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14. Was There Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity?

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14. Was There Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity? 14.Was There Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity? Pagan attitudes and behavior towardthe Jews present us with apuzzling para- dox. Greeks and Romans have arelativelygood track recordintheir treatment of alien peoples, foreign cults,and exotic customs.They normallywelcomed—or at least put up with—other cultures,ethnic groups,and strangemodes of worship. They had good reason to do so. ManyGreek cities and, of course, Rome itself traced theirown origins to peoples from abroad, postulated aracialmixture within their own composition, and acknowledgedthe salutary influences that they had absorbed from othercultures.¹ Even on matters of religion, Romans in particularadapted practices that stemmed from elsewhere, and rarely sup- pressed or resisted foreign cultsthat might enrich theirown civilization.² Yetthe experience of the Jews would appeartobeareal blot on the record. Some unsettling,disturbing,indeed horrific, events marked that experience in the Greco-Roman period. Probablythe most dramatic and notorious episode oc- curred in Alexandria, the so-called “pogrom” of 38 C.E. Certain Greek trouble- makers in that city,soweare told in the account of Philo, acontemporary and possiblyaneye-witness, provoked the Roman prefect of Egypt at the time of the emperor Caligula into curtailing the privileges of Jews in the city.This tap- ped into some deep-seatedhatred of Jews among the Egyptians.There followed an escalatingseries of attacks, arising out of political, religious,orsocial discon- tents,orsome combination thereof. As aconsequence, Jews wereconfined to a ghetto, wheremobsindulgedinbeatings, torture, humiliation, and murder.In addition,Jewish women werearrested and compelled to eat swine’sflesh or suf- fer intolerable torments.³ See E.S. Gruen Rethinking the Other (Princeton, ), –. See E.M. Orlin Foreign Cults in Rome (Oxford, ), passim. Principal evidenceinPhilo, Flacc. –.The bibliographyonthe riots in Alexandria is huge.Unnecessary to register it here.See the references and discussion in E.S.Gruen Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge,Mass., ), –, –;add also P.W. van der Horst Philo’sFlaccus:The FirstPogrom (Leiden, ); A. Kerkeslager “The AbsenceofDio- nysios, Lampo, and Isidoros from the Violence in Alexandria in C.E.” Studia Philonica Annu- al, (), –;J.E. Atkinson “Ethnic CleansinginRoman Alexandria in ,” Acta Clas- sica, (), –;A.Harker Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt: TheCaseofthe Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge, ), –;A.Avidov Not Reckonedamong Nations (Tübin- gen, ), –;and, especially, the fine studyofS.Gambetti TheAlexandrian Riots of C.E. and the Persecution of the Jews:AHistorical Reconstruction (Leiden, )., with full ref- 314 14. WasThereJudeophobia in Classical Antiquity? The Alexandrian riot mayhavebeen the best documented case of this sort. But it was by no means alone. The citizens of Babylon, Josephus reports,had long harbored hostility to Jews dwellingintheirmidstbecause of the incompat- ibility of their laws. Hencethe Jews in 40 C.E. pulled up stakes and movedto Seleuceia on the Tigris. Their arrival, however,complicated tensions between Sy- rians and Greeks,then galvanized these twogroups into combined action, lead- ing to the victimization of the Jews. Morethan 50,000,accordingtoJosephus, werekilled; others fled to neighboring cities in Mesopotamia.⁴ At Caesarea around 59 C.E., quarrels eruptedovercompetingcivic privileges in the city be- tween Jews and Syrians.The two groups engagedinphysical assaultsonone an- other,thus promptingthe interventionofthe Romanprefect—who then turned his fire power primarilyonthe Jews.⁵ Those hostilitiesescalated in lethal fashion duringthe Jewish rebellion against Rome. The residents of Caesarea rose once more and slaughtered, so we are told, 20,000 Jews, emptying the city altogether of its Jewish population.⁶ The event sparked reprisals by Jews and counter-at- tacks by their enemies in city after city of the Decapolis and greater Syria. Jose- phus paints alurid picture of massacres and pillaging, piles of corpses,nospar- ing of the elderly, women, and infants, ahost of unspeakable atrocities.⁷ These are chilling episodes. How does one square this information with the general forbearance and lais- sez-faire attitudes of pagan antiquity toward foreign peoples and beliefs?Are the Jews aspecial case? Does the targeting of that people count as anti-semitism,a form of racism or proto-racism? As is well known, “anti-semitism” is amodern expression, not an ancient one. It first surfaces in 19th century Germany.⁸ No equivalent of this phrase occurs erencestothe literature. See further B. Ritter Judeans in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire: Rights, Citizenship and Civil Discord (Leiden, ). Jos. A. J. .–. Jos. B. J., .–;Jos. A. J. .–.See the valuable notesofS.Mason Flavius Jo- sephus,Translation and Commentary,vol. b, The Judean War (Leiden, ), –. Jos. B. J., .. Jos. B. J., .–,with the commentary of S. Mason Flavius Josephus, –. Earlier scholarship on “anti-semitism” in antiquity is convenientlysummarized by J.G. Gager TheOrigins of Anti-Semitism (New York, ), –.See further N. de Lange “The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Ancient Evidenceand Modern Interpretations,” in S.L. Gilman and S.T. Katz, Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis (New York, ), –;Z.Yavetz “Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity:ADifferent Approach,” JJS, (), –;P.Schäfer Judeophobia: Attitudesto- wardthe Jews in the AncientWorld (Cambridge,Mass., ), –, –;B.Isaac The In- vention of Racism in ClassicalAntiquity (Princeton, ), –;V.Herholt Antisemitismus 14. WasThereJudeophobia in Classical Antiquity? 315 in Greek or in Latin. Indeed, “anti-semitism” as aformulation is misleading on anycount.Semiticpeoples encompass more than justJews. Babylonians were Semites too—as indeedare Arabs. Somehavesubstituted “anti-Judaism” for “anti-semitism.” But this does not help much.⁹ If the former signifies animosity towardthe religion rather than towardrace or ethnicity,thatseems inapplicable to the ancient situation. Religion as such, whatever that might mean (a matter of considerable dispute), was not suppressed, persecuted, or eradicated. Judaism was not the target—Jews were. Another phrase has gained some currency: “Judeophobia.” The term was ad- vocated independentlybytwo distinguishedscholars in the 1990s and retains force.¹⁰ It merits scrutiny. Are we to believethat there was widespread fear of Jews in pagan circles or pagan communities?Does some form of anxiety lie at the root of hostility to Jews, one thatcould even issue in apogrom? Jews werenoticed by some Greek and Roman writers, intellectuals, and framers of opinion. We possess afair number of remarks and observations from arangeofpagan authorswho had occasion to comment on the Jews.¹¹ It is easy enough to find passages in which Jews are stigmatized for one failing or another. So, for instance, the celebrated rhetorician Apollonius Molon, who taught on the island of Rhodesinthe 1st centuryB.C.E., characterized Jews as atheists and misanthropes. He went further to accuse them of both recklessness on the one hand and cowardice on the other.The traits of recklessness and cowardice do in der Antike (Mörlenbach, ), –.The survey by D. Nirenberg Anti-Judaism: TheWestern Tradition (New York, ), –,focuses exclusively on Egypt and Alexandria. Cf. J.N. Sevenster TheRoots of PaganAnti-Semitism in the Ancient World (Leiden, ), –; Yavetz “Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity,” –; idem, Judenfeindschaft in der Antike (Mu- nich, ), –. Yavetz “Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity”;Schäfer Judeophobia. It is interestingthat Ya- vetz’slectures in German were entitled, Judenfeindschaft,which is rather different from “Judeo- phobia”;Yavetz (). Judenfurcht,however,does not seem to surfaceinthe scholarlylitera- ture.See the remarksonthis formulation by M.H. Williams “Review of Yavetz, Judenfeindschaft and Schäfer, Judeophobia,” JRS, (), ;Isaac (), –. The indispensable collection, of course, is that of M. Stern Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vols.(Jerusalem, , , ). Space allows treatment onlyofasmall se- lection. Foradiscussionofthe rivalExodusstories by Jewish and gentile authors, often taken as exemplary of mutual antagonism, see the paper by E.S.Gruen “The Use and Abuse of the Exodus Story,” JewishHistory, () – [available in this volume] and the responses to it by L.H. Feldman “Did Jews Reshape the Tale of the Exodus?” JewishHistory, (), –; J.G. Gager “Some Thoughts on Greco-Roman Versions of the Exodus Story,” JewishHistory, (), –;and J.M. Mélèze Modrzejewski, “The Exodus Traditions:Parody or Parallel Version?” JewishHistory, (), –. 316 14. WasThereJudeophobia in Classical Antiquity? not normallycoincide. But Apollonius seems unconcerned about inconsistency— if Josephus’ paraphrase is accurate. He adds that Jews werethe least talented of all barbarians (i.e. non-Greeks) and the onlyones who had made no creative contribution to civilization.¹² Acentury later, the caustic Alexandrian writer Apion showered invective upon the Jews. Among other things, he denounced them for worshippingthe wronggods, for promotingsedition, and for swearing an oathtobenasty to all gentiles, especiallyGreeks.¹³ Apion supplies ahost of other slanders, even adding gratuitouslyhis ownetymologyfor the word “Sab- bath”:itcomesfrom an Egyptian root meaningdisease of the groin.¹⁴ Latin writ- ers toocarried on this disparagement.One need citeonlyTacitus, who delivered the most sweeping condemnation. Forthe Roman historian, the Jews wereapeo- ple hateful to the gods, their practices of worship
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