 

But  whether  the  Jews  might  have  maintained  their 
position  or  not,  if  the  conditions  had  remained  the  same, 
is  a  purely  hypothetical  question.  When  Christianity 
became  the  state  religion,  under  Theodosius,^"  a  step 
was  taken  that  Jews  must  perforce  regard  as  retrogres- 
sive. In  ancient  times  participation  in  the  common 
sacra  was  of  the  essence  of  membership  in  a  state."^^ 
That  principle  was,  however,  tolerantly  enforced.  In 
the  first  place  the  mere  existence  of  private  sacra  was 
not  deemed  to  imperil  the  public  sacra.  Secondly, 
exceptions  and  exemptions  that  did  not  take  offensive 
forms  were  freely  allowed.  But  when  Theodosius 
established  Christianity,  he  consciously  strove  to  make 
the  ecclesia  coterminous  with  the  empire.  "  As  well 
could  those  be  saved  who  were  not  in  the  ark  with 
Noah,"  Cyprian  ''^  had  cried,  "  as  they  be  saved  who  are 
not  in  the  church."     What  was  originally  a  group  of 


LEGAL  POSITION  IN  THE  LATER  EMPIRE         367 

elect,  a  company  of  saints  (aytot),  ''the  salt  of  the 
earth," ""  had  been  expanded  into  a  world-filling 
community. 

Not  only  was  the  ancient  theory  revived,  but  it  was 
revived  without  the  qualifications  that  had  made  the 
ancient  theory  a  livable  one.  No  other  sacra  could  be 
permitted  to  exist.  Not  to  be  in  the  ecclesia,  was  not 
to  be  in  the  empire.  Only  the  practical  impossibility  of 
really  enforcing  that  theory  restrained  the  zealous  and 
triumphant  leaders.  Of  course,  the  development  of 
law  was  continuous.  The  new  basis  of  citizenship  was 
never  actually  and  formally  received  as  a  legal  principle. 
Yet  gradually  the  limitation  of  civic  rights,  which  non- 
membership  in  the  church  involved,  operated  to  work 
an  exclusion  from  citizenship  itself.  In  a  very  short 
time  those  who  were  not  within  the  church  were  in  a 
very  real  sense  outside  the  state,  merely  tolerated 
sojourners,  and  subject  to  all  the  risks  of  that  pre- 
carious condition. 


SUMMARY 

What  has  been  attempted  in  the  foregoing  pages  is 
an  interpretation  of  certain  facts  of  Jewish,  Roman, 
and  Greek  history  within  a  given  period.  For  that 
purpose  it  has  been  necessary  to  analyze  fully  the  terms 
used,  and  in  many  cases  rather  to  clear  away  miscon- 
ceptions than  to  set  forth  new  points  of  view.  A  brief 
retrospect  is  here  added. 

The  Jews,  as  one  of  the  Mediterranean  nations,  began 
to  come  into  close  contact  with  Greek  civilization  about 
the  time  of  Alexander.  Greece  was  then  entering  on  a 
new  stage  in  her  development.  The  Macedonian  hege- 
mony produced  a  greater  degree  of  political  unity  than 
had  been  previously  achieved,  but  above  all  a  real  cul- 
tural unity  had  been  created,  and  was  carried  by  arms 
and  commerce  over  the  East.  To  this  the  Jews,  as  other 
nations  did,  opposed  a  vigorous  resistance;  and  this 
resistance  was  successful  in  so  far  as  it  allowed  the 
creation  of  a  practically  independent  nation,  and  par- 
ticularly it  stimulated  the  independent  development  of 
Jewish  institutions,  especially  religious  ones. 

In  religion  the  Jews  came  into  further  and  more 
extensive  conflict  with  their  Greek  environment.  For 
many  centuries  all  the  East  had  known  a  great  spiritual 
unrest,  from  which  had  grown  various  religious  move- 
ments.   Of  all  these  the  common  goal  was  the  attain- 


SUMMARY  369 


ment  of  a  personal  immortality,  the  "  salvation  of  the 
soul."  Among  the  Jews  too  this  movement  had  been 
active,  and  had  produced  concrete  results  in  sects  and 
doctrines.  The  Jewish  aspect  of  this  general  movement 
would  have  remained  a  local  development,  had  it  not 
been  given  a  wider  field  by  the  unusual  position  of  the 
Jews,  due  to  their  dispersion. 

For  this  dispersion  various  causes  can  be  assigned. 
Perhaps  the  most  potent  single  cause  was  the  fact  that 
the  Jews,  who  rigorously  opposed  exposure  of  infants, 
and  encouraged  in  other  ways  the  growth  of  their 
population,  increased  too  rapidly  for  the  very  limited 
resources  of  their  small  and  niggardly  territory.  At 
any  rate  the  kingdoms  of  the  successors  of  Alexander 
found  Jews  as  colonists  in  many  of  the  new  foundations 
in  Asia,  Syria,  and  Egypt,  especially  the  last,  where,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  Jews  had  lived  from  pre-Persian  times. 
Within  these  new  and,  in  many  cases,  old  communities 
the  doctrines  preached  in  Palestine  became  a  means  of 
propaganda,  and  enabled  the  Jews  to  do  more  than 
maintain  themselves  in  the  exceptional  position  which 
their  highly  specialized  religion  necessitated. 

The  Jews  were  by  no  means  the  only  religious  group 
in  the  Greek  communities  with  proselytizing  tendencies. 
But  they  were  unique  in  so  far  as  they  were  per- 
manently connected  with  an  existing  national  group, 
with  which  they  maintained  relations.  This  made  fric- 
tion of  some  sort  inevitable  at  first,  since  some  com- 
munity of  religious  observances  for  all  citizens  of  a 
single  state  was  axiomatic  for  ancient  times.     How- 

24 


370      THE  JEWS  AMONG  THE  GREEKS  AND  ROMANS 

ever,  the  anomaly  of  the  Jewish  position  became  less 
glaring  in  course  of  time. 

The  first  stage  of  Jewish  influence  is  marked  by  two 
things,  a  constantly  increasing  dispersion  and  an  equally 
increasing  propaganda  that  reached  all  stages  of  society. 

The  advance  of  the  power  of  Rome  at  first  did  not 
change  these  conditions.  In  fact  that  advance  mate- 
rially assisted  both  the  dispersion  and  its  propaganda, 
since  the  support  of  Rome  was  an  invaluable  asset 
for  the  Hasmonean  kingdom.  Even  the  conquest  by 
Pompey  had  no  other  effect  than  to  accelerate  the  indi- 
cated development,  especially  within  Italy  and  Rome 
itself. 

But  the  relations  of  the  Jews  with  the  Greco-Roman 
world  entered  upon  a  second  stage,  the  stage  of  armed 
conflict,  when  the  national  and  religious  aspirations 
of  certain  classes  of  Jews,  which  culminated  in  the 
Messianic  hope,  came  into  contact  with  the  denational- 
izing tendencies  of  the  imperial  system.  This  conflict 
was  in  no  sense  inevitable,  and  might  easily  have  been 
avoided.  In  addition  to  the  internal  movements  that  pro- 
voked the  series  of  rebellions  between  68  and  135,  there 
was  a  constant  excitation  from  without.  The  hered- 
itary enemies  of  the  Greek  East  and  its  successor,  the 
Roman  Empire — the  Persians  and  their  kinsmen  and 
successors,  the  Parthians — maintained  not  only  their 
independence  but  also  their  hostility,  and  the  fact  that 
the  Jews  lived  in  both  empires,  and  that  Parthian  Jews 
communicated  freely  with  the  others,  presented  a  chan- 
nel for  foreign  stimulation  to  revolt. 


SUMMARY  371 


The  third  stage  of  Jewish  relations  consists  of  an 
adjustment  of  the  Jews  to  the  rapidly  centralizing 
empire,  of  which  the  administrative  center  was  moving 
eastward.  The  center  of  wealth  and  culture  had  always 
been  in  the  East.  The  reforms  of  Hadrian  and  his  suc- 
cessors prepared  the  way  for  the  formal  recognition  of 
the  new  state  of  things  in  the  Constitutio  Antonina, 
the  Edict  of  Caracalla,  which  gave  Roman  citizenship 
to  almost  all  the  freedmen  of  the  empire.  This  is  the 
great  period  of  Roman  law,  when,  in  consequence  of 
the  enormously  extended  application  of  the  civil  law,  a 
great  impetus  was  given  to  the  scientific  analysis  and 
application  of  juristic  principles.  Out  of  this  grew  the 
bureaucratic  system  perfected  by  Diocletian,  and  begun 
perhaps  by  Alexander  Severus,  in  which,  as  told  in  the 
last  chapter,  the  attempt  was  made  to  classify  every 
form  of  human  activity  in  its  relation  to  the  state. 

A  new  stage  of  Jewish  relations  begins  with  the 
dominance  of  Christianity ;  and  that,  as  was  stated  at 
the  beginning  of  this  study,  lies  outside  of  its  scope. 


~^ 


pp.  I5-20J 


NOTES 
INTRODUCTION 

*To  what  extent  the  Jews  of  the  present  day  or  those  of 
earlier  times  may  be  considered  racially  pure,  depends  upon 
what  criteria  of  race  are  adopted.  At  present  there  is  no 
general  agreement  among  ethnologists  on  this  subject.  The 
historical  data  are  very  uncertain.  At  all  events  absolute 
racial  unity  of  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  cannot  be  main- 
tained. The  facts  of  their  vigorous  propaganda  and  their 
extensive  slave-property  are  too  well  attested.  But  it  is  wholly 
impossible  to  determine  how  far  the  admixture  went. 

'The  best  edition  of  Philo  is  the  still  unfinished  one  which 
is  being  prepared  by  two  German  scholars,  Wendland  and 
Cohen.  In  this  the  Apologia  has  not  yet  appeared.  Earlier 
editions  are  those  of  Mangey  (1742)  and  Holtze  (1851). 

Philo's  works  were  translated  into  English  by  C.  D.  Yonge 
(Bohn's  Library,  London,  1854). 

'  In  Greek  the  two  commonest  editions  of  Josephus'  works 
are  those  of  Niese  (1887-1895)  and  of  Naber  (1896).  Neither 
completely  satisfies  all  the  demands  that  may  be  made  for  the 
adequate  presentation  of  the  text. 

The  old  English  translation  of  W.  Whiston,  so  widely  cir- 
culated both  in  England  and  America,  is  very  inaccurate.  The 
revision  of  this  translation  by  A.  R.  Shilleto  (1889-1890)  has 
only  slightly  improved  it. 

*The  references  to  the  Jews  in  the  inscriptions  and  papyri 
have  not,  as  yet,  been  collected.  Mr.  Seymour  de  Ricci  planned 
a  collection  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  inscriptions  to  be  called 
Corpus  Inscriptionum  Judaicarum.  This  Corpus  was,  at  least 
partly,  in  manuscript  form  in  1912,  but  no  part  has  been  pub- 
lished. Mr.  de  Ricci's  article  on  "  Inscriptions  "  in  the  Jewish 
Encyclopedia,  and  Johannes  Oehler,  Epigraphische  Beitrage 
zur  Geschichte  des  Judentums  (Monatsschrift  f.  Gesch.  u. 
Wiss.  d.  Jud.  1909,  xvii.  292-302,  443-452,  524-538)  give  a 
practically  complete  collection. 


I 


374  NOTES  [pp.  22-28 

Chapter  I 
GREEK  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS 

*  It  is  nowhere  directly  stated  that  the  power  of  a  god  did 
not  extend  beyond  a  definite  locality.  But  the  numerous  local 
epithets  applied  to  the  various  gods  indicate  it.  We  need 
mention  only  such  typical  references  to  the  deoi  e^x^P'-^'^  as 
Aesch.  Septem.  14,  Soph.  Trach.  183,  and  Thuc.  ii.  74. 

■  Cf .  Dionysus  in  the  "  Frogs  "  of  Aristophanes,  Herakles 
and  Poseidon  in  the  "  Birds."  The  other  comic  poets,  even 
Epicharmus,  the  oldest,  dealt  with  even  greater  freedom  with 
the  gods.  Even  the  scanty  fragments  of  Cratinus  and  Amphis 
indicate  that  fact.  In  Sicily,  an  entire  dramatic  genre,  that  of 
the  <l>Xua/ces,  contained  practically  nothing  but  situations  in 
which  the  divine  personages  of  the  myths  were  the  subjects 
of  the  coarsest  fun. 

'  Such  heroic  friendships  as  that  of  Achilles  and  Patroclus 
were  perverted  early  in  the  imagination  of  Greeks.  Cf. 
Aeschylus,  in  Athen.  xiii.  601  A,  and  Aeschines,  i.  142.  So  also 
the  story  of  Apollo  and  Admetus  became  a  love  story  for 
Alexandria ;  Callimachus  H.  ii.  49. 

*  The  subject  has  been  discussed  in  full  by  de  Visser,  De 
Graecorum  deis  non  referentibus  speciem  humanam  (Leyden, 
1900;)  2d  ed.  in  German,  1903.  So  at  Phigaleia,  in  Arcadia, 
Demeter  had  the  form  of  a  horse ;  the  Brauronian  Artemis 
was  a  bear ;  Apollo  Lykeios  was  sometimes  adored  in  the  form 
of  a  wolf. 

^  Aegean  and  Mycenean  are  both  used  to  designate  the 
civilization  that  preceded  that  of  historical  Greece.  Aegean, 
however,  has,  to  a  large  extent,  superseded  the  older  term. 
For  the  specifically  Cretan  form  of  it,  Minoan  is  generally 
employed. 

*  In  spite  of  the  apparently  well-defined  personalities  of  the 
Homeric  gods  and  a  poetic  tradition  of  many  centuries,  the 
sculptors  of  later  times  found  it  necessary  to  indicate  the 
subject  of  their  labors,  either  by  some  well-known  attribute, 
such  as  the  caduceus,  or  a  sacred  animal,  or  a  symplegma 
representing  a  scene  of  a  known  legend.    Without  these  acces- 


pp.  28-32]  NOTES  373 

series,  archeologists  often  find  themselves  at  a  loss  when  they 
are  required  to  name  the  god  intended.  Cf.  Koepp,  Archaologie 
ii.  88  seq. 

'  It  is  not  suggested  that  prayer  could  not  exist  without 
sacrifice.  But  where  sacrifice  did  take  place,  the  act  of  wor- 
ship did  not  lie  in  the  sacrifice  alone,  or  in  the  propitiatory 
allocution  that  accompanied  it,  but  in  the  two  together. 

*  Cf .  Apollo  Soter,  Soph.  O.  T.  149,  Dionysus  Soter,  Lycophr. 
206,  Zeus  Soter,  Aristoph.  Plut.  1186,  etc. 

®  Max  Miiller,  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language,  passim. 
The  term  is  rarely  used  by  recent  investigators. 

'"  For  the  sacrificial  act  when  addressed  to  gods,  the  word 
was  6v€iu;  addressed  to  heroes,  ivayi^eiv.  Herod,  ii.  44.  The 
color  of  the  sacrificial  animal  for  heroes  was  usually  black, 
and  no  part  of  the  flesh  was  eaten.   Cf.  Sch.  Hom.  II.  i.  459. 

^^  For  heroes  whose  position  in  the  state  was  as  high  as  that 
of  gods,  we  have  only  to  refer  to  the  eponyms  of  the  Cleis- 
thenic  tribes  at  Athens,  Theseus,  Cecrops,  Erechtheus,  etc. 

"Local  deities,  such  as  Pelops  at  Olympia  (Sch.  Find.  01.  i. 
149),  Archemorus  at  Nemea  (Arg.  Find.  Nem.  i),  Tlepolemus 
at  Rhodes   (Sch.  Find.  Ol.  vii.  146). 

"  Cf .  Suidas.  s.  v.    'Auayvpdcnos,  Alciphro,  iii.  58. 

"The  doctrine  of  Socrates  cited  by  Xenophon,  Memor.  iv. 
7,  represents  popular  Greek  feeling  on  the  subject  of  theo- 
logical speculation. 

^'Xenophanes  of  Colophon  (sixth  cent.  b.  c.  e.)  cited  in 
Sex.  Emp.  adv.  Math.  ix.  193.  The  lines  are  frequently  quoted, 
and  are  to  be  found  in  any  history  of  philosophy. 

"A  monotheistic  or  pantheistic  tendency  showed  itself  in 
the  attempt  on  the  part  of  poets  like  Aeschylus  and  Findar 
to  absorb  the  divine  world  into  the  personality  of  Zeno.  Cf. 
Aesch.  Heliades,  71 : 

Zeus  €<TTiv  aidrip,  Zevs  5e  yij  Zeus  5'  oi/pauos, 
Zeus  TOi  TO.  TTOLvra  x^'^'-  twi'5'  vireprepov. 

"  The  solar  myth  theory  was  especially  advocated  by  Max 
Miiller  in  his  various  books  and  articles.  Most  of  the  older 
writers  on  mythology,  e.  g.  in  the  earlier  articles  of  Roscher's 


I 


376  NOTES  [pp.  32-35 

Lexikon,  accept  it  as  an  established  dogma.  There  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  the  celestial  phenomena  of  sun,  moon, 
and  stars  exercised  a  powerful  influence  on  popular  imagi- 
nation. 

^®  Dionysus  came  into  Greece  probably  from  Thrace  and 
Macedon  about  the  tenth  century  b.  c.  e.  By  the  sixth  century 
there  was  no  Greek  city  in  which  he  was  not  worshiped.  As 
far  as  any  center  of  his  worship  existed,  it  may  be  placed  in 
Boeotia.    Cf.  Farnell,  Cults  of  the  Greek  States,  chs.  iv.  and  v. 

"We  find  Aphrodite  firmly  established  among  Greek  gods 
from  the  earliest  times.  It  may  be  that  the  Semitic  or  Oriental 
connections  which  have  been  found  for  her  (cf.  Roscher,  s.  v. 
Aphrodite,  Roscher's  Lex.  i.  390-406)  are  due  to  the  readiness 
with  which  she  was  associated  with  Oriental  female  deities. 
That  fact,  however,  is  itself  significant. 

^The  merchants  of  Citium  formally  introduced  into  Athens 
the  worship  of  their  local  Aphrodite;  Dittenberger,  Syll.  no. 
551.  Sarapis,  Isis,  and  Sabazios  also  early  found  their  way 
into  Athens. 

^  The  statement  that  dae^eia  was  a  negative  offense,  that 
its  gravamen  consisted  not  in  introducing  new  divinities,  but 
in  neglecting  the  established  ones,  is  made  by  Wilamowitz 
(Antigonus  von  Karyst,  p.  277).  It  is,  however,  only  quali- 
fiedly  true.  The  Greeks  found  purely  negative  conceptions 
difficult.  Impiety,  or  do-e'^eia,  was  not  the  mere  neglect,  but 
such  a  concrete  act  as  would  tend  to  cause  the  neglect  of  the 
established  gods.  The  indictment  against  Socrates  charged 
the  introduction  of  Kaipa  dai/novia,  but  only  because  that  intro- 
duction threatened  the  established  form.  The  merchants  of 
Citium  (cf.  previous  note)  might  introduce  their  foreign 
deity  with  safety.    No  such  danger  was  deemed  to  lie. 

^The  stories  of  Lycurgus  (II.  vi.  130)  and  of  Pentheus 
(Euripides,  Bacchae)  are  a  constant  reminder  of  the  diffi- 
culties encountered  by  Dionysus  in  his  march  through  Greece. 
Then,  as  has  always  been  the  case  in  religious  opposition,  the 
opponents  of  the  new  forms  advanced  social  reasons  for  their 
hostility  (Eurip.  Bacchae,  220-225). 


I 


pp.  35-42]  NOTES  377 

^  The  Egyptian  origin  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  is  main- 
tained especially  by  Foucart,  Les  grands  mysteres  d'Eleusis. 

'^^  The  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter  dates  from  the  close  of 
the  seventh  century  b.  c.  e.,  perhaps  earlier.  In  it  we  find 
the  Eleusinian  mysteries  fully  developed,  and  their  appeal  is 
Panhellenic. 

"  Homer  certainly  knows  of  no  general  worship  of  the 
dead.  But  the  accessibility  of  the  dead  by  means  of  certain 
rites  is  attested  not  only  by  the  Ne'/cuia  (Od,  x.  517-520),  but 
by  the  slaughter  of  the  Trojan  captives  at  the  funeral  of 
Patroclus  (II.  xxiii.  174).  The  poet's  own  attitude  to  the 
latter  is  not  so  important  as  his  evidence  of  the  custom's 
existence. 

^®  In  later  times  any  dead  man  was  Tipcos,  and  his  tomb  a 
vpvop;  C.  I.  G.  1723,  1781-1783. 

"  The  kinship  of  gods  and  men  was  an  Orphic  dogma, 
quickly  and  widely  accepted.  Pindar  formulated  it  in  the 
words  ev  avbpuv,  tv  Oewv  yevos ;  Nem.  vi.  i.  Cf .  Plato,  Timaeus, 
41   C. 

''  Od.  iv.  561. 

^  Hesychius,  s.  v.  'Ap/jLodlov  fieXos. 

Chapter  II 
ROMAN  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTS 

^  Adolph  Bastian  presents  his  theory  of  Grundideen  in  his 
numerous  writings.  It  has,  however,  been  found  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  even  for  anthropologists  to  present  the  details 
of  that  theory  with  either  definiteness  or  clearness. 

^  Cf.  W.  Warde  Fowler,  Roman  Religion,  in  Hasting's  Dic- 
tionary of  Religions  (consulted  in  proof). 

'The  relation,  or  the  contrast,  between  magic  and  religion 
has  been  a  constant  subject  of  discussion  since  the  publication 
of  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture.  For  the  present  the  contrast 
stated  in  the  text  may  suffice. 

*  Sei  deo  set  deivae  sac  (C.  I.  L.  vi.  no)  ;  sive  deo  sive  deae 
{ibid,  iii,  1212)  ;  sei  deus  sei  dea  (ibid.  xiv.  3572).  Cf.  also  Not. 
d.  Sc.  1890,  p.  218. 


378  NOTES  [pp.  44-50 

'  Such  a  story  as  that  of  Mars  and  Nerione  may  belong  to 
genuine  Roman  mythology.  The  enormous  spread  of  Latin 
translations  of  Greek  poems,  and  the  wide  popularity  of  Greek 
plays,  rapidly  drove  out  all  the  native  myths  v^hich  had  at- 
tained no  literary  form. 

"Livy  V.  xxi.  3,  5. 

'  Macrob.  Sat.  III.  ix.  7-^. 

*  The  authenticity  of  this  particular  application  of  the  form- 
ula has  been  questioned;  Wissowa,  s.  v.  Evocatio  (deorum)  ; 
Pauly-Wiss.  vi.  1153.  The  proofs  that  the  formula  has  been 
extensively  modified  are  not  conclusive.  The  evocati  di 
received  a  special  form  of  ritual  at  Rome.  Festus,  p.  237,  a,  7. 
Cf.  Verg.  Aen.  ii.  351-352. 

'  For  the  Dioscuri,  Livy,  II.  xx.  13.  Apollo,  Livy,  III.  Ixiii.  7 ; 
IV.  XXV.  Both  introductions  are  placed  in  the  fifth  century  b. 
c.  E.  The  historical  account  of  the  reception  of  Cybele  and 
of  Asclepius,  Livy,  Per.  ix.  and  xxix.  10  seq. 

^^  The  lectisternium  is  generally  conceded  to  be  of  Greek 
origin.  The  ceremony  consisted  in  formally  dressing  a 
banquet  table  and  placing  thereat  the  images  of  some  gods, 
w^ho  reclined  on  cushions  and  were  assumed  to  be  sharing  in 
the  repast. 

"Cic.  De  Nat.  Deor.  i.  119. 

Chapter  III 
GREEK  AND  ROMAN  CONCEPTS  OF  RACE 

*The  extreme  of  racial  fanaticism  will  be  found  in  H.  S. 
Chamberlain,   Grundziige    des   neunzehnten   Jahrhunderts. 

^Aristophanes,  Acharn.  104,  laovav  and  the  Schol.  ad  loc: 
on  iravras  tovs    EWrjuas  'Idovas  iKoXovv  ol  pdp^apoi. 

'  After  the  defeat  of  the  Persians,  the  victors  set  up  a  tripod 
at  Delphi,  about  the  stem  of  which  a  bronze  serpent  was 
coiled.  About  this  serpent  ran  an  inscription,  rotSc  roi/TroXe^oi' 
iiroXefieov,  "  The  following  took  part  in  the  war."  Then 
follows  the  list  of  the  Greeks  beginning  with  the  Lacedemon- 
ians. Here,  if  anywhere,  a  collective  term  denoting  the  com- 
mon origin  of  all  these  nations  might  have  been  expected. 


pp.  Sl-SSl  NOTES  379 

*Eunpide?,  Iph.  ul.  1400;  Aristotle,  Pol.  I.  ii.  4;  w$  ravrd 
<f)vaei  pdp^apov  Kal  dovXov  '6v. 

'  Isocrates,  Pan.  181. 

®  Demosthenes,  In  Mid.  48  (xx.  530). 

'  Daniel  xi.  3. 

*  Besides  the  flings  at  barbarian  descent  scattered  throughout 
the  orators  (cf.  Dem.  In  Steph.  A.  30),  Hellenic  origin  was 
required  for  all  the  competitors  in  the  Olympian  games.  He- 
rodotus, V.  22. 

^  The  secretary  of  Appius  Caecus  was  a  certain  Gnaeus 
Flavins,  grandson  of  a  slave,  who  became  not  merely  curule 
aedile,  but  one  of  the  founders  of  Roman  jurisprudence. 
(Livy,  IX.  xlvi.).  Likewise  the  Gabinius  that  proposed  the  Lex 
Tabellaria  of  139  b.  c.  e.  was  the  son  or  grandson  of  a  slave, 
vernac  natus  or  nepos.  (Cf.  the  newly  discovered  fragment 
of  Livy's  Epitome,  Oxyr.  Pap.  iv.  loi  f.)  The  general  state- 
ment is  made  by  the  emperor  Claudius  (Tac.  Ann.  xi.  24),  in 
a  passage  unfortunately  absent  in  the  fragments  of  the  actual 
speech  discovered  at  Lyons. 

^*  Cicero,  In  Pisonem  (Fragments  10-13).  Aeschines,  In 
Ctes,   172. 

"  Muttines,  a  Liby-Phoenician  (cf.  Livy,  XXI.  xxii.  3, 
Libyphoenices  mixtuni  Punicum  Afris  genus),  becomes  a 
Roman  citizen  {ibid.  XXVI.  v.  11). 

'^  Ennius  ap.  Cic.  de.  Or.  iii.  168. 

"  Mucins  defines  gentiles,  i.  e.  true  members  of  Roman 
gentes,  as  follows  (ap.  Cic.  Topica,  vi.  29)  :  Gentiles  sunt  inter 
se  qui  eodem  nomine  sunt,  qui  ab  ingenuis  oriundi  sunt,  quorum 
maiorum  nemo  servitutem  servivit,  qui  capite  non  sunt  de- 
minuti.  Literally  taken,  that  would  exclude  descendants  of 
former  slaves  to  the  thousandth  generation.  But  Pliny  de- 
mands somewhat  less  even  for  Roman  knights.  The  man  is 
to  be  ingenuus  ipse,  patre,  avo  paterno  (H.  N.  XXXIII.  ii.  32). 

'*  Gallic  was  still  spoken  in  southern  Gaul  in  the  fourth 
century  c.  e.,  Syriac  at  Antioch  in  the  time  of  Jerome,  and 
Punic  at  Carthage  for  centuries  after  the  destruction  of  the 
city. 

^°  The  racial  bond  upon  which  modern  scientific  sectaries 
lay   such   stress   was   constantly   disregarded   in   ancient   and 


38o 


NOTES 


[pp.  58-63 


modern  times.  The  Teutonic  Burgundians  found  an  alliance 
with  the  Mongol  Avars  against  the  Teutonic  Franks  a  per- 
fectly natural  thing. 


Chapter  IV 

SKETCH  OF  JEWISH  HISTORY  BETWEEN  NEBU- 
CHADNEZZAR AND  CONSTANTINE 

*  The  Carduchi.  Taochi,  Chalybes,  Phasiani  (Xenophon,  An. 
IV.  iii.  6),  make  friends  with  the  Greek  adventurers,  or  oppose 
them  on  their  own  account  without  any  apparent  reference 
to  the  fact  that  the  army  of  the  Ten  Thousand  was  part  of  a 
hostile  force  recently  defeated  by  their  sovereign, 

*  Herodotus,  vii.  89:  Trapeixovro  5e  avras  (sc.  tcls  rpirjpeas)  otde, 
^oiviKcs  fxkv  avv  l^vpotai  roiai  ev  tt]  HaXaicrTivij^  and  he  later 
defines  the  name  specifically  (ibid.):  rijs  de  Hvpias  tovto  tI 
X(^pf-ov  /cat  TO  fiixP'-  AlyvTTTOv  irav  HaXaiffTiur]  KoKeerai. 

^  Aramaic  Papyri  Discovered  at  Assuan,  edited  by  Sayce 
and  Cowley,  London,  1906.  Aramaische  Papyri  .  .  .  .  zu  Ele- 
phantine, ed.  Sachau,  Leipzig,  191 1. 

*  Josephus,  Antiquities,  XI.  vii.  Reference  to  the  same 
incident  in  Eusebius,  Chron.  (01.  103),  Syncellus  (486,  10), 
and  Orosius  (iii.  7)  depends  upon  Eusebius.  The  general 
statement  of  pseudo-Hecataeus  (ap.  Joseph,  in  Ap.  i.  22)  is, 
of  course,  worthless  as  evidence. 

Ochus  was  especially  noted  for  his  sacrilege.  (Cf.  Aelian, 
N.  A.  X.  23). 

^  After  the  death  of  Antiochus  Sidetes,  in  129  b.  c.  e.,  the 
various  occupants  or  claimants  of  the  Syrian  throne  are 
scarcely  to  be  distinguished  by  nickname  or  number.  They 
are  uniformly  imbeciles  or  puppets,  and  the  last  of  them, 
Antiochus  XIII,  dies  miserably  at  the  hands  of  a  Beduin 
sheik. 

'  In  the  Talmud  John  Hyrcanus  is  always  ^i:in  jriD  pnin\ 
but  Alexander  is  "]^Dn  ^J**-  On  the  coins  John  styles  himself 
High  Priest ;  but  Jannai,  on  both  his  Hebrew  and  Greek  coins, 
bears  the  title  of  King,  l^on  jriJin"*  ^^^  AXe^dpdpov  ^acriXeus, 
Cf.  Madden,  Coins  of  the  Jews.    We  have  no  record  that  the 


pp.  67-78]  NOTES  381 

royal  title  was  specifically  bestowed  upon  Jannai,  either  by 
the  Seleucids  or  by  the  people.  It  is  therefore  likely  that  it 
was  assumed  without  such  authorization.  The  high-priesthood, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  duly  conferred  upon  Simon  and  his 
descendants. 

Chapter  V 

INTERNAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  JEWS  DURING 
THE  PERSIAN  PERIOD 

*  Cf.  especially  the  Testaments  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs,  in 
the  editions  of  Kautzsch  or  Charles. 

'That  the  name  is  Sira  and  not  Sirach,  as  it  appears  in  the 
LXX,  is  generally  accepted.  It  was  the  practice  of  Greeks  to 
put  a  final  X  to  foreign  names  to  indicate  that  they  were 
indeclinable.     Cf.  'Iwo-tjx   (Luke  iii.  26)  for  Jose. 

^  Ecclesiasticus  xlviii.  24. 

*  Job  iv.  7  seq. 

Chapter  VI 
THE  FIRST  CONTACT  BETWEEN  GREEK  AND  JEW 

*  Hvpios  means  scarcely  more  than  "  Oriental  "  in  Aeschylus 
(Persae,  Si, 1.vpiov  apua;  and  Ag.  1312,  Hvpiov  dyXd'Ca/na) . 

^Except  Hittite  and  Amorite,  these  names  have  no  non- 
Biblical  occurrence. 

^  Caphthor  is  rendered  Cappadocia  in  the  LXX  (Amos  ix. 
7),  for  no  better  reason,  it  may  be,  than  the  similarity  between 
the  first  syllables.  The  Keftiu  ships  of  the  Egyptian  monu- 
ments are  scarcely  other  than  Mycenean,  and  if  they  came 
from  Crete,  Minoan  (Breasted,  Ancient  Records  of  Egypt, 
ii.  492).  That  the  Philistines  are  of  Cretan  origin  is,  in  the 
absence  of  monumental  sources,  a  pure  theory.  It  fits  in  well, 
however,  with  what  we  do  know  of  them. 

^  The  Jews  were  commanded  by  Ezra  to  put  away  their 
"strange  wives"  (Ezra  x.  10)  for  the  specific  reason  that  the 
latter  incited  them  to  idolatry.  Instances  of  intermarriage 
occur  in  the  papyri  from  Elephantine  (see  ch.  IV.,  n.  3). 


382  NOTES  [pp.  78-83 

^  Datis  and  Artaphernes  commanded  the  Persian  troops 
defeated  at  Marathon,  490  b.  c,  e.  Mardonius  was  defeated 
at  Plataea  in  479. 

*  Joel  iii.  6.  There  is  nothing  in  the  extant  Book  of  Joel 
inconsistent  with  a  pre-Exilic  date.  Such  slave  raids  as  the 
Phoenicians  are  here  accused  of  making,  the  Greeks  made 
freely  in  Homeric  times,  and  Greek  merchants  were  already 
in  every  mart.  In  the  famous  picture  of  a  golden  age  in  Isaiah, 
Jewish  captives  are  to  be  assembled  "  from  Assyria,  Egypt — 
and  from  the  islands  of  the  sea"  (Isaiah  xi.  11),  a  passage 
indubitably  pre-Exilic.  The  "  islands  of  the  sea,"  however, 
are  obviously  Greek. 

^  In  the  lexicon  of  Stephen  of  Byzantium  (s.  v.)  we  read 
Si'pot  Koivov  ovojxa  iroWHov  edvwv^  Strabo,  writing  in  the  time  of 
Augustus,  includes  most  of  the  nations  of  Asia  Minor,  such  as 
the  Cappadocians,  etc.,  under  that  term  (xvi.  2). 

^  The  famous  Harpy-tomb  from  Xanthus  in  Lycia,  now  in 
the  British  Museum,  dates  from  the  sixth  century.  It  is,  how- 
ever, so  highly  developed  a  work  that  it  presupposes  a  long 
history  of  mutual  artistic  influence  between  Greece,  Ionia,  and 
Lycia. 

'  One  of  the  magnificent  sarcophagi  found  in  1887  at  Sidon 
by  Hamdi  Bey.  They  are  all  published  in  sumptuous  form  by 
Hamdi  Bey  and  Reinach,  Une  necropole  royale  a  Sidon,  Paris, 
1892.  An  excellent  and  convenient  description  may  be  found 
in  Hans  Wachtler,  Die  Bliitezeit  der  griechischen  Kunst  im 
Spiegel  der  Reliefsarcophage,  Teubner,  1910  (Aus  Natur  u. 
Gcisteswelt,  no.  272). 

^^  Strato,  king  of  Sidon  in  360  b.  c.  e.  Athen.  xii.  531.  Cf. 
Gerostratos  of  Arados  at  about  the  same  time. 

"Herodotus,  ii.  104  (cf.  ii.  2>7)- 

"  Aristotle  states  the  fact  in  the  Meteorologica,  II.  iii.  39,  but 
does  not  mention  the  Jews. 

"  Textes,  p.  8.  n.  3. 

"  In  the  royal  tombs  at  Sidon  excavated  by  Hamdi  Bey  (see 
above,  n.  9.),  one  of  the  monuments  bears  a  long  Phoenician 
inscription  of  a  king  of  Sidon.  It  begins :  "  I,  Tabnit,  priest 
of  Astarte  and  king  of  Sidonians,  son  of  Eshmunazar,  priest 
of  Astarte,  and  king  of  the  Sidonians." 


pp.  84-94]  NOTES  383 

"  Plato,  Euthyphro,  3  C,  and  passim. 

'^Aristotle,  Rhetoric,  III.  vii.  6. 

"  Reinach,  Textes,  pp.  10-12.  Miiller,  Frag.  hist,  graec.  ii. 
22s,  quoted  in  Josephus,  In  Ap.  i.  22. 

^^  The  untutored  philosophers  of  Voltaire's  stories  were  quite 
in  the  mode  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  had  discovered 
the  "  noble  savage,"  and  were  quite  convinced  that  civilization 
was  a  retrogression  from  a  state  of  rude  and  primitive  virtue. 
It  was,  further,  a  convenient  cloak  behind  which  one  might 
criticise  an  autocratic  regime.  Hence  the  flood  of  "  Turkish," 
"  Chinese,"  "Japanese,"  etc.  "  Letters,"  of  which  Montesquieu's 
Lettres  Persanes  are  the  most  famous.  Modern  instances  are 
"  The  Traveller  from  Altruria  "  of  Mr.  Howells,  and  Mr.  Dick- 
inson's "  Letters  of  a  Chinese  Official." 

"  Cited  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  i.  9  (Miiller,  Frag.  hist,  graec. 
ii.  328). 

^"Reinach,  Textes,  p.  13;  Miiller,  Frag.  ii.  437;  Clemens  Alex, 
i.  15.  Megasthenes  had  previously  resided  at  the  court  of 
Sibyrtius,  satrap  of  Arachosia  (southern  Afghanistan).  Ar- 
rian,  Anab.  V.  vi.  i. 

^^  Clemens  Alex.  Str.  v.  (Sylberg),  pp.  607  seq.  Justin  Coh. 
ad  Graecos,  25. 

^  Cf .  Ecclesiasticus  1.  26 ;  Zech.  ix.  2, 

^^  At  Elephantine  we  learn  from  the  papyri  recently  from 
there  (Pap.  i,  Sachau)  that  the  Jews  had  a  shrine  conse- 
crated to  in",  and  that  in  410  b.  c.  e.  it  was  destroyed  by  the 
priests  of  a  rival  Egyptian  temple. 

'''*  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  39.    Miiller,  Frag.  iii.  35. 

Chapter  VII 

EGYPT 

^This  fragment,  of  the  authenticity  of  which  little  doubt 
can  be  entertained,  must  be  distinguished  from  the  books  attrib- 
uted to  Hecataeus  about  the  Jews  and  Abraham.  Josephus 
uses  both  in  his  "Defense"  against  Apion  (i.  22  seq.),  but 
their  authenticity  was  questioned  even  in  ancient  times  (cf. 
Herennius   Philo,  cited  by  Origenes,  C.  Cels.  i.  15 ;  Reinach, 


384  NOTES  [pp.  96-105 

Textes,  p.  157).  They  are  almost  certainly  Jewish  works  of 
the  first  century  b.  c.  e. 

The  text  of  the  real  Hecataeus  (Reinach,  Textes,  p.  14  seq.) 
is  anything  but  certain.  We  have  it  only  in  a  long  citation  by 
Diodorus,  xl.  3.  This  book  of  Diodorus,  however,  has  dis- 
appeared, and  is  found  only  in  the  Bibliotheca  made  by  the 
Byzantine  patriarch  Photius  in  the  ninth  century  c.  e.  (cod. 
244). 

^  There  were  in  Egypt  a  number  of  colonies  of  military 
settlers.  They  are  distinguished  by  certain  privileges,  and, 
in  legal  terminology,  by  the  term  rijs  iTriyovijs,  placed  after  the 
words  of  nationality.  Just  as  there  are  Uepaai  ttjs  iiriyovijs,  so 
there  are  'lovdaloi  ttjs  imyovr]?.  In  the  Hibeh  Papyri,  i.  96,  of 
259  B.  c.  E.,  we  read  an  agreement  between  the  Jew  Alexander, 
son  of  Andronicus,  decurion  in  the  troop  of  Zoilus,  and 
Andronicus,  a  Jew  rijs  iiriyourjs^  The  groom  Daniel  (?)  in  a 
papyrus  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  e.  (Grenfell,  An  Alex- 
andrian Erotic  Fragment  and  Other  Papyri,  no.  43.)  and  the 
farm  laborer  Teuphilus  (Grenf ell-Hunt,  Fayum  Towns  and 
their  Papyri,  no.  123)  are  also  humble  men,  and  probably  in  the 
same  stage  of  cultivation  as  other  men  of  their  calling. 

^Elephantine  Pap.  (ed.  Sachau),  no.  6. 

*  Osiris  appears  as  a  theophoric  element,  not  only  in  Egyptian 
names  and  in  those  of  Grecized  Egyptians,  but  also  in  purely 
Phoenician  names,  and  joined  to  Semitic  elements.  So  Osir- 
shamar,  from  Malta,  and  Osiribdil,  from  Larnaca  (Notice  des 
Mon.  Phen  du  Louvre,  nos.  133,  162). 

'Reinach,  Textes,  pp.  20  seq.     Miiller,  Frag.  ii.  511-616. 

'  Tac.  Hist.  V.  ii. 

'  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  362.    Photius  Bibl.  no.  279. 

Chapter  VIH 
JEWS  IN  PTOLEMAIC  EGYPT 

*  Naucratis  was  founded,  on  the  Canopic  mouth  of  the  Nile, 
about  550  B.  c.  e. 

^  However  completely  oligarchical  in  practice  the  govern- 
ment became,  the  sovereignty  of  the  demos  was  recognized  in 
theory.    In  the  ancient  doom  ascribed  to  Lycurgus  (Plutarch, 


pp.  I07-II51  NOTES  385 

Lye.  6).  which  may  be  said  to  form  the  constitution  of  Sparta, 
occur   the  words     dd/uno  5e  rav  KvpLav  r\ixev  Kai  Kparos. 
^  Frankel,  Inschriften,  v.  Perg.  no.  5,  18  ct  passim. 

*  Mitteis  und  Wilcken,  Grundziige  und  Chrestomathie  der 
Papyruskunde,  I.  v.  i,  pp.  14  seq. 

^  Mitteis-Wilcken,  op.  cit.  p.  15. 

"  Xenophon,  De  Reditibus,  ii.  4-7. 

'Josephus  often  refers  to  the  Jews  of  Alexandria  as  oi  kv 
AXe^avdpeia  'lovdaioi  (Ant.  XIII.  iii.  4)  or  oi  iv  ' AXe^avdpeia 
KaTOLKovuTos  '\ov5aioi  (Ant.  XIV.  vii.  2),  but  he  refers  similarly 
to  the  Greeks  there  (Ant.  XVIII.  viii.  i),  and  plainly  under- 
stands KaroLKeiv  simply  as  "  inhabit."  The  question  is  fully 
discussed  in  Contra  Ap.  ii.  5,  where  the  general  statement  is 
made  that  Jews  might  and  did  become  Alexandrian  citizens, 
but  that  Egyptians  were  at  first  excluded. 

*  Jewish  MaK^boves,  Berliner  Griechische  Urkunden  (B.  G. 
U.),  iv.  1068  (62).  In  other  classes  of  citizenship,  B.  G.  U. 
iv.  1140;  iv.  1151,  7.  For  humbler  classes  of  Jews  cf.  ch.  VII., 
n.  2.  A  Jewish  house-slave  is  manumitted  in  Oxyrhyncus  Pap. 
ix.   1205. 

^  The  discussion  is  fully  set  forth  by  Brandis,  s.  v.  Arabar- 
ches  in  the  Pauly-Wissowa  Realenzyklopadie,  ii.  342.  The  word 
"  alabarch  "  or  "  arabarch  "  impressed  the  Romans  somewhat 
as  "  mogul "  impresses  the  English,  and  was  used  with  the 
same  jocular  intent.  Cic.  ad  Att.  II.  xvii.  3.  Juvenal,  Satires, 
i.  130. 

"  Apuleius,  Met.  xi.  30.  Drexler  in  Roscher's  Lexikon  Myth., 
s.  V.  Isis,  ii.  409  seq.  gives  a  list  of  the  cities  through  which  the 
worship  of  Isis  spread. 

"  Sarapis  was  not  Osiris-Apis,  but  a  deity  of  Sinope  in  Asia 
Minor,  duly  "  evoked "  into  Alexandria  by  Ptolemy.  The 
matter  is  left  an  open  question  by  Cumont,  Les  religions  orien- 
tales  dans  le  paganisme  romain,  p.  112,  but  the  general  con- 
sensus of  opinion  is  in  favor  of  the  theory  just  mentioned. 
The  opposition  referred  to  in  the  text  was  less  an  aggressive 
one  than  it  was  an  assertion  of  the  distinction  between  Greeks 
and  Egyptians.  It  broke  down  with  the  fourth  Ptolemy,  and 
Sarapis  was  more  or  less  officially  identified  with  Osiris. 

25 


386  NOTES  [pp.  1 15-136 

"  Alexandronesus.  Cf .  Reinach,  in  Melanges  Nicolle,  p. 
451 ;  Pap.  of  Magdola,  n.  35. 

"Greek  Pap.  of  the  Brit.  Mus.  iii.  183,  the  apxovres ' lovdalcou 
vpoaei'xvs   pay  their  water  tax. 

'*  B.  G.  U.  iv.  n.  562. 

"  The  cartouches  representing  the  Ptolemies  contain  all  the 
royal  titles  of  the  Pharaohs. 

"  Mitteis-Wilcken,  Grundziige  und  Chrestomathie,  1.  p.  42. 

Chapter  IX 

THE  STRUGGLE  AGAINST  GREEK  CULTURE  IN 

PALESTINE 

^  Ecclesiasticiis   xxxi.    12-30;   vi.   2-4. 
'Cf.  ch.  III.,  n.  14. 

'  A  full  bibliography  is  given  in  Schiirer,  Geschichte  der 
Juden\  iii.  472  seq. 

*  Flinders  Petrie  Pap.  iii.  31,  g,  13. 

^  By  Mishnic  tradition  Antigonus  was  a  pupil  of  Simon  the 
Just  (Abot  i.  3).  A  later  legend  makes  him  the  founder  of 
the  Sadducees  (Abot  R.  N.  v.).  The  saying  of  Antigonus  is: 
"  Be  not  like  servants  who  minister  to  their  master  for  the 
sake  of  a  reward,  but  be  like  servants  who  minister  to  their 
master  without  the  expectation  of  reward,  and  let  the  fear 
of  Heaven  be  upon  you." 

^  Andronicus  (Hibeh  Pap.  i.  96),  Helenus  and  Trypho  (B. 
G.  U.  iv.  1 140),  Dionysius  (Dittenberger,  Syll.  no.  73). 

^  Cf.  Oesterley's  edition  of  Ecclesiasticus,  pp.  xxiv-xxv. 

^Josephus,  Ant.  XII.  iv. 

"Abot  i.  4;  Shab.  46  a;  Eduy.  viii.  4;  Pes.  15  a. 

Chapter  X 
ANTIOCHUS  THE  MANIFEST  GOD 

*  Polybius,  XXVI.  i.  I  :  'Aptloxos  6  'E7rLcf>avi]S  fih  KXrjdeis 
EircfjLavijS  8'  e/c  tiop  irpd^eccu  ovofiacdeis.  Cf.  also  Athenaeus,  V. 
5  (193),  and  x.  10  (439)- 

'Ptolemy  Euergetes  II  (Athenaeus,  x.  10,  438  D). 


pp.  136-145I  NOTES  387 

^  It  is  usual  to  speak  of  the  Seleucid  kingdom  as  Syria.  That, 
however,  conveys  a  wholly  wrong  impression  of  either  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  house  or  the  actual  extent  of  its  dominion.  Se- 
leucus  himself  actually  maintained  his  authority  within  what  is 
now  Hindustan  and  was  styled  "  king  of  Asia,"  where  he  was 
not  called  simply  "the  king"  as  Alexander  and  the  Persians 
had  been  before  him.  Even  when  Antiochus  the  Great  gave  up 
all  his  Asiatic  possessions  north  of  the  Taurus,  he  did  not  re- 
nounce his  claim  to  the  Persian  and  Oriental  patrimony  of 
Alexander. 

^  Zeitschr.  d.  deut.  morg.  Gesell.  xxiii.  371  ;  Noldeke,  Die 
sem.  Spr.  41  f . ;  Zeitschr.  f.  Assyr.  vi.  26.  Cf.  also  Gardner, 
Greek  and  Scythic  Kings  of  Bactria  and  India. 

^  The  full  title  is  Geos   E7ri.(paur}s,  as  it  appears  upon  coins. 

®  The  (XTparrjyos  iwl  to.  oirXa^  i.  e.  "  general  of  infantry,"  was 
at  that  time  practically  equivalent  to  the  chief  magistracy. 
Athenian  coins  of  the  year  175  b.  c.  e.  bear  his  name  and 
the  elephant  which  was  the  heraldic  emblem  of  his  house. 
Reinach,  Rev.  d.  et.  gr.  1888,  163  f. 

'Josephus,  Ant.  XII.  v. 

*  The  titles  d'yopdvoixos  and  dr]fjLapxos  are  translations  of 
"  aedilis  "  and  "  tribunus,"  which  Antiochus  sought  to  transfer 
to  his  capital.     Polyb.  XXVI.  i.  5-6.    Livy  XLI.  xx. 

''Livy  (loc.  cit.),  Polyb.  (loc.  cit.),  Athenaeus,  x.  438  D  and 
E. 

"  Hybristas  is  mentioned  in  Livy  XXXVII.  xiii.  12. 

"Polyb.  XXXI.  xi.  3;  Josephus,  Ant.  XI.  ix. 

''I  Mace.  i. 

'^  Cf .  ch.  I.,  n.  22. 

"  Cf.  the  article  Druidae,  Pauly-Wissowa,  Realenzykl. 

'' Isocrates  Nicocles  (III),  54.  King  Nicocles  of  Salamis 
in  Cyprus,  the  type  and  exemplar  of  a  benevolent  despot,  states 
to  his  subjects:  eraipeias  ixt]  iroieiade  /nrjTe  (twoSovs  avev  T-qs  ifiijs 
yvwfjLTjs.  at  yap  TOLavrac  cvaTdaeis  iv  jxev  rals  dWais  TroXireiais 
irXeoj/eKTOvaip,  ev  be  tolls  /AOJ'ap^t'ats  Ktubvvevovcnv. 

^"Jerome  in  Dan.  xi.  21  f. 

"  So  the  Spartans  actively  assisted  the  oligarchical  party  in 
Megara,  Argos,  Sicyon,  and  Achaea  (Thuc.  iv.  74;  v.  81;  v. 
82). 


I 


388  NOTES  [pp.   149-155 

Chapter  XI 
THE  JEWISH  PROPAGANDA 

'  Cumont,  Les  religions  orientales  dans  le  paganisme  remain, 
gives  the  best  and  clearest  account  of  the  spread  of  these 
foreign  cults.  The  Cabiri  came  from  Samothrace.  They  were 
generally  referred  to  as  Oeot  /xeydXoi,  and  are  found  in  many 
parts  of  the  empire. 

^  Athenian  criminal  statutes  often  contain  in  the  penalty 
clause  Kal  to  yeuos  avrov.  Cf.  Glotz,  La  solidarite  de  la  famille 
dans  le  droit  Ath.    Cf.  for  Teos  C.  I.  G.  3044. 

^  Homer,  Odys.  xi.  489-491. 

*  Frequently  pictured  relief  (Gardner,  Greek  Sculpt,  p.  136) 
formerly  in  the  Sabouroff  Coll.  PI.  i.,  Ath.  Mitth.  1877.  Taf. 
xx-xxiv. 

"II.  iii.  243-244;  V.  638-651  ;  xviii.   117-119. 

'  Cf.  the  translation  of  Menelaus,  ch.  I,  notes  28,  29. 

'  Hymn   in   Dem.    480-482. 

^  Ben  Sira  knows  of  no  life  after  death  except  Sheol.  Per- 
haps it  is  better  to  say  that  he  refuses  to  acknowledge  any. 
His  repeated  affirmations  have  the  air  of  consciously  repudiat- 
ing a  doctrine  advanced  by  others.  The  author  of  Wisdom 
(iii.  4)  is  sure  of  an  immortality  of  the  elect.  It  is  in  the 
apocryphal  Hterature  generally,  in  Enoch,  the  Testaments  of 
the  Patriarchs — most  of  them  written  in  the  first  century 
B.  c.  E. — that  the  scattered  and  contradictory  references  to  a 
future  life  are  to  be  found. 

^  Josephus,  Wars,  II.  viii.  14.  His  words  are  {ol  HaddovKaioi) 
xj/vxv^  re  ttjv  biaixov7]v  Kal  ras  Ka6'  Adov  rijucwplas  Kai  Tifxas 
avaipovci.  The  passages  in  Josephus  are  our  only  contemporary 
authority  for  the  sects  and  their  differences  ;  and  Josephus  was  a 
Pharisee.  The  word  avaipovcL  would  in  this  context  naturally 
have  the  meaning  "  deny,"  but  it  might  also  simply  indicate  that 
the  Sadducean  belief  on  the  subject  was,  in  his  opinion,  so 
vague  or  so  qualified  as  to  render  their  whole  transcendental 
scheme  ineffectual.  It  is,  however,  more  natural  to  give  the 
word  its  dialectic  sense  (Cf.  Plato,  Rep.  533  c). 

"Joseph.  Ant.  XIII.  x.  10.    Kid.  43  a. 


pp.  156-160]  NOTES  389 

'^  The  vision  of  a  Messianic  age  in  Isaiah  ii.  4,  and  Micah 
iv.  I,  expressly  includes  the  gentiles.  This  is  the  more  im- 
portant as  it  is  highly  likely  that  both  Micah  and  Isaiah  are  here 
quoting  an  ancient  and  widely-accepted  prophecy. 

^"■"'  There  is  no  direct  evidence  about  the  extent  of  proselytiz- 
ing in  pre-Maccabean  times.  But  there  are  two  forms  of 
proselytizing  which  always  seemed  natural  and  even  inevitable 
to  a  man  of  ancient  times.  The  slave,  and  the  stranger  actu- 
ally resident  under  the  roof  of  a  head  of  a  household,  were, 
however  foreign  in  blood,  practically  members  of  that  house- 
hold, and  it  was  a  small  step  when  they  were  brought  formally 
into  it  by  appropriate  ceremonies.  So  the  first  Biblical 
reference  to  circumcision  especially  notes  that  not  merely 
Abraham  but  all  his  household,  the  slaves  born  there  and  those 
bought  of  strangers,  were  circumcised   (Gen.  xvii.  23,  27). 

The  1^,  fxeroiKos,  the  sojourning  stranger,  is  expressly  held 
to  the  observance  of  the  religious  prohibitions.  Ex.  xii.  43 ; 
Lev.  xvii.  12.  And  the  relative  frequency  with  which  such  a 
stranger  became  a  full  proselyte  is  indicated  by  Ex.  xii.  48. 
and  Num.  ix.  14.  It  is  true  that  the  i^j  or  "  stranger  in  blood  " 
is  treated  with  extreme  rigor  by  Nehemiah,  xiii,  30,  but  it  is 
this  same  ijj  who  is  referred  to  as  a  proselyte  in  Deutero- 
Isaiah  (Is.  Ivi.  3,  6). 

^=*Ab.  R.  Nat.  ii.  I. 

"  Josephus,  Ant.  XV.  viii. 

''  Josephus,  Wars  IV.  iv. ;  VII.  viii. 

^"^  Cf.  Catullus,  LXIII.  The  archigallus  was  not  permitted 
to  be  chosen  from  Roman  citizens  till  the  time  of  Claudius. 

^^  This  genre  seems  to  have  first  taken  literary  form  at  the 
hands  of  Bion  of  Borysthenes,  a  pupil  of  Crates,  who  was 
himself  a  pupil  of  Diogenes. 

^^  Wisdom  of  Solomon  xiv.  12-14.  Cf .  also  the  entire 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  chapters  of  Wisdom. 

^^  In  Dan.  x.  13-20  angels,  or  "  princes,"  are  the  patrons  of 
the  various  nations,  as  also  in  the  Testaments  of  the  Patr. 
(Test.  Naph.  9).  That  fact  of  itself  indicates  a  belief  in  the 
reality  of  the  divine  protectors  of  the  heathen  nations.  And 
the  "devils,"  Qt-j  (Deut.  xxxii.  17),  and  on^r^^  (Lev.  xvii. 
7),  are  very  likely  the  local  gods. 


390  NOTES  [pp.  160-168 

^°  Philo,  De  Specialibus  Legibus,  ch.  7. 

^  We  have  already  noted  the  ancient  prophecy  cited  in  Is. 
ii.  4  and  Micah  iv.  i.  The  fullest  statement  of  this  universalist 
aspiration  is  in  Malachi     i.  11,  and  i.  14. 

Chapter  XII 
THE  OPPOSITION 

*  The  Messenians  also  expelled  the  Epicureans  (Athen.  xii. 
547),  and  Antiochus  (VI)  Dionysius,  or  rather  Tryphon  in 
his  name,  expelled  all  philosophers  from  Antioch  and  all  Syria 
(Athen.  ibid.).  The  latter  document  has  been  questioned  by 
Radermacher,  Rh.  Mus.  N.  F.  Ivi.  (1901),  202,  but  on  insuffi- 
cient grounds.  It  is  probably  genuine,  but  the  king  referred 
to  is  uncertain.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Epicurean 
Philonides  claimed  to  have  converted  Epiphanes  and  to  have 
been  a  favorite  of  Demetrius  (Cronert,  Stzb.  Berl.  (1900),  943, 
and  Usener  Rh.  Mus.  N.  F.  Ivi.  (1901),  145  seq.)  Alexander 
Balas  professed  Stoicism. 

^Josephus,  Ant.  XVIII.  ix. 

^  Dio  Cassius,  Iviii.  32;  Ens.  Chron.  ii.  164.  The  account  in 
its  details  is  not  free  from  doubt. 

*Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  x. 

°  Senatusconsultum  de  Bacch.  C.  I.  L.  i.  43,  n.  196.  Bruns 
Pontes,  n.  35,  11.  14-16. 

*  Cf.  the  instances  cited  in  Cumont,  Les  rel.  or.  dans  le  pag. 
rom.,  p.  122,  and  the  articles  on  Isis  in  the  Pauly-Wissowa 
Realenzykl,  the  Dar.-Saglio  Diet.,  and  Roscher's  Lexikon. 

Mn  Greek  Sta^oX-'.  Cf.  Aristotle,  Rhetoric,  II.  iii.  30;  Syri- 
anus,  In  Hermogenem,  ii.  (134,  3).  Of  this  dia^oXri,  a  favorite 
form  was  eTTTypeatr/ios. "  mockery  "  (Arist.  op.  cit.  II.  ii.  3),  and 
"  Commonplaces,"  kolvoI  tottoL.  on  the  subject  are  cited  in 
Aristotle  {op.  cit.  III.  xv.  i). 

^  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  49. 

**  Eratosthenes  was  head  of  the  Alexandrian  Academy. 

"  Apollo  is  the  god  named  and  ascribed  to  Dora,  which,  as 
Josephus  remarks,  is  not  in  Idumaea  at  all.  Nor  does  Apollo 
appear  as  the  god  of  Dora  on  the  coins  of  that  city.     Accord- 


pp.  169-174]  NOTES  391 

ing  to  Josephus  (Ant.  XV.  vii.  9)  the  Idumean  god  was  named 
Koze,  who  might  of  course  have  been  identified  with  the  Seleu- 
cid  patron  Apollo.  It  may  be  a  title  connected  with  p^p 
(Josh.  X.  24,  Micah  iii.  i,  9). 

^^  An  inscription  forbidding  the  approach  of  gentiles  has 
been  found  at  Jerusalem,  and  is  now  in  Constantinople: 
ix7]6iva  dWoyevi]  elaTropevecrdaL  evrbs  tov  irepl  to  lepbv  Tpv<pdKTOv  /cat 
irepi^oXov'  os  d'  du  Xrjcpd'l  eaur(f  atrios  ecTTai  did  to  i^aKoXovdelu 
ddvaTov. 

^''  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  56.  For  an  estimate  of  the  importance 
of  Posidonius  for  his  time,  cf.  Wendland,  Hellenist.  Kult.  p. 
60  seq.  and  134  seq. 

^^  Molo  in  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  60  seq.  Damocritus,  ihid. 
p.  121. 

"  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  131. 

^^  Plutarch,  Moralia,  ii.  813  ;  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  139. 

^^  Pseud-Opp.  Cyn.  iv.  256.    Lact.  Inst.  i.  21-27. 

"  Cf.  also  Aelian  Var.  Hist.  xii.  34.    Strabo,  xv.  1057. 

''  Pseudo-Plut.  Sept.  Sap.  Con.  5.  Apul.  Met.  xi.  6.  Ael.  Hist. 
An.  X.  28. 

^^  Juvenal,  Sat.  xv.  1-3.  Q^us  nescit  Volusi  Bithynice  qualia 
demens  Aegyptos  portenta  colat?  crocodilon  adorat  pars  haec, 
ilia  pavet  saturam  scrpentibus  ib'in;  cf.  also  latrator  Anubis 
(Verg.  Aen.  viii.  698,  Prop.  iv.  11,  41). 

^°  It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  ancient  historians  as  such  were 
unreliable.  In  those  times,  as  in  ours,  the  value  of  an  his- 
torical narrative  must  be  judged  by  estimating  the  character 
and  capacity  of  the  writer  and  the  means  at  his  disposal.  Many 
modern  historians  have  been  special  pleaders,  some  consciously, 
like  Froude  and  von  Treitschke,  and  most  have  been  impelled 
by  personal  sympathies  and  antipathies  of  many  kinds. 

It  is,  however,  a  fact  that  the  writers  of  antiquity  con- 
sciously used  falsehoods  in  what  they  believed  to  be  details, 
if  they  supposed  that  they  could  thereby  more  forcibly  present 
the  essential  character  of  a  transaction,  or  better  enforce  a 
moral  lesson.  The  extreme  danger  of  such  a  practice  need 
not  be  insisted  on.  nor  did  all  writers  engage  in  it.  Bui 
Panaetius  and  Cicero   (Cic.  De  Orat.  ii.  59;   De  Off.  ii.   14), 


392  NOTES  [pp.   175-183 

Quintillian  (ii.  26-39)  and  the  Church  Fathers,  unhesitatingly 
defend  it  (Eusebius,  Praep.  Evan,,  John  Chrysost.  De  Sac. 
i.  6-8,  Clemens  Alex.  Strom,  vii.  9). 

^^  Polybius  shares  the  general  estimate  of  Syrians  (XVI.  Ix. 
3),  but  that  does  not  prevent  him  from  acknowledging  the 
loyalty  and  devotion  of  the  people  of  Gaza,  whom  he  classes 
as  Syrians. 

Chapter  XIII 

THE  OPPOSITION  IN  ITS  SOCIAL  ASPECT 

^  Horace,  Sat.  I.  v.  100. 
^Apuleius,  Florida,  i.  6. 
^  Anthol.  Pal.  v.  160.    Reinach,  Textes,  p.  55. 

*  Fg.  hist.  gr.  iii.  196 ;  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  42. 
''Journ.  Hell.  Stud.  xii.  233  seq. 

*  Pausanius,  X.  xii.  9;  Suidas,  s.  v.  ^afi^rjeri;  Sibyllina,  iii.  818. 
^  Valerius  Maximus,  I.  iii.  3. 

*  Shab.  vi.  2,  4,  but  cf.  Demai  iii.  11,  and  Erub.  i.  10. 
"  Cf.  above,  ch.  VII.,  n.  2. 

The  letter  of  Dolabella  to  the  Ephesians,  cited  in  Josephus, 
Ant.  XIV.  x.  12,  makes  it  perfectly  clear  that  if  the  Sabbath 
restriction  had  actually  been  enforced  in  the  sense  indicated. 
Jews  would  have  been  wholly  useless  for  the  army.  But  we 
have  seen  that  they  not  merely  fought  their  own  battles,  but 
engaged  freely  as  mercenaries.  We  can  therefore  understand 
the  passage  in  Josephus  only  in  the  sense  of  an  attempt  to 
escape  conscription  with  the  other  Ephesians,  by  alleging  an 
extreme  application  of  the  Sabbath  principle. 

The  other  passage  in  Josephus  (XVIII.  iii.)  is  in  direct  con- 
tradiction with  other  sources,  and  will  be  discussed  later. 

"  Saguntum,  Livy,  XXI.  xiv.  Abydus,  Livy,  XXXI.  xvii. 
Cf.  also  Livy  XXVIII.  xxiii. 

"  Cic.  De  Nat.  Deor.  ii.  28,  71,  his  fabulis  spretis  ac  repudi- 
atis 

*^  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  17.    Cf.  above,  p.  93. 

"  The  word  itself  does  not  occur  in  Homer.  However,  Od. 
ix.  478,  the  taunt  is   flung  by   Odysseus,   the  blind  monster, 

cxerXi',  iirei  ^eiuovs  ovx  o,^€0  aip  ivl  o'iku) 
icrOifxevai    rCt)  ere  Zeus  riaaro  kuI  deoi  dWoi. 


pp.   183-190]  NOTES  393 

"  Arrian,  Anab.  I.  ix.  9-10. 

^^11.  iii.  207;  Od.  iii.  355;  vii.  190. 

^"Plutarch,  Lycurgus,  xxvii. ;  Ael.  V.  Hist.  xiii.  16;  Thuc. 
i.  144- 

"Juvenal,  Sat.  xv.  93-131. 

^^  Cf.  the  undoubted  instances  of  the  Gallus-Galla,  Graecus- 
Graeca  sacrifices  at  Rome.  See  article,  Gallus  et  Galla,  in 
Pauly-Wissowa  Realenzykl,  especially  the  unwilling  testimony 
of  Livy,  XXII.  Ivii.  6. 

^^  The  Tauric  Artemis  was  considered  a  barbarian  goddess, 
but  received  the  veneration  of  Greeks,  and  of  her  we  read, 
Eur.  Iph.  Taur.  384,  avrr]  8k  dvaiais  riderai  (3potokt6vois.  The  sac- 
rifices of  the  Trojan  captives  at  the  funeral  of  Patroclus,  the 
sacrifice  of  Polyxena,  Astyanax,  and  Iphigenia  are  sufficient 
evidences  of  the  familiarity  of  the  practice  to  Greeks.  An 
historical  instance  is  the  atonement-sacrifice  of  Epimenides 
at  Athens.     Diog.  Laert.  i.  iii,  112;  Athen.  xiii.  602  C. 

^"  For  the  Gauls,  cf.  Strabo,  iv.  198;  the  Thracians,  vii.  300; 
the  Carthaginians,   Verg.  Aen.  i.  525. 

^  The  question  of  the  Molech  sacrifices  in  Palestine  is  too 
uncertain  and  complicated  to  be  treated  here  in  full.  Doubt- 
less some  Jews  at  various  times  sacrificed  to  Molech ;  but 
some  Jews  in  Greek  times  sacrificed  to  heathen  gods,  or,  at 
any  rate,  adored  them  while  still  professing  Judaism,  and 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages  individual  Jews  indulged  in  super- 
stitious practices  severely  reprobated  by  the  rabbis.  The  pas- 
sage in  Jeremiah  (xxxii.  35)  does  not  necessarily  imply  that 
those  who  took  part  in  these  rites  deemed  themselves  to  be 
worshiping  Jehovah. 

^  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  121. 

^  Sat.  XV.  78-81  and  93  seq. 

^  Sat.  xiv.  103. 

^''  It  is  a  curious  and  instructive  fact  that  Chinese  have 
charged  Christian  missionaries  with  precisely  this  same  crime, 
i.  e.  of  kidnaping  and  killing  children  as  part  of  their  religious 
ceremonies. 


394  NOTES  [pp.  192-208 

Chapter  XIV 

THE  PHILOSOPHIC  OPPOSITION 

^  Cf.  the  whole  Lucianic  dialogue  on  Images,  459-484,  and 
Zeus  Tragoedus,  654  seq. 

*  Cicero,  De  Nat.  Deorum,  i.  23,  63.    Athenag.  Supp.  xii. 
^  Josephus,  Contra  Ap.  ii.  ^^y. 

^  Euthyphro,  viii.  3    (7A). 

^  Sophocles,  Oed.  Rex,  661. 

°  Cf.  ch.  XL,  n.  19.  Also  II.  Chron.  xi.  15.  The  dHK^  ^^^ 
mentioned  in  Psalms  cvi.  37  as  deities  to  whom  human  sacri- 
fices are  made. 

Msocr.  Pan.  155-156;  Lycurgus,  In  Leocr.  80-81. 

*  For  the  Boeotians  cf.  the  common  i5s  Boiwria;  Pind.  01.  vi. 
153 ;  id.  Fr.  iv.  9,  and  Hor.  Epp.  II.  i.  244 ;  for  Egyptian  perHdia, 
Val.  Max.  v.  i,  10;  for  Abdera,  Juv.  Sat.  x.  50;  Mart.  x.  25, 
4 ;  for  the  Cretans,  the  famous  Kp^res  ael  \pevcTai,  Call.  Hymn 
in  Jov.  V.  8.,  a  proverb  also  quoted  from  Epimenides  by  Paul, 
Ep.  ad  Tit.  i.  13.  One  may  also  note  in  this  connection  the 
Greek  proverb,  rpia  Kdinra  KccKiara  •  KaTnradoKia  Kai  KprjTT)  /cai 
KiXt/ci'a. 

'•Livy,  XXXIV.  xxiv.  4. 

"  Plautus,  Rud.  V.  50,  scelestus,  Agrigentinus,  urbis  proditor. 

"  Cicero,  Pro  Fonteio,  14,  30. 

^^  Cicero,  Pro  Scauro,  17,  38. 

"  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  Praef.  25. 

"  Africanus,  ap.  Eus.  Praep.  Ev.  x.  10,  490  B,  Clemens  Alex 
Strom,  i.  22. 

^^  Reinach,   Textes,   p.    122. 

''  Cf.  ch.  VIIL,  n.  14. 

"  CL  ch.  XII.,  n.  12. 

^^  Strabo,  i.  66;  Cic.  De  Rep.  i.  58. 

"  Cicero,  Paradoxon,  iii. :  otl  IVa  rd  aiJ-aprrifiaTa  Parva,  inquit, 
est  res.  At  magna  culpa;  nee  enim  pcccata  reriini  eventis,  sed 
vitiis  hominum  meticnda  sunt. 

^"^  Cumont,  Lcs  rej.  orient,  pp.  157  seq. 


pp.  212-226]  NOTES  395 

Chapter  XV 

THE  ROMANS 

^  The  first  Greek  historians  to  deal  with  Roman  history  are 
Hieronymus  of  Cardia  and  Timaeus,  both  of  the  fourth  century 
B.  c.   E. 

'  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  HI.  Ivii. 

^  Psalms  of   Solomon,  ii. 

*  Livy,  XLIX.  v. :  Syros  omnis  esse,  haud  paulo  mancipiorum 
melius  propter  servilia  ingenia  quant  militum  genus. 

'Ci.  ch.  HI.,  n.  9. 

®  Servile  origin  has  been  ascribed  to  such  a  family  as  the 
Sempronian,  and  is  assumed  for  the  praenomen  Servius,  as  for 
the  nomen  Servilius. 

^  Macrob.  Saturn.  H.  i.  13. 

^  The  reading  of  the  last  phrase  in  the  mss.  is  quod  servata, 
which  is  scarcely  consistent  with  the  rest  of  the  passage.  Ber- 
nays,  Rh.  Mus.  1857,  P-  464  seq.,  conjectured  that  it  was  a 
Jewish  or  Christian  marginal  gloss  which  found  its  way  into 
the  text,  a  supposition  by  no  means  to  be  dismissed  as  cavalierly 
as  Reinach  does  (Textes,  p.  241,  n.  i).  A  Christian  scribe 
might  easily  have  been  moved  by  the  taunt  quani  dis  cara,  to 
retort  with  the  triumphant  quod  servata!  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Christians  accepted  as  part  of  their  own  all  the 
history  and  literature  of  the  Jews  till  the  birth  of  Christ,  and 
resented  as  attacks  upon  themselves  any  slur  against  the  Jews 
of  pre-Christian  times.  Cf.  the  very  interesting  passage  in 
Lactantius,  Div.  inst.  iv.  2. 

"Cic.  In  Vat.  5,  12. 

^'^  It  may  be  worth  while  to  indicate  briefly  the  relation 
between  the  senatorial  authority  and  the  executive  power  at 
Rome.  Unless  the  senate  acted  at  the  instance  of  the  magis- 
trate himself,  a  senatusconsultum  was  an  advisory  resolution, 
passed  upon  motion  and  suggesting  to  the  holder  of  executive 
power,  or  imperium,  a  certain  course  of  action.  The  words 
were  generally:  Placet  senatui  ut  A.  A.,  N.  N.  consules,  alter 
ambove,  si  cis  videretiir,  ilia  faciant.  In  practice,  it  is  true, 
such  a  resolution  was  almost  mandatory.  A  strong  magistrate, 
however,  or  a  rash  one,  might  and  did  disregard  it. 


396  NOTES  [pp.  227-232 

While,  accordingly,  a  magistrate  might  neglect  a  course  of 
action  prescribed  by  the  senate,  there  was  nothing  to  hinder 
any  action  on  his  part  (whether  or  not  there  was  senatorial 
authority  for  it),  except  the  veto  power  residing  in  the  tribune 
or  in  an  equal  or  superior  magistrate.  The  only  restrictions 
were  made  by  the  laws  concerning  the  inviolability  of  the 
person  of  a  civis  Romanus,  and  of  the  aerarium. 

^^  The  contio  was  a  formal  assembly  of  citizens,  called  by 
a  magistrate  holding  imperium.  The  purpose  was  generally 
to  hear  projected  legislation  either  favorably  or  unfavorably 
discussed.  No  one  spoke  except  the  magistrate  or  those  whom 
he  designated.  The  contio  took  no  action  except  to  indicate 
its  assent  by  acclamation,  or  its  dissent  equally  emphatically. 
At  the  actual  legislative  assembly,  for  which  the  contiones  were 
preparations,  no  discussion  whatever  took  place.  The  law  was 
presented  to  be  accepted  or  refused.  It  will  be  seen  that  a 
mass  of  Orientals  who  less  than  two  years  before  had  been 
Aramaic-speaking  slaves  can  scarcely  have  been  a  power  in 
such  gatherings  as  these. 

^  Philo,  Leg.  ad.  Gaium,  23. 

"  The  language  of  the  inscriptions  in  the  various  Jewish 
cemeteries  at  Rome  is  almost  always  Greek,  as  is  that  of  most 
of  the  monuments  in  the  Christian  catacombs.  Latin  is  rare 
and  generally  later.  But  these  monuments  belong  to  Jews  who 
lived  several  generations  after  63  b.  c.  e.  As  far  as  Palestine 
is  concerned,  both  inscriptions  and  literature  leave  no  doubt 
that  the  masses  spoke  only  Aramaic  or  Hebrew. 

"  Caesar,  Bell.  Gall.  IL  xxxiii.  7 ;  IH.  xvi.  4. 

^^  Foucart,  Mem.  sur  1'  affranchissement  des  esclaves. 

"  Suet.  Div.  lul.  84,  76,  80. 

"  The  pretensions  of  the  senatorial  party  to  be  the  only 
true  Romans  were  not  altogether  unfounded.  The  terms 
boni  and  opiimates  which  they  gave  themselves  were  perhaps 
consciously  adapted  from  the  /caXoi  Kdyadoi  of  Athens.  The 
importance  of  nobilitas  as  a  criterion  of  true  Roman  blood 
lay  in  the  fact  that  it  attested  lineage  in  a  wholly  unmistakable 
way.  We  may  compare  the  insistence  of  Nehemiah  upon  docu- 
mentary evidence  of  Israelitish  blood  (Neh.  vii.  61,  64). 

"  Pro  Flacco,  15,  36,  compared  with  26,  62  seq. 


pp.  232-239]  NOTES  397 

^'Cf.  ch.  XIV.,  notes  11,  12. 

^^  The  chief  political  asset  of  the  triumvirs  was  the  orien- 
talized plebs  of  the  city,  whose  origin  and  poverty  would  com- 
bine to  make  them  bitterly  detest  the  organized  tax-farmers. 
Now  Crassus,  one  of  the  triumvirs,  was  himself  the  head  of 
a  powerful  financial  group.  It  may  be  that  the  tax-farmers 
persecuted  by  Gabinius  belonged  to  a  rival  organization,  or  that 
Crassus  had  withdrawn  from  that  form  of  speculation  before 
60  B.  c.  E.  In  the  case  of  Flaccus,  the  complaint  of  the  tax- 
financier  Decianus  was  a  pretext,  or  else  Decianus  may  have 
been  forethoughtful  enough  to  have  joined  the  right  syndicate. 

"  Cicero  ad  Att.  ii.  9. 

^^  Augustinus,  De  Civ.  Dei,  iv.  31,  2. 

Chapter  XVI 
JEWS  IN  ROME  DURING  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE 

^  Myths  are  understood  by  modern  anthropologists  ex- 
clusively as  a  "  folk-way,"  with  the  effects  of  single  creative 
imaginations  almost  wholly  eliminated.  However,  the  better- 
known  Greek  myths  are  not  at  all  folk-devised.  As  far  as  the 
Romans  are  concerned,  it  has  so  far  been  impossible  to  pick 
out  a  definite  story  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been  derived 
from  an  existing  Greek  myth  by  quite  sophisticated  methods. 

^  The  phrase  referred  to  is  Uhi  bene  ibi  patria,  although  just 
this  form  of  it  may  not  be  ancient.  However,  the  idea,  thai 
a  fatherland  might  brutally  ill-use  its  citizens  and  still  claim 
their  loyalty,  was  something  that  the  average  Greek  scarcely 
recognized  even  in  theory.  When  Socrates  propounds  some 
such  doctrine  in  Plato's  Crito,  51  B,  he  is  consciously  advocat- 
ing a  paradox.  It  was  regarded  as  a  noble  ideal  somewhat 
beyond  the  reach  of  ordinary  men.  Its  disregard  involved  no 
moral  turpitude. 

In  Cicero,  Tusc.  v.  37,  108,  the  phrase  runs,  Patria  est  ubicun- 
que  est  bene.  That  is  an  evident  adaptation  of  a  Greek  phrase, 
such  as  the  one  in  Aristoph.  Plut.  1151,  Trarpls  yap  ean  irda'  tV 

CLP    TrpaTTT]    TIS    €V. 

*  Livy,  Epit.  Ivi.  Eunous,  the  leader,  called  his  followers 
^3;^,  and  himself  King  Antiochus.     Cf.  Florus,  ii.  7   (iii.  9), 


398  NOTES  [pp.  240-244 

Diodorus  fr.  xxxiv.  2,  5.     Atargatis  was  the  Dea  Syria  that 
played  so  important  a  role  in  the  life  of  the  empire. 

*  The  philosophic  schools  had  the  usual  corporate  names  of 
eiaaos,  avuodos,  and  the  like.  Or  like  other  corporations  they 
have  a  cult  name  in  the  plural,  oi  Aioyeuiarai,  oi  'AvmraTpcaTai, 
oi  UapaiTLaarai  (Athen.  v.  186).  For  the  International  Ath- 
letic Union,  17  TrepnroXKrriKT}  ^vgtlkt)  avvobos,  cf.  Gk.  Pap.  in 
Brit.  Mus.  i.  214  seq. 

'  Cf.  ch.  III.,  n.  9. 

"  Cf.  Menippus  in  Lucian's  Icaromenippus,  6  seq.  Menippus 
does  not  spare  his  fellow  Cynics  {ihid.  16). 

'  Macrobius,  Sat.  II.  i.  13.  The  jest  has  unfortunately  not 
come  down  to  us. 

^The  book  we  know  as  the  "Wisdom  of  Solomon"  is  un- 
questionably the  finest  in  style  and  the  profoundest  in  treat- 
ment of  the  Apocrypha.  Such  passages  as  i. ;  ii.  i  seq.;  ii.  6;  iii. 
I  seq.  can  hardly  have  appealed  to  any  but  highly  cultured  men. 

®  Until  the  time  of  Claudius,  we  are  told  by  John  Lydus,  no 
Roman  citizen  might  actively  participate  in  the  rites  of  Cybele. 
Cf.  Dendrophori,  Pauly-Wissowa,  p.  216.  Claudius  removed 
the  restriction,  perhaps  to  make  Cybele  a  counterfoil  to  Isis. 

^°  The  story  in  Livy,  XXXIX.,  viii.  seq.  is  a  case  in  point. 
The  abominable  excesses  which,  as  Hispala  testifies,  took  place 
among  the  Bacchae  {ibid.  13)  are  almost  certainly  gross 
exaggerations. 

This  hostility  to  new-comers  was  not  a  sudden  departure 
from  previous  usage.  Sporadic  instances  are  mentioned  in 
Livy's  narrative.  As  early  as  429  b.  c.  e.,  he  tells  us,  Datum 
negotium  aedilibus  ne  qui  nisi  Romani  dii  neu  quo  alio  more 
quam  patrio  colerentur  (Livy,  IV.  xxx.  11).  The  notice  is  of 
value  as  an  indication  that  the  general  Roman  feeling  was  not 
always  so  cordially  receptive  as  is  often  assumed. 

"  Valerius  Max.  I.  iii.  3. 

^^  Cf.  Cic.  ad  Att.  iii.  15,  4;  Asconius  ad  Pison.  8. 

^^  Suetonius,  Div.  lul.  42.  Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  x.  8.  Sue- 
tonius {ibid.  84)  states  that  many  exterae  gentes  enjoyed  his 
favor.  The  Jews  may  have  been  only  one  group  among  many. 
However,  the  statement  is  indirectly  made  by  Suetonius  and 


p.  247]  NOTES  399 

directly  by  Josephus,  that  they  received  his  special  protection 
to  a  striking  extent.  We  have  only  the  political  support  given 
the  triumvirs  and  Caesar  personally  to  fall  back  upon  for  a 
motive. 

"  I  undertake  with  some  diffidence  to  revive  a  conjecture 
made  before  without  much  success,  that  the  30th  Sabbath 
was  the  Day  of  Atonement.  One  remarkable  misunderstanding 
of  the  Sabbath  institution  was  that  it  was  a  fast-day.  When 
we  consider  the  number  and  activity  of  the  Roman  Jews,  it 
seems  scarcely  credible  that  so  many  otherwise  well-informed 
persons  supposed  that  the  Jews  fasted  once  a  week.  Augustus 
in  his  letter  to  Tiberius  seems  to  do  so  (Suet.  Aug.  76).  Pomp. 
Trogus  (Justinus),  xxxvi.  2,  explicitly  states  it.  Cf-  also  Pet- 
ronius  (Biicheler,  Anth.  Lat.  Frg.  S7)  and  Martial,  iv.  4.  But 
at  least  one  man,  Plutarch,  not  only  knew  that  it  was  not  so, 
but  was  aware  that,  if  anything,  the  Sabbath  was  a  joyous 
feast-day  (Moralia  ii.,  Quaest.  Con.  v.  2).  To  this  testimony 
must  be  added  that  of  Persius,  Sat.  v.  182  seq.  It  is  in  the 
highest  degree  surprising  that  Reinach  (p.  265,  n.  3)  could 
have  accepted  the  theory  that  the  pallor  alluded  to  is  the  faint- 
ness  brought  on  by  fasting.  The  tunny  fish  on  the  plate  should 
have  convinced  him  of  his  error.  It  may  be  remembered  that 
fish  in  all  its  forms  was  one  of  the  chief  delicacies  of  the 
Romans.  Tunny,  however,  was  a  very  common  fish,  and  one 
of  the  principal  food  staples  of  the  proletariat. 

Persius  writes  from  personal  experience.  Of  the  other 
writers  it  is  only  Pompeius  Trogus  who  makes  the  unqualified 
statement  that  the  Sabbath  as  such  was  a  fast-day.  When 
Strabo  writes  that  Pompey  is  said  to  have  taken  Jerusalem 
TTjv  TTJs  ur}(TTeias  rj/xepap  TTjprjaas  (xvi.  40),  he  is  assumed  to 
have  been  guilty  of  the  same  confusion.  But  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  why  he  should  have  hesitated  to  say  the  Sabbath  if  he 
meant  the  Sabbath.  Nor  is  it  so  certain  that  Josephus  is 
mechanically  copying  Strabo  (Reinach,  p.  104.  n.  i)  when 
he  says  (Ant.  XIV.  iv.  3)  that  Jerusalem  was  taken  -rrepl  rpLrov 
(irfva  Txi  TTjs  PTjareias  rifiipa.  The  details  of  Josephus  are  vastly 
fuller  than  those  of  Strabo,  and  he  is  not  guilty  of  the  latter's 
error  regarding  Jewish  observance  of  the  Sabbath  in  times  of 
war  (Ant.  XIV.  iv.  2).    Besides,  the  siege  lasted  several  weeks 


400  NOTES  [p,  247 

— more  than  two  months — so  that  Pompey's  manoeuver,  if  it 
depended  wholly  upon  the  Sabbath,  might  have  been  performed 
at  once. 

Hilgenfeld's  supposition  (Monatsschrift,  1885,  pp.  109-115) 
that  the  day  was  the  Atonement,  is  better  founded  than  Reinach 
would  have  us  think.  In  the  mouth  of  Josephus,  17  rrjs 
prjareias  ij/xepa  can  scarcely  have  any  other  sense.  And  if 
Josephus  believed  that  Jerusalem  fell  on  the  Kippur,  he 
believed  so  from  more  intimate  tradition  than  the  writings  of 
Strabo. 

Now,  i]  rrjs  vTjareias  rjfxepa,  the  great  fast  of  the  Jews,  must 
have  been  as  marked  a  feature  in  their  life  two  thousand  years 
ago  as  to-day.  While  all  the  other  feasts  have  individual  nam.es, 
it  does  not  appear  that  this  one  did.  D''"^'li3Dn  D"l*  (Lev.  xxiii. 
27  ;  LXX,  ij/xepa  e^iXaa/nov  )  seems  rather  a  descriptive  term 
than  a  proper  name.  Josephus  (Ant.  IV.  x.)  has  no  name  for 
it,  although  he  has  for  the  others.  In  the  Talmud,  it  is  5<o\ 
"the  Day,"  fc^ai  5<0r,  "the  Great  Day,"  i<n"lt^D1V»  "the 
Great  Fast."  In  Acts  xxvii.  9  we  meet  the  phrase  17  prjareia, 
''the  fast Kar' iioxvf."  Similarly  in  Philo,  De  Septenario,  all  the 
festivals  have  names  except  this,  which  is  referred  to  simply 
as  "  the  Fast."  It  must  be,  however,  evident  that  with  the  insti- 
tution of  other  fasts,  v  vrjareia  would  hardly  be  adequate. 
As  a  distinctive  appellation,  some  other  name  had  to  be  chosen. 

In  the  Pentateuch  the  term  (  pjiit^  r\2^  )  is  used  of  ordi- 
nary Sabbaths  (Ex.  xxxi.  15,  xxxv,  2,  Lev.  xxiii.  3)  as  well 
as  of  the  Atonement  (Lev.  xvi.  31,  xxiii.  32).  But  the  LXX 
expressly  distinguishes  the  application  of  it  to  ordinary  Sab- 
baths from  its  application  to  the  Atonement.  The  former,  it 
renders  ad^^ara  di^diravais,  the  latter  ad^^ara  aa^jSdrwu.  This 
latter  term  may  therefore  be  considered  the  specific  designation 
of  the  Atonement  Day,  and  it  is  so  used  by  Philo,  De  Septen.  23, 
ad^^arov  cra/S/Sdrwi',  tuv  dyicvu  dy luirepai   (e^dofiades) . 

We  may,  therefore,  assume  that  in  the  Greek-speaking 
Jewish  community  of  Rome,  ad^^ara  aajSpdrcov,  "  the  Great 
Sabbath,"  was  the  common  designation — or  at  least  a  familiar 
designation — of  the  Day  of  Atonement.  In  that  case  it  could 
scarcely  be  otherwise  than  familiar  to  those  who  had  any 
dealings  whatever  with  the  Jews. 


p.  247]  NOTES  401 

Fuscus  pretends  to  share  a  very  general  observance,  and  on 
the  strength  of  it  to  be  disinclined  to  discuss  any  personal 
matters  with  his  friend.  Can  that  day  have  been  a  simple 
Sabbath  ?  The  tone  indicates  a  rarer  and  more  solemn  occasion. 
Besides,  we  are  definitely  told  that  it  is  a  special  Sabbath, 
the  "thirtieth." 

The  Jews  at  that  time  seem  to  have  reckoned  their  festivals 
by  strict  lunar  months  (Josephus,  Ant.  IV.  x.)  and  their  civil 
year  by  the  Macedonian  calendar.  The  thirtieth  Sabbath,  if  we 
reckon  by  the  Roman  calendar,  might  conceivably  have  fallen  on 
the  Atonement.  By  the  Macedonian  or  Athenian  it  could  not 
have  done  so.  However,  as  the  Roman  calendar  was  a  solar  one, 
the  correspondence  of  the  thirtieth  Sabbath  with  the  Atone- 
ment can  only  have  been  a  fortuitous  one  in  a  single  year. 
Tricesima  sabbata  can  hardly  apply  to  that. 

It  is  just  possible  that  the  reason  for  the  word  "thirtieth" 
is  to  be  found  in  the  widely  and  devoutly  pursued  astrology 
of  that  time.  The  number  thirty  had  a  certain  significance  in 
astrology,  Firmicus  Maternus,  IV.  xvii.  5;  xxii.  3.  If  for  one 
reason  or  another  the  mansio  of  the  moon,  which  coincided 
with  the  second  week  of  the  seventh  lunar  month  (cf.  Firm. 
Mat.  IV.  i.  seq.  for  the  importance  of  the  moon  in  astrology), 
bore  the  number  thirty,  then  tricesima  sabbata,  to  initiated 
and  unmitiated,  might  bear  the  portentous  meaning  required 
for  the  Horatian  passage. 

Whether  that  is  so  or  not,  the  only  Sabbath  which  we  know 
to  have  been  specially  singled  out  from  the  rest  of  the  year, 
was  this  crd/S/Sara  aa^^aTtov,  the  Day  of  Atonement.  What- 
ever reason  there  was  for  calling  it  the  thirtieth,  the  mere  fact 
of  its  being  particularly  designated  makes  it  likely  that  Horace 
referred  to  that  day. 

Nearly  every  one  of  the  festivals  in  Tishri  has  already  been 
suggested  for  the  phrase,  but  these  results  have  been  reached 
by  elaborate  and  intricate  calculations,  which  bring  the  thirtieth 
Sabbath  on  the  festival  required.  The  main  difficulty  with  all 
such  calculations  has  been  noted.  The  coincidence  can  only 
have  been  exceptional,  and  an  exceptional  coincidence  will  not 
help  us  here.  Some  especially  rigorous  Jews  undoubtedly 
fasted  every  week  like  the  Pharisee  in  Luke  xviii.  11-20,  but 
that  was  intended  as  a  form  of  asceticism.  The  custom 
26 


402  NOTES  [pp.  247-256 

survived  in  some  Christian  communities,  notably  in  Rome, 
which  elevated  it  almost  to  a  dogma,  so  that  Augustine  had  to 
combat  the  point  with  especial  vigor.  (Ep.  xxxvi.,  and  Casu- 
lanum,  Corp.  Scr.  Eccl.  xxxiv.  pp.  33  seq.)  It  may  be  interesting 
to  remember  that  from  a  passage  of  this  epistle  referring  to 
this  Sabbath  fast  (xiv.  32)  is  derived  the  famous  proverb, 
"  When  you  are  in  Rome,  do  as  the  Romans  do." 

''  Sat.  I.  iv.  18. 

"Sat.  I.  V.  97. 

"  Apellas  is  a  common  name  for  a  slave  or  freedman.  Cic. 
ad  Fam.  vii.  25;  C.  1.  L.  x,  61 14.  That  a  Jew  should  bear  a 
name  derived  from  that  of  Apollo,  is  not  at  all  strange.  Cf. 
ch.  IX.,  n.  6. 

^^  Cf.  Ep.  I.  vi.  I  seq.  The  nil  admirari  of  the  first  line  is 
Horace's  equivalent  for  the  drapaiia  of  Epicurus. 

"  As  is  stated  in  the  text,  the  peregrina  Sabbata  and  the 
septima  festa,  which  is  merely  a  metrical  paraphrase  for  Sab- 
bata, are  treated  here  as  of  annual  occurrence.  The  word 
redcunt  itself  points  to  that.  It  has  been  suggested  in  Note 
14,  that  the  great  annual  Sabbath  was  the  Day  of  Atonement. 
If  that  is  referred  to  here,  the  application  is  very  natural.  The 
season  of  the  Tishri  festivals  coincided  in  the  Mediterranean 
with  rather  severe  storms.  These  generally  began  after  the 
Day  of  Atonement,  so  that  among  Jews  sailing  was  rarely 
undertaken  after  that  day.  This  is  strikingly  shown  by  Acts 
xxvii.  9.  But  the  equinoctial  storms,  while  sufficient  to  make 
a  sea-voyage  dangerous,  do  not  seem  to  have  caused  serious 
discomfort  on  land.  The  reference,  accordingly,  must  in  each 
case  be  understood  from  its  context.  In  the  first  the  courtship 
is  to  be  begun,  tu  licet  incipias,  at  the  great  Sabbath,  to  take 
advantage  of  the  exquisite  autumn  of  Italy.  In  the  second,  the 
voyage  is  not  to  be  deferred  even  for  this  same  Sabbath, 
which  ordinarily  marked  the  danger  line  of  navigation. 

^"  Vogelstein  u.  Rieger,  Gesch.  der  Jud.  in  der  Stadt  Rom, 
p.  39  seq. 

^^  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  259. 

''  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXIX.  i.  6.    Plaut.  Amphitruo,  1013. 

^^  Cf.  Garrucci,  Cimitero  ....  in  Signa  Randanini ;  F.  X. 
Kraus,  Roma  Sott.  p.  286  ff. ;  Garucci,  Storia  del  arte  Cristiana, 
VI.  tav.  489-491. 


pp.  257-269]  NOTES  403 

Chapter  XVII 

THE  JEWS  OF  THE  EMPIRE  TILL  THE  REVOLT 

^  Verg.  Eel.  i.  6-7 ;  Georg.  i.  503 ;  Horace,  Odes,  I.  ii.  43 ;  Ovid, 
Ex  Ponto,  ii.  8. 
'  Xen.  An.  IV.  i.  2-3. 
'  Cic.  ad  Att.  i.   i. 

*  While  notoriously  corrupt  governors  like  Cotta  (130  b.  c. 
E.),  Cic.  Pro  Mur.  58,  and  Aquilius  (126  b.  c.  e.),  Cic.  Div. 
in  Caec.  69,  were  acquitted,  a  rigidly  honest  man  like  Rufus 
was  convicted  under  such  a  charge.    Dio  Cassius,  fr.  97. 

'  Ditt.  Or.  inscr.  no.  456,  1.  35 ;  from  Mytilene,  457,  659. 

^  The  Edict  of  Caracalla,  called  the  Constitutio  Antonina  or 
Antoniniana,  has  been  known  in  substance  for  a  long  time. 
Recently  fragments  of  its  exact  words  in  Greek  were  dis- 
covered in  a  papyrus  (Giessen,  Pap.  II,  (P.  Meyer),  p.  30  seq)  : 
didoofxi  Tols  avvd-nacnv  ^euois  rocs  Kara  ttju  oiKovfieurju  TToXiTeiav 
Toj/jLaicov  jxevovTOS  navrbs  yevovs  TroXLTev/idTcov  X'^P'-^  '''^''  ^^SeiTiKicov 
The  exact  effect  of  the  decree  is  not  yet  quite  clear.  It  seems 
evident  that  the  dcditicii  were  excluded. 

^  Dio  Cassius,  xxxvi.  6. 

*  Suet.  Aug.  93. 

"Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  x. ;  XII.  iii.  2. 

"  The  "  heterodox  Jewish  propaganda  "  is  of  course  Chris- 
tianity. The  success  of  Paul  and  other  missionaries  in  Asia 
Minor  is  best  indicated  by  the  churches  of  Asia  to  which 
Revelations  is  addressed. 

"  Horace,  Ep.  II.  ii.  184.  The  sumptuous  present  of  Aris- 
tobulus,  which  formed  part  of  Pompey's  triumphal  procession. 
Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  iii.  i.  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.  XXXVIL  ii.  12. 
must  have  made  the  Jewish  kings  symbols  of  enormous  wealth. 
None  the  less,  Herod's  unsparing  severity  toward  his  own  sons 
was  also  well  known,  and  it  is  said  to  have  elicited  from  Augus- 
tus the  phrase  malleni  Herodis  porcus  esse  qiiam  iilius — Mac- 
rob.  Sat.  II.  iv.  II — a  jest  which,  as  Reinach  points  out  (Textes, 
p.  358),  is  of  doubtful  authenticity,  and  certainly  not  original. 

'^  Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  iii. 

"  Judea  herself  was  free  from  tribute,  but  Herod  was  respon- 
sible for  certain  Arab  revenues.     Besides,  he  received  from 


404  NOTES  [pp.  271-277 

Augustus  a  number  of  Greek  towns  (Josephus,  Wars,  I.  xx. 
seq.),  and  his  kingdom  included  further  Batanaea  south  of 
Damascus,  Galilee,  and  Peraea,  the  Greek  cities  across  the 
Jordan  and  south  through  Idumaea.  All  this  was  held  by  him 
as  the  acknowledged  beneficiary  of  Rome  (Josephus,  Ant.  XV. 
vi.  7). 

'"Josephus,  Ant.  XV.  i.  2. 

"Josephus,  Ant.  XVII.  vi.  6. 

"Cf.  ch.  XI.,  n.  15.    Cf.  also  Josephus,  Ant.  XVII.  x. 

"  Not  merely  composed  of  Herod's  old  soldiers  (Josephus, 
Ant.  XVII.  X.  4).    Matt.  xxii.  16;  Mark  iii.  6;  xii.  13. 

'*  Madden,  Coins  of  the  Jews.  Cf.  also  Josephus,  Ant. 
XVIII.  iii.  I. 

"Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  viii.  11. 

■'"  Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  v.  4. 

^Josephus,  Ant.  XV.  xi.  15. 

"Josephus,  Ant.  XVI.  vii.-viii.  seq.  The  many  children  of 
Herod's  ten  wives  were  in  almost  constant  intrigues  against 
him  and  one  another. 

^  Strabo,  xvi.  755. 

^*  It  is  necessary  at  every  point  to  note  the  uncertain  character 
of  our  evidence.  The  Historiae  Philippicae  of  Pompeius 
Trogus  written  under  Augustus  would  have  been  of  inestim- 
able value  for  us,  if  we  had  them  in  full.  But  we  possess  them 
merely  in  the  summary  of  Justin  (third  century?),  which  gives 
us  all  the  substance,  but  little  or  none  of  the  personality  of  the 
writer.  And  in  this  case  the  loss  is  the  more  serious  because 
Trogus  seems  to  have  had  a  keener  feeling  for  the  dramatic 
character  of  events  and  a  broader  sympathy  than  many  other 
ancient  historians. 

"'Josephus,  Ant.  XVII.  x.  9. 

"^  This  is  the  Varus  made  famous  in  the  Teutoburg  battle. 
The  insurrection  mentioned  in  the  text  is  the  polemos  shel 
Varos  of  the  Seder  Olam. 

"^  Caesar,  Bell.  Gall.  iii.  10. 

^Josephus,  Ant.  XVII.  x.  9. 

^  Nicolaus  of  Damascus,  philosopher  and  historian,  was 
Herod's  principal  Greek  adviser  and  the  advocate  of  the  Jews 
in  many  public  controversies.    As  far  as  we  can  judge  from 


pp.  279-285]  NOTES  405 

fragments,  his  History  of  the  World,  in  no  less  than  114  Books, 
was  a  loosely  connected  compilation  rather  than  a  work  of 
literary  merit. 

'"Josephus,  Ant.  XVIII.  i.  i  and  6. 

^^  A  complete  investigation  of  this  subject  is  contained  in 
Domaszewski,  Die  Religion  des  romischen  Heeres. 

^^  Cagnat.  in  Dar.-Sagl.  Diet,  des  ant.  s.  v.  legio,  p.  1084. 

^  The  signa  were  actually  worshiped  by  the  soldiers.  They 
are  the  propria  legionum  numina.  Tac.  Ann.  ii.  17.  Cf.  Cagnat., 
op.  cit.  p.  1065.    Domaszewski,  op.  cit.  p.  115. 

^*  To  the  sense  and  tact  of  this  typical  Roman  official  the 
averting  of  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  Palestinian  Jewry  is  due. 
The  rebellion  which  Gains  would  undoubtedly  have  provoked 
might  have  dragged  other  parts  of  the  world  with  it,  and  at 
that  time  the  conditions  were  less  favorable  for  re-establish- 
ment of  the  empire  than  in  68  c.  e. 

^'Josephus,  Ant.  XVIII.  vii.  2. 

^'Josephus,  Ant.  XIX.  vi. 

"  That  Tacitus  shows  a  strong  antipathy  to  the  Jews  can 
scarcely  be  questioned.  It  is  in  these  chapters  (Hist.  v.  2. 
seq.)  more  than  most  others,  that  we  are  able  to  see  the 
rhetorical  historian  of  ancient  times  almost  in  the  act  of  pre- 
paring his  narrative.  The  sources  of  Tacitus  are  open  to  us. 
That  he  used  Manetho  and  Apion  instead  of  Josephus  and 
Nicolaus  is  itself  ample  indication  of  the  complete  lack  of 
conscience  with  which  such  a  writer  could  select  his  evidence 
according  to  the  thesis  he  meant  to  establish. 

^*  Cagnat.  Inscr.  Or.  ad  res  Rom.  pertin.  ii.  n.  176. 

^®  Cf.  for  the  Jewish  feeling  toward  him,  Jos.  Ant.  VI.  i.  2 ; 
Ketub.  17a;  Pes.  88b.  He  is  represented  as  a  rigidly  obser- 
vant and  pious  Jew.  However,  the  boon  companion  of  the 
young  Gains  and  the  voluptuaries  of  the  imperial  court  must 
have  undergone  an  overwhelming  change  of  heart  if  he  was 
really  worthy  of  the  praise  lavished  upon  him. 

*°  Josephus,  Ant.  XIX.  vii. 

*^  Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  i.  One  of  the  slain  rioters  is  named 
Hannibal. 

*■  Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  v. 

*^  Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  viii. 


4o6  NOTES  [pp.    287-301 

Chapter  XVIII 
THE  REVOLT  OF  68  C  E. 

'  Cf.  Livy,  Books  XXXIX  and  XL. 

*Tac.  Ann.  iii.  40  seq. ;  ibid.  ii.  52;  iv.  23.  In  52  c.  e.,  Cilicia 
rose  in  revolt ;  ibid.  xii.  55.  The  Jewish  disturbances  of  the 
same  year  are  alluded  to  in  Tac.  Ann.  xii.  54 — a  passage 
omitted  in  Reinach. 

^Josephus,  Wars,   II.  xvi. 

*  The  entire  life  of  this  curious  impostor,  as  portrayed  by 
Lucian,  is  of  the  highest  interest.  The  maddest  and  most  in- 
solent pranks  received  no  severer  punishment  than  exclusion 
from  Rome. 

^  C.  I.  L.  vii.  5471. 

"  For  the  Armenian,  British,  etc.,  rebellions,  see  Suet.  Nero. 
39,  40.  In  at  least  one  other  part  of  the  empire,  prophecy  and 
poetry  maintained  the  hope  of  an  ultimate  supremacy,  some- 
thing like  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  Jews.  This  was  in  Spain, 
and  upon  this  fact  Galba  laid  great  stress.  Suet.  Galba,  9: 
Quorum  carniinum  senteniia  erat,  oritm'um  quandoque  ex  His- 
pania  principem  doniinumque  rerum. 

^  Suetonius  speaks  first  of  the  joy  shown  at  his  death,  then 
of  the  grief.  It  is,  however,  easy  to  see  that  the  latter  mani- 
festation was  probably  the  more  genuine  and  lasting. 

*  Josephus,  Ant.  XX.  viii.  11 ;  Vita,  3. 

"  We  learn  from  the  same  passage  that  a  great  many  accounts 
of  Nero  existed,  and  many  of  them  were  favorable.  The 
implication  further  is  that  these  accounts  were  written  after 
his  death.  We  have  only  the  picture  drawn  by  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius.  If  we  had  one  written  from  the  other  side,  like 
Velleius  Paterculus'  panegyric  of  Tiberius  (Veil.  Pat.  ii.  129 
seq.),  we  should  be  better  able  to  judge  him. 

"  Gittin  56a. 

"  Reinach,  Textes,  pp.  176-178. 

^^  Neither  the  arch  nor  the  inscription  exists  any  longer.  A 
copy  of  the  inscription  was  made,  before  the  ninth  century,  by  a 
monk  of  the  monastery  of  Einsiedeln,  to  whose  observation 
and  antiquarian  interest  we  owe  more  than  one  valuable  record. 

"  The  phrase  ludaica  superstitione  imbuti,  already  quoted, 


pp.  302-315]  NOTES  407 

shows  what  the  term  would  be  likely  to  suggest  to  Roman 
minds.  In  Diocletian's  time,  when  the  Persians  were  the  arch- 
enemies of  Rome,  and  Persian  doctrine  in  the  form  of  Mani- 
cheism  was  widely  spread  over  the  empire,  the  emperors  did 
not  hesitate  to  call  themselves  Pcrsicus.  But  Persicus  never 
meant  an  adherent  of  a  religious  sect. 

^*  Idumaea  is  used  for  ludaea  in  Statius  Silvae,  iii.  138;  v. 
2,  138;  Valerius  Flaccus,  Argon.  12. 

Chapter  XIX 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  ROMAN  JEWISH 
COMMUNITY 

*  Philo,  Leg.  ad  Gaium,  24. 

"  We  may  compare  such  expressions  as  magica  arte  infecfi, 
Tac.  Ann.  ii.  2;  Cic.  Fin.  III.  ii.  9, 

^  Long  before  the  attempts  made  in  the  nineteenth  century 
to  rehabilitate  all  the  generally  acknowledged  historical  mon- 
sters, historians  had  looked  askance  at  the  portrait  of  Tiberius 
drawn  by  Tacitus.  For  a  recent  discussion,  cf.  Jerome,  The 
Tacitean  Tiberius,  Class.  Phil.  vii.  pp.  265  seq. 

*  Suet.  Tib.  36.  The  matheniatici  are  strictly  the  astrologers 
whose  science  was  called  /xadrjais.  Cf.  the  title  of  Firmicus 
Maternus,  Mathcscos  libri.  The  governmental  attempt  to  sup- 
press the  mathematici  was  a  total  failure,  but  the  law's  attitude 
toward  them  may  be  seen  from  the  rescript  of  Diocletian  (294 
c.  E.)  :  ars  mathematica  damnabilis  interdicta  est  (Cod.  Just. 
IX.  xviii.  2). 

^  Nero  assigned  Sardinia  to  the  senate  as  ample  satisfaction 
for  Achaea,  which  he  took  under  his  own  jurisdiction. 

"  Acts  xi.  26  ;  xxvi.  28.  lri<jov  xpv<^'^°^  in  the  inscription  quoted 
in  n.  10.  In  this  case  the  identification  of  names  may  be  due 
to  iotacism. 

^  Cf.  the  well-known  rhetorician  Philostr.  Vita.  Soph.  ii.  11, 
and  in  Rome  itself  Inscr.  gr.  Sic.  et  Ital.  1272;  and  ibid.  2417,  2. 

*  The  question  of  the  authenticity  and  date  of  the  Acts  does 
not  belong  to  this  study.  A  thorough  discussion  will  be  found 
in  Wendland,  Die  urchristlichen  Literaturformen,^  p.  314  seq. 


4o8  NOTES  [pp.  316-322 

°  Acts  xi.  19;  xili.  5,  50. 

^'^  avpayuyri=:iKK\7](Tia.  Le  Bas,  2528  (318  c.  E.),  a  Mar- 
cionite  association. 

"  There  was  a  jurist  Tertullian  of  whom  some  fragments 
have  been  preserved  in  the  Digest  (29,  2,  30 ;  49,  17,  4).  He  has 
on  plausible  grounds  been  assumed  to  be  the  same  as  the 
Church  Father,  There  can  be  no  question  that  the  latter  had 
legal  training.  As  for  the  cruelties  described  by  Tacitus,  it 
may  be  said  that  Eusebius  has  no  word  of  them,  even  in  his 
denunciation  of  Nero,     (Hist.  Eccl.  H,  xxv.) 

^^  All  the  Church  Fathers  mention  these  outrageous  charges, 
Pliny  (Ep.  x.  96)  refers  vaguely  to  wickednesses  charged 
against  them,  but  the  Hagitia  cohaerentia  nomini  are  more  likely 
to  be  the  treasonable  machinations  which  the  Christian  asso- 
ciations were  assumed  to  be  engaged  in  than  these  foul  and 
stupid  accusations.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Tertullian 
{loc.  cit.)  is  more  eager  to  free  the  Christians  from  the  charge 
of  treason  than  of  any  other.  Treason  in  this  case,  however, 
meant  not  sedition  or  rebellion,  but  anarchy,  i.  e.  attempts  at 
the  destruction  of  the  state.  The  attitude  of  medieval  law 
toward  heresy  gives  a  good  analogy. 

"  It  would  scarcely  be  necessary  to  refute  this  slander,  if 
it  had  not  recently  renewed  currency;  Harnack,  Mission  and 
Ausbreitung.  Tertullian  knows  nothing  of  it,  nor  Eusebius, 
although  the  latter  refers  in  the  case  of  Polycarp  to  Jewish 
persecution  of  Christians  (Hist,  Eccl,  IV.  xv,  29).  Tertullian, 
on  the  contrary,  implies  that  an  enemy  of  the  Jews  would  be 
likely  to  be  a  persecutor  of  Christians  (Apol.  5), 

"  Like  most  men  of  his  time  he  bore  two  names,  his  native 
name  of  Saul  and  the  name  by  which  he  was  known  among 
Christians,  Paul.  This  is  indicated  by  the  phrase  1.av\os  6  Kai 
UavXos  (Acts  xiii,  9),  which  is  the  usual  form  in  which  such 
a  double  name  was  expressed. 

^"  The  mother  church  at  Jerusalem  consisted  exclusively  of 
Jews  until  the  time  of  Hadrian  (Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl,  IV.  v.  2). 

''^  Quint.  Inst,  X.  i.  93. 

"  Maecenas,  too,  was  of  the  highest  Etruscan  nobility.  Hor- 
ace, Sat.  I.  vi.  I  seq.  The  antiquity  of  Etruscan  families  was 
proverbial  among  the  Romans. 


pp.  322-333'i  NOTES  409 

^^  Mommsen  seeks  to  make  his  crabbed  style  a  racial  char- 
acteristic. The  statement  is  quite  gratuitous.  His  peculiarity 
of  expression  is  amply  explained  by  his  youth,  his  lack  of 
literary  practice,  and  his  absorption  in  his  philosophical  pur- 
suits. 

^^  Pers.  V.  176.  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  264. 

^  Strabo  apud  Jos.  Ant.  XIV.  vii.  2 :  /cat  tottoi^  ovk  ean  padiivs 
cvpeiv  TTJs  olKovfievrjs  8s  ov  TrapadedeKrai  tovto  to  (pv\ov  /xt]8'  eiriKpa- 
relrai  vir'  avrov.  Seneca  apud  Aug.  De  Civ.  Dei,  vi.  10 :  Cum 
interim  usque  eo  sceleratissimae  gentis  consuetudo  valet  ut  per 
omnes  iam  terras  recepta  sit ;  victi  victoribus  leges  dcderunt. 

^Besides  the  capital  passage  (Sat.  xiv.  96)  Juvenal  speaks 
of  Jews  in  Sat.  iii.  10  seq.,  296;  vi.  156,  542. 

"  Cf.  Garrucci,  Cimitero  ....  in  Signa  Randanini ;  Rossi, 
Roma  Sotteranea.  especially  the  Indices.  As  late  as  296  c.  e. 
the  epitaph  of  the  Bishop  of  the  Roman  church  is  given  in 
Greek. 

Chapter  XX 
THE  FINAL  REVOLTS  OF  THE  JEWS 

^  Perhaps  the  "  egg  laid  on  the  Sabbath  "  would  have  excited 
less  comment,  if  the  fact  were  kept  in  mind  that  a  decision  in 
a  specific  case  can  hardly  fail  to  be  particular. 

^  C.  I.  L.  ix.  I.  26. 

'  Laius  outraged  Chrysippus,  son  of  Pelops,  who  had  been 
left  in  his  care.  The  Euripidean  lost  play  on  Oedipus  seems 
to  have  adopted  that  version.  Pisander,  Schol.  Eur.  Phoen. 
1760:  TrpaJTOS  5e  Adtos  top  adifitTOV  e'pwra  tovtov  ikax^^. 

^  Cf.  Philo,  De  Spec.  Leg.  7. 

'Tosefta  Ab.  Zar.  ii.  6. 

"^  Ziebarth,  Kulturbilder  aus  griechischen  Stadten,  p.  'J2)- 

~'  In  very  much  earlier  times  Jews  left  dedications  in  the 
temple  of  Pan  Euhodus.  Ditt.  Inscr.  Or.  74:  GeOSoros  Awpiojvos 
*\ov5alos  ao}6eis  e/c  ireXdyov.  Cf.  y^,  UroXefiaios  ^lovvaiov    louSaios. 

^  This  became  a  standing  formula  and  in  inscriptions  is  regu- 
larly abbreviated  N.  K.  C.  (Valerius  Probus,  4),  i.  e.  non 
kalumniae  causa.  The  use  of  k  for  c  testifies  to  the  antiquity 
of  the  formula. 


410  NOTES  [pp.  333-344 

®  Suet.  Domit.  12. 

"  Dio  Cassius  (Xiph.),  Ixvii.  14. 

"  Passed  in  81  b.  c.  e.  This  law  punished  offenses  as 
diverse  as  murder,  arson,  poisoning,  perjury,  abortion,  and 
abuse  of  magisterial  power.  In  every  case  it  was  the  efifect 
of  the  act  that  was  considered. 

"Reinach,  Textes,  p.  197,  n.  i. 

"  The  polemos  shcl  kitos  of  Mishnah  Sota  ix.  14  and  the 
Seder  Olam, 

Quietus  was  a  Moorish  chieftain  of  great  military  ability. 
He  seems  to  have  hoped  for  the  succession  to  the  throne.  After 
the  end  of  the  revolt  he  was  transferred  to  his  native  province, 
Mauretania,  by  Hadrian,  and  was  ultimately  executed  for 
treason. 

"  Meg.  Taan.,  Adar  12 ;  Gratz,  Gesch,  der  Juden,'  iv.  445  seq. 

/^  In  the  case  of  non-Jews,  the  Messianic  hope  was  simply 
the  dread  of  an  impending  cataclysm.  As  far  as  this  dread 
was  connected  with  the  failure  of  the  Julian  line,  it  proved 
groundless.  But  the  Jewish  Apocrypha  and  Pseudepigrapha  of 
this  time  are  full  of  prophecies  of  the  end  of  the  world.  It 
was  the  general  belief  that  the  world  was  very  old,  and  that 
a  fixed  cycle,  then  rapidly  coming  to  its  end,  determined  the 
limits  it  would  reach. 

"  Jerus.  Taan.  iv.  7,  p.  68  d.    Ekah  Rab.  ii.  i. 

"  Dio  Cassius  (Xiph.),  Ixix.  12;  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  198. 

*"  Dig.  50,  15,  I,  6. 

"Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  IV.  vi.  4. 

^  Gen.  Rab.  Ixiii.  (xxv.  23)  makes  Hadrian  the  typical 
heathen  king,  as  Solomon  is  the  typical  Jewish  king.  His  name 
is  followed,  as  is  that  of  Trajan,  by  a  drastic  curse.  But 
there  are  traditions  of  a  kindlier  feeling  toward  him.  Sibyl,  v. 
248.    In  the  Meg.  Taan.  the  29th  of  Adar. 

'^  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccl.  IV.  vi.,  quoting  Aristo  of  Pella. 
Jerome  in  Ezek.  i.  15.  It  is  here  that  the  famous  passage  of 
Jerome  occurs,  which  describes  the  Jews  as  "  buying  their 
tears."    Cf.  also  Itiner.  Burdigal.  (Hierosolymitanum),  I.  v.  22. 

"  Vopiscus,  Vita  Saturn,  viii. ;  Reinach,  Textes,  p.  326.  The 
authenticity  of  this  letter  has  been  questioned,  but  the  trans- 
mission, although  indirect,  is  better  documented  than  in  most 


pp.  344-349I  NOTES  411 

such  cases.  Hadrian  is  known  to  have  written  an  autobi- 
ography, and  Phlegon,  his  freedman,  who  also  wrote  his  life, 
no  doubt  used  it.    Spartianus,  Hadr.  i,  i ;  xiv.  8. 

*'  The  writers  Spartianus,  Capitolinus,  etc.,  dedicate  their 
work  to  Diocletian  or  Constantine.  It  was  suggested  by  Des- 
sau, Hermes,  24,  S37,  that  these  writers  never  existed,  and  were 
invented  by  a  forger  of  a  century  later.  Mommsen,  Hermes, 
25,  2g8,  assumed  their  existence,  but  regarded  the  extant  works 
as  revised  at  the  time  mentioned  by  Dessau.  Other  investi- 
gators, except  H.  Peter,  accept  Mommsen's  conclusions. 
Whether  they  are  authentic  or  not,  these  biographies  are  alike 
wretched  in  style  and  thought. 

^*  Paul,  Sent.  V.  xxiii.  14;  Dig.  48,  8,  3,  2 ;  8,  8.  The  date  is 
not  certain ;  Dig.  48,  8,  3,  4. 

''  B.  G.  U.  347.  82. 

^-Dig.  48,  8,  II.  pr. 

"  Paul,  Sent.  V.  xxii.  3. 

'^^  Lampridius,  Vita  Alex.  22. 

"^  Jews  made  converts  even  after  the  prohibition  of  Theo- 
dosius  (Jerome,  Migne  Patrol,  25,  p.  199;  26,  p.  311).  One 
further  ground  for  doubting  the  statement  of  Paul  as  it  appears 
in  the  extant  texts  is  the  following :  In  the  Digest  (48,  8,  4,  2) 
it  is  only  the  physician  and  the  slave  that  are  capitally  punished 
for  castration.  The  owner  of  the  slave  {ibid.  48,  8,  6)  is  pun- 
ished by  the  loss  of  half  his  property.  Further,  the  penalty  for 
circumcision  is  stated  to  be  the  same  as  that  for  castration. 
That  was  the  case  not  only  in  Modestinus'  time,  who  lived  after 
Paul,  but  as  late  as  Justinian,  since  it  is  received  into  the  Digest. 
Yet  Paul,  according  to  the  extant  text,  makes  the  circumcision  of 
alien  slaves  a  capital  crime  (V,  xxii.  4).  The  discrepancy  can 
scarcely  be  reconciled. 

^"  Capitol.    Antoninus  Pius,  5. 

"  193  c.  E.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  Pretorians 
offered  the  imperial  purple  to  the  highest  bidder. 

^-Josephus,  Ant.  XIV.  x. 

^  The  legend  of  Polycarp  assumes  a  large  and  powerful 
Jewish  community.  In  late  Byzantine  times,  the  Jews  of  Asia 
Minor  were  still  a  powerful  factor.  The  emperor  Michael 
II,  a  Phrygian,  was  suspected  of  Jewish  leanings ;  Theophanes 
(Contin.),  ii.  3  ff. 


412  NOTES  [pp.  351-361 

Chapter  XXI 

THE  LEGAL  POSITION  OF  THE  JEWS  IN  THE  LATER 

EMPIRE 

^  The  theory  advanced  by  Wilcken-Mitteis  (Grundziige  und 
Chrestomathie  der  Pap.  vol.  I.)  that  all  who  paid  a  poll-tax  were 
dediiicii,  and  therefore  excluded  from  the  Const.  Ant.  is  wholly 
gratuitous.  There  is  no  evidence  whatever  connecting  the 
dediticii  with  the  poll-tax. 

'"  There  are  few  reliable  statements  in  the  extant  texts  for 
estimating  the  population.  Beloch's  work  on  the  subject  puts 
all  the  data  together,  but  nothing  except  uncertain  conjectures 
can  be  offered. 

^  Lanciani,  Ancient  Rome,  pp.  50-51;  Pelham,  Essays  on 
Roman  History,  pp.  268  seq. 

■*  Lampridius,  Alex,  ss '  corpora  omnium  constituit  vinari- 
orum  .  .  .  .  et  omnino  omnium^  artium. 

"*  These  are  the  collegia,  idcirco  instituta  ut  necessariam 
opera m  publicis  utilitatibus  exhiberent  (Dig.  50,  6,  6,  i).  They 
are  the  transportation  companies  and  others  engaged  in  caring 
for  and  distributing  the  annona,  the  fire  companies  and  the 
burial  associations  of  the  poor.  Cf.  C.  1.  L.  vi.  85,  29691 ;  x. 
1642,  xiv.  21 12. 

"The  institutio  alimentaria  commemorated  on  the  marble 
slabs  (anaglypha)  in  the  Forum  and  by  the  bronze  tablets 
of  Veleia  and  the  Baebiani  (C.  I.  L.  ix.  1147;  xi.  1455).  It 
had  begun  with  Nerva :  puellas  puerosque.  natos  parentibus 
e gestosis  sumptu  publico  per  Jtaliae  oppida  ali  iussit  (Aur. 
Vict,  Nerva,  xii.). 

'An  entire  article  of  the  Digest  (26,  i)  is  devoted  to  the 
tutela.  Another  one  (27,  i)  deals  with  excusationes,  which 
are  mainly  exemptions  from  the  burden  of  the  tutela. 

^The  distinction  is  thoroughgoing  in  the  penal  clauses  cited 
in  the  Digest.  It  was  already  established  in  Trajan's  time 
(Plin.  Ep.  X,  Ixxix.  3).  It  is  implied  in  Suetonius,  Gains,  2y : 
multos  honesti  ordinis.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  the 
distinction  was  already  recognized  in  the  time  of  Caligula. 

®  Gains  wrote  about  150  c.  e.,  probably  in  the  eastern  prov- 
inces. 


pp.  362-367 J  NOTES  413 

"  Abot  ii.  5.  The  saying  of  Hillel  has  no  direct  reference 
to  apostasy,  and  concerns  rather  arrogance  or  eccentricity  of 
conduct.  But  it  literally  describes  the  act  by  which  such  a 
man  as  Tiberius  Julius  Alexander  ceased  to  be  classed  as  a 
Jew. 

"  Cf.  Plutarch,  Numa,  17 ;  Dionys.  Hal.  iv.  43. 

"^  Dig.  50,  2,  3,  3. 

"  Cod.  Theod.  viii.  14. 

"  Exodus  xxi.  2 ;  Josephus,  Ant.  IV.  viii.  28. 

"  Bab.  Bat.  3b ;  Gittin  46b.  The  duty  was  regarded  as  of 
the  highest  urgency. 

'^  Vogelstein  and  Rieger,  Gesch.  der  Juden,  p.  61  seq.  Fried- 
lander,  Darstellungen  der  Sitt.^  i.  p.  514. 

"  Ox.  Pap.  ii.  no.  276. 

"  Aurelian  reigned  from  270-27^  c.  e.  The  sol  invictus 
whom  he  adored  was  probably  the  Baal  of  Palmyra.  Cumont, 
Les  rel.  orient,  pp.  170,  367,  n.  59. 

"  Cod.  Theod.  xvi.  4. 

^"In  311  c.  E.  Galerius,  and  in  318  c.  e.  Constantine  and 
Licinius,  legalized  the  practice  of  Christianity.  In  380  c.  e., 
by  the  edict  of  Thessalonica,  most  of  the  heathen  practices 
became  penal  offenses. 

^^  Every  state  as  such  had  its  characteristic  and  legally  estab- 
lished state  ritual.  Many  centuries  later  Gladstone,  then  "  the 
rising  hope  of  the  stern  and  unbending  Tories,"  stated,  as  a 
self-evident  proposition,  that  a  government  in  its  collective 
capacity  must  profess  a  religion  (The  Church  in  its  Relation  to 
the  State,  1839). 

^^  Cyprian.  De  catholicae  ecclesiae  unitate,  ch.  x. 

^  Matth.  V.  13.  Cf.  generally  the  Pauline  Epistles,  e.  g.  II. 
Corinth,  xiii.  13. 


1 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
PERIODICALS 

The  Jewish  Quarterly  Review :  First  Series,  London,  i88g- 
1900.     Second  Series,  Philadelphia,  1910-date. 

Revue  de  etudes  juives,  Paris,  1880-date. 

Monatsschrift  fiir  Geschichte  und  Wissenschaft  des  Juden- 
thums,  Breslau,  1851-date. 

ENCYCLOPEDIAS 

Jewish  Encyclopedia:  New  York,  1901-1906. 

Encyclopedia   Biblica :   London,   1899. 

Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  1901-1904. 

Hastings'  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  1908.  Not 
yet  completed. 

Daremberg-Saglio :  Dictionnaire  des  antiquites  grecques  et 
romaines,  1877.     Not  yet  completed. 

Pauly-Wissowa  :  Realenzyklopadie,  1894.    Not  yet  completed. 

Schaff-Herzog-Hauck  :  Realencyklopadie  fiir  protestantische 
Kirche  und  Theologie.    3d  ed.  Eng.  tr.  1908. 

GENERAL  REFERENCE  BOOKS 

Gratz :  Geschichte  der  Juden  (1873-1895).  Eng.  tr.,  History 
of  the  Jews  (1891). 

Schiirer  :  Geschichte  des  jiidischen  Volkes  im  Zeitalter  Jesu 
Christi  (4th  ed.),  1901. 

Juster :  Les  juifs  dans  I'empire  romain,  1914. 

Wendland  :  Die  hellenistisch-romische.  Kultur  in  ihren  Be- 
ziehungen  zum  Judentum  und  Christentum,   1912. 

Wendland-Poland-Baumgarten :     Die   hellenistische    Kultur. 

Friedlander :  Darstellungen  aus  der  Sittengeschichte  Roms. 
Leipzig  (7th  ed.).    Eng.  tr.  London,  1909. 

Cumont :  Les  religions  orientales  dans  le  paganisme  romain, 
1912. 


INDEX 


Aboda  Zara,  329. 

Abstraction,  42. 

Aelia  Capitolina,  288,  342. 

Aeolian,  50. 

Africanus,  the  Younger,  45. 

Agatharchidas,   178. 

Agrippa  I,  king  of  the  Jews,  283, 
313. 

Agrippa  II,  king  of  the  Jews,  290. 

Akiba,  rabbi,  342. 

Akmonia,  z^T. 

Alexander  (Jannai),  king  of  the 
Jews,   274. 

Alexander  Severus,  Roman  em- 
peror, 346,  356. 

Alexander  the  Great,  37,  38,  52, 
78,  212,  368. 

Alexandria,  91,  107  seq.,  200,  229, 
255,    339,    362. 

Allia,  252. 

Amalekites,  tj. 

Antigonus,   128. 

Antigonus,  king  of  the  Jews,  267, 
270. 

Antigonus  of  Socho,  128,  133,  386. 

Antinois,  107. 

Antioch,  119,  138,  282. 

Antiochus  Cyzicenus,  63,  275. 

Antiochus  Epiphanes,  135  seq.,  205. 

Antiochus  Sidetes,  63. 

Anti-Semitism,  ^"j. 

Apamea,  22(). 

Apella,  177,  248,  402. 

Aphrodite,  Z2,  114,  ZT^' 

Apion,  168,  170,   189. 

Apocrypha,  18,  67,  331. 

Apollo,  2T,  46,  168. 

ApoUonius  Molo,   170,   194. 

Appuleius  Decianus,  227,. 

27 


Aramaic,   118. 

Archelaus,  278. 

Archigallus,   389. 

Aristobulus    I,    son    of   John    Hyr- 

canus,  63. 
Aristobulus    II,   son   of   Alexander 

Jannai,  64,   267. 
Aristophanes,  24. 
Aristotle,  81,  84,  212. 
Armenia,  265. 
Army,  Roman,  352. 
Artaxerxes  Ochus,  61,   181. 
Artemis,  2"],   140. 
Asclepius,  46. 
Asebeia,  34,  35,  123,  163  seq.,  334. 

Asia  Minor,  58,  63,  331,  348. 

Asianism,    198. 

Ass,   168  seq. 

Assideans.      See  Hasidim. 

Assuan,  60,  96. 

Astrology,  241,  243,  317,  407. 

Atheism,  100,  191  seq.,  335. 

Athena,  ZZ,  83. 

Athens,   52. 

Atonement,  Day  of,  399  seq. 

Atticism,  198. 

Augustus,     Roman     emperor,     245, 

254,  257,  294. 
Aurelian,  Roman  emperor,  366. 
Avaris,  173. 

Babylon,  56,  366. 

Bacchanalia,   166,  238,  310. 

Bagoas,  62. 

Barbarian,  49,  51. 

Bar  Kochba  See  Bar  Kosiba. 

Bar  Kosiba,  65,  342,  348. 

Bastian,  377. 

Ben  Sira.     See  Jesus,  son  of  Sira. 


4i8 


INDEX 


Bible,  20,  59,  60. 
Byzantine,  411. 

Cabiri,    149. 

Caesar  (Gaius  Julius  Caesar),  222, 

244,  294. 
Caligula.     See  Gaius. 
Calumnia,  332  seg. 
Camillus,  45. 
Candide,  85. 
Caphthor,  77,  381. 
Caracalla,  348,  351. 
Carthage,  45,   188. 
Cassius,  Dio.     See  Dio  Cassius. 
Catiline,  222,  260. 
Celsus,   255. 
Chaeremo,  201. 
Chaldeans,   244,   255. 
Charles,   19. 
Chrestus,  313. 

Christians,  313,  316,  346,  366. 
Cicero,  53,    196,   220  seq. 
Circumcision,  80,  143,  345,  411. 
Citium,  1 14,  376. 
City-state,  69,  105  seq. 
Claudius,     Roman     emperor,     284, 

313. 
Clearchus,  84. 

Clemens.     See  Flavius  Clemens. 
Clemens,    of    Alexandria,    86,    200. 
Clodius,  244. 
Constantine,   353. 
Constitutio   Antoniniana,   262,   350, 

361,  371,  403. 
Crassus,  265,  397. 
Credulity,   176,  271. 
Crete,   164,   186. 
Cybele,  46,   158,   161,  238,  242. 
Cynics,    158,    240. 
Cyprian,  366. 
Cyprus,   33,   338. 
Cyrene,  249,   338. 

Damocritus,  170,  189. 
Daniel,  Book  of,  52,  135. 
David,  73,   179. 
Dead  Sea,  81. 
Dediticii,  361. 


Deification,  37  seq.,  261. 

Delphi,   231,  378. 

Deme,   107. 

Demeter,  27. 

Demetrius,  Jewish   writer,    127. 

Demetrius  (the  Besieger),  38,  127, 

212. 
Demosthenes,  53. 
Diagoras  of  Melos,  193. 
Diana.     See  Artemis. 
Diaspora,  60,  208,  369. 
Diatribe,    158. 

Dio  Cassius,  300,   334,  338,  342. 
Diocletian,  350,  353,  365. 
Dionysus,   32,  35,    142,   171,  376. 
Dioscuri,  46. 
Domitian,   335. 
Dorian,  50. 
Druids,  142,  319. 

Ecclesia,  366,  408. 

Ecclesiasticus.      See   Jesus,   son   of 

Sira. 
Egypt,   80,   88,   97,    144,    152,    153, 

166,    172,    249,    269,   305,    338, 

345,  353,  362. 
Eleazar,   206. 

Elephantine,  60,  96,  97,  180. 
Eleusis,  35,   152,  377- 
Eliphaz,  70. 
Ennius,   53. 
Epicurus,  164. 
Eschatology,  72,   161. 
Essenes,   279. 
Ethiopic,  19. 

Etruscans,  43,  210,  213,  321. 
Euhemerus,  47. 
Euphrates,   river,   87. 
Eusebia,  339,  342. 
Euthyphro,  84. 
Exodus,  96.  99. 
Ezra,  57- 

Fast,  399- 

Fiscus  ludaicus,  332,  363- 
Flaccus,  prefect  of  Egypt,  200. 
Flaccus,  proconsul  of  Asia,  221. 
Flavius  Clemens,  335,  336. 


INDEX 


419 


Florus,  Gessius,  283,  286. 

Formula,  43. 

Freedmen,  220,  245,  255,  307,  379. 

Gabinius,  223. 

Gaius,  Roman  emperor   (Caligula), 

282,  313. 
Gaius,  Roman  jurist,  361,  412. 
Galilee,  280. 
Gauls,    187,   2:^2. 
Gerizim,  57,    138. 
Gods,  24,  40. 
Greek  names,    123,    128. 
Grundideen,  40,  277. 

Haberim.     See  Pharisees. 
Hades,  152,  154. 
Hadrian,   107,  340,  343. 
Hannibal,   174,   188. 
Harmodius,  37. 
Hasidim,   130  seq.,   147. 
Hasmoneans,  63,  74,   158. 
Hecataeus  of  Abdera,  92  seq.,   176, 

182. 
Helladius,    102. 
Hellene,   49. 
Hellenization,    79,     116,     133,     145, 

207. 
Henotheism,  29. 
Heracles,  46. 
Hermippus,  89. 
Herod     (the    Great),    king    of    the 

Jews,  264,  269,  222,  403. 
Herodotus,  80. 
Heroes,  29,  30,  36. 
Hillel,  69. 
Hindu,  85. 

Historia  Augusta,  344,  357,  411. 
Homer,  23,  25,  49,    150,    184,   200. 
Horace     (Quintus    Hora:tius     Flac- 

cus),  245  seq.,  321. 
Human  sacrifices,  187. 
Hyksos,  98. 
Hyrcanus     II,     son     of    Alexander 

Jannai,  267. 

Idumaea,  157,   168,  270. 
Images,  273,  280. 


Immortality,    71,    153    seq.,   237. 
Impiety.     See  Asebeia. 
Inhospitality,  93,  183  seq. 
Ionian,    50. 

Isis,   161,    166,  251,  307,  311. 
Isocrates,  78. 

Jerusalem,   178,  224,  222. 

Jesus,      founder      of      Christianity. 

See  Christians. 
Jesus,  son  of  Sira  (Ecclesiasticus), 

19,  67,  118. 
Joel,  Book  of,  78,  382. 
John,    high    priest,    son    of    Simon 

(Hyrcanus),  63,    155,  274. 
Jonathan,    Hasmonean    prince,    son 

of  Mattathiah,  63. 
Jordan,   73. 
Jose  ben  Joezer,  133. 
Joseph,    son    of    Tobiah,    Egyptian 

tax-farmer,    130. 
Josephus,  Titus(?)   Flavius,  18,  85, 

99,     109,     155,     164,     193,    285, 

289,  296,  306,  272. 
Judah  Makkabi,  63,  132,  214. 
Jupiter,  43. 
Juvenal,  54»  189,  222  seq. 

Kautzsch,  19. 

Lectisternium,   46. 

Levant,  72. 

I.ex  Cornelia  de  Sicariis,  337,  344. 

Liby-Phoenicians,  53. 

Lucian,  192. 

Lysimachus,  195. 

Ma.     See  Cybele. 

Maccabeans.      See    Hasmoneans. 

Maccabees,  First  Book  of,  74,   130, 

132,   141,   180,  214. 
Maccabees,    Second    Book   of,    131, 

141,    180. 
Maccabees,    Fourth    Book   of,    204, 

205. 
Macedonians,  50,  108,  no. 
Macrobius,  45,  222. 
Maecenas,  245,  247,  263. 


420 


INDEX 


Magi,  85. 

Magic,  41,  239. 

Manetho,  99. 

Marathon,  60. 

Martial,  302,  325  seq.,  329. 

Mathematici.     See  Astrology. 

Mattathiah,  63,  74,  180. 

Megasthenes,  86. 

Megillat  Taanit,   20,  410. 

Meir,  rabbi,  297. 

Meleager  of  Gadara,   177,  329. 

Menelaus,  37. 

Messiah,    72    seq.,    293,    298,    319, 

341,  370,  406,  410. 
Metics,  34,  109,  1 12. 
Miletus,  331. 
Minoan,   13,  77,  374. 
Misanthropy.      See    Inhospitality. 
Mishnah,  69,  328. 
Mithra,  241,  357. 
Mithradates,  63. 
Mnaseas,  168. 
Molech,   188,  393. 
Molo.     See  Apollonius  Molo. 
Moloch.     See  Molech. 
Miiller,  Max,  375. 
Mysteries,  35,   152. 
Mythology,  25,  26,  44,  236. 

Names,  123,   128. 

Nasi,  265,  363. 

Naucratis,    104. 

Nehemiah,    57,  61. 

Nero,    Roman    emperor,    285,    294, 

315   seq. 
Nerva,  334. 
Nicarchus,  201. 
Nicocles,  387. 

Nicolaus,   of    Damascus,    277,    405. 
Nile,   91. 

Olam   ha-bo.     See   Immortality. 

Orphism,    153. 

Osarsiph,    100. 

Osiris,   100,   115,  385. 

Ostia,   Z27- 

Ovid,  250  seq. 


Pantheism,  31. 

Papyri,  339.     See  also  Elephantine; 

Assuan. 
Parthians,  265,  297,  340,  370, 
Passover,  97. 
Paul,  of  Tarsus,  315,  320. 
Paul,  Roman  jurist,  338,  346. 
Pederasty,  160,  330. 
Pentateuch,  67. 
Pergamon,   107. 
Persians,  52,   108. 
Persius,  321  seq. 
Petronius,  legate  of  Syria,  282. 
Pharisees,  71,   155,  265,  283. 
Philistia,  72. 
Philo    (of    Alexandria)),    17,    200, 

227,  307,  Z73- 
Phoenicia,   77,.  78. 
Pilate  (Titus  Pontius  Pilatus),  280. 
Pirke  Abot,   128. 
Plato,  42,   194. 
Pliny,    196. 
Plutarch,  171. 
Polis.     See  City-state. 
Polybius,    140,   141,   174. 
Polytheism,   160. 
Pompeius  Trogus,  274,   404. 
Pompey,  64,   181,  215,  227. 
Poppaea  Sabina,  316. 
Porphyrius,  81. 
Poseidon,  23- 
Posidonius,  169,  170,  203. 
Prayer,  houses  of,  69. 
Propaganda,     148     seq.,     208,     240, 

263,  370. 
Proselyte,  247.  296,  316,  389. 
Proseucha,  65. 
Psalms  of  Solomon,  216. 
Pseudepigrapha,   19. 
Ptolemies,   116,   133,   180. 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus,   102. 
Ptolemy  Philometor,   175,   178. 
Ptolemy  Philopator,    182. 
Ptolemy   Soter,   80,   91,    178. 
Pyrrhus,  212. 
Pythagoras,   89. 

Quietus,  Lusius,  339, 


INDEX 


421 


Ra,  38,  116. 
Race,  48  seq.,  379. 
Reinach,  Theodore,   17. 
Religion,  21,  22. 
Resurrection,  71,   155. 
Rhetoric,  85,  167,   173,  178,  391. 
Rhodes,    198. 
Ritual   murder,    190. 
Rome,  63,  210  seq. 

Sabazios,   161,   171,    179,   2:55. 
Sabbath,    143,    177,    181,    246   seq., 

254,    321.      See   also   Thirtieth 

Sabbath. 
Sabbatistae,  179. 
Sacrifice,  28. 
Sadducees,  155. 
Salamis  (Cyprus),  340. 
Salvation,   150. 

Samaritans,   58,   138,  281,  285. 
Sambethe,    179. 
Sanhedrin,  265,  363. 
Sarapis,   114,  385. 
Sardinia,  307,  312. 
Satire,  246,  321. 
Scipionic  Circle,   138. 
Scribes,  61. 
Scythians,   186,  190. 
Seder  01am,  20,  404. 
Sejanus,  312. 
Seleucia,    164. 
Seleucid,  ^z^   146. 
Seleucus,  38. 
Seneca,  310,  318,  324. 
Septuagint,    102. 
Shechem,  57. 
Sheol,  70,  ISO,  388. 
Sibyl,    179,  298. 
Sidon,  79,  83,  382. 
Simon,   high  priest,   son   of   Matta- 

thiah,  230. 
Slavas,  219,  2Z1,  309,  352,  364. 
Socrates,  84,   193. 
Sodom,  330. 
Sparta,  51,   151,    186. 
Standards,  280. 
Stoics,  204,  240,  Z22. 


Strabo,   186,  249. 
Suetonius,  295,  305,  317 
Suidas,    170. 

Synagogue,  254,  zjy,  362. 
Syria,  76  seq.,  215,  264,  ztj. 
Syrians,    216,    2ZZ,    239,    244,    363, 
380. 

Tacitus,    102,    170,    189,    283,    307, 

317. 
Talmud,    20.  "■ 

Tertullian,    318,   408. 
Theodore  of  Cyrene,    193. 
Theodosius,  347,  366. 
Theophrastus,    81. 
Theudas,   284. 
Thiasi,   244,   357, 
Thirtieth   Sabbath,   399    seq. 
Thracians,    187,    188. 
Tiberius,  200,  254,  304. 
Titus,  Roman  emperor,  300  seq. 
Tosefta,  331. 
Trajan,   338. 

Trogus.      See   Pompeius  Trogus. 
Trojan,  49. 
Typhon,    172. 
Tyre,  78. 

Valerius  Maximus,  255. 
Varro,   Marcus   Terentius,   234. 
Varus,   Publius  Quintilius,  276. 
Veil,  45. 
Vespasian,  341. 

Wisdom  of  Solomon,  159,  242. 

Xenophanes,  31. 
Xenophon,   194,  258. 
Xiphilinus,  335,  338. 

Yavan,  50,  79. 

Zabidus,   168. 
Zealot,   288. 
Zechariah,  -jz^  87. 
Zerubbabel,  59. 
Zeus,   28,    138. 
Zion,  268. 


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