Rome and
the Jews
|
To the present day, the heritage of those
times is still a burden on the human race.
|
Theodor
Mommsen
|

The edict of Cyrus in 538
BC. gave
permission for the exiles to return to their homeland, to rebuild
Jerusalem and
the temple, and live according to the statutes of Nehemiah and Ezra.
This did
not entail political independence, neither from the Persian overlord
nor his
Macedonian successors. It did not even entail statehood, and there were
renewed
deportations under Artaxerxes Ochus (359 – 338
BC.). “The
small community of
exiles, driven out by foreign
rule, and brought back again by a change in the hands wielding that
rule, began
their new establishment by abruptly repelling the remnants of their
kinsmen
left behind to work the land for the invaders, and so laid the
foundation for
the irreconcilable feud between Jews and Samaritans. The ideal of
national
exclusiveness and priestly control holding the mind in chains, the so
called
Mosaic theocracy, had developed long before the Roman period, under the
government of the Seleucids, and took on the form of a clerical
corporation
with the high-priest at its head, which, acquiescing in foreign rule
and
renouncing the formation of a state, guarded the distinctiveness of its
adherents, and dominated them under the aegis of the protective power.
This
retention of the national character in religious forms, while ignoring
the
state, was the distinctive mark of later Judaism” (Mommsen). In 142 BC. the
Hasmonean regime negotiated a permanent treaty with the Seleucids in
Antioch and established the first autonomous Jewish state after the
fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. But the rationale of the Zionists under
Nehemiah and Ezra had been that there should be no monarchy, not of the
house of David nor by the Maccabees. This created a long festering rift
between the factions. The Pharisees maintained that autonomous
statehood is only desirable under a theocratic rule. Naturally the man
sitting on the throne, as long as there was throne to sit on, begged to
differ.
The Pharisees of the period can be best
described as
a fundamentalist movement with strong support in the peasantry. Their
opponents
in the establishment, the Sadducees, represented a more urban, even
cosmopolitan
class of Hellenized merchants and aristocrats. The conflict came to a
head when Jannaeus
Alexander (103 – 76
BC.)
became King of Judea. In 93 BC.,
at the
feast of Tabernacles, King Jannaeus officiated as his own high-priest
and
publicly made a mockery of the ceremony.
This caused a riot among the Pharisees in
the crowd.
The king called in his guards, and in the ensuing massacre, it is
alleged, some
6,000 people were killed. The Pharisees appealed to Syria for aid, but
King
Jannaeus repelled the Syrian army and nailed 800 Pharisees to the cross
(Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 5:9, 13,5).
Yet in 75 BC. the pendulum swung the other way. Alexander’s wife,
Salome,
succeeded as the new queen drawing on support from the Pharisees. The
Queen
recalled the exiles, and for the first time the legend on the coinage
used the
term “Sanhedrin” for
the council
of Jerusalem. “Although Salome held the title, the Pharisees held
the real
rule of the country, and they administered it with the harshness,
insolence,
and recklessness of a fanatical religious party which suddenly obtains
unlimited power. All who were suspected of leanings towards the
Sadducees were
removed by intrigue or violence from the Sanhedrin. Previous ordinances
differing from Pharisaical views were abrogated, and others breathing
the new
spirit substituted. So sweeping and thorough was the change, that the
Sadducees
never recovered their former status, and those in office were obligated
to
conform to Pharisaic practice at any time.” (Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 1:4;
16:2). After the queen’s death
this did lead to open civil
war, and in 63 BC. a delegation of 200 Pharisees appealed to the Senate
in Rome
to intervene and reinstate their exiled candidate as the high-priest.
The Senate obliged and commissioned
Pompeius to sort
out the Palestinian affairs. Pompeius sent ambassadors, Gabienus and
Scaurus,
to arbitrate between the Jewish factions. The attempt failed
and
Pompeius saw no other option than to lay siege to Jerusalem. After
brokering a
deal between the parties, Pompeius departed without touching the
treasure in
the temple, yet not without taking a guided tour into the holiest of
holiest,
to see for himself, what all the fuss was about. (Orosius 6:6; Dio 37:15; Plutarch Pompeius 41:42; Florus 1:39; Josephus, Antiquities XIV, 3:3,4). He left with a shrug.
This was the first of a succession of
Roman
interventions. When In 29 BC. Herod the Great executed the last
surviving
Hasmonean, his own wife Mariamne (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 7; Wars
I, 22), Judea was already a
Roman clientele state. Herod started an extensive building program and
constructed the new harbor and city of Caesarea as a birthday present
to Emperor Augustus. A new Samaria rose from the ruins and was called
“Sebaste,” the Greek name for Augustus. Herod erected theatres and
hippodromes, even in Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 8:1,
XVI, 5:1; Wars
I, 21:1, 5), which did not
exactly
endear him to the religious establishment. To pacify the grumbling, he
began in
22 BC. the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 11:1). In Rome, the emperor repaid his client’s
generosity
by granting the spiritual chiefs of the
Jews
sufficient autonomy to raise taxes beyond the borders of Palestine and
even
beyond the borders of the Empire. Every Jew in the Diaspora was obliged
to pay annually
a “didrachmon” as tribute to
the temple
in Judea, which came in more regularly than the taxes to the state. An
unique
and ill advised privilege! It caused an outcry in the Greek
citizenry of
Greece, Anatolia and North Africa.
The surviving sources and
the Gospels
concentrate on the Jewish territories in Palestine as the main theatre
of
events, yet this is giving the wrong impression. The Jews in Palestine
amounted
only to a fraction of the Jewish communities in Babylonia, Syria,
Anatolia,
Egypt, and Libya. (Cicero, Pro
Flacco, 28:68; Strabo, frag. 6, Josephus,
Antiquities, XIV, 7:2;
Wars II, 16:4, VII, 3:3; Philo, In
Flaccum, 7; Seneca, frag.
41-43; Augustine, City of
God 6:10; Acts 2:9-11). To some extent these
communities were
creations of Alexander the Great and his
successors. (Josephus Contra
Apion, II:4,
Antiquities XII:1; Appian Syr. 50). Everywhere in the East, the Jews held
political charters on an equal footing with Greek communities, granting
them their own courts and civil jurisdiction. All that was required
from
them, was
use of the Greek language. This extended well into Palestine and the
process of
Hellenizing was well under way when Judas Maccabeus rose against the
regime in
Syria and established the Hasmonean dynasty. If for nothing else, this
is born
out by the Greek names of the last high priests before the Maccabees,
and by
most of the names of the Hasmoneans themselves, such as Onias III.,
Jason,
Menelaus, and Alcimus (Josephus Antiquities XII, 5:1, 9:7). Jerusalem
was already a
Hellenistic city, complete with arena and playhouse, even before the
intervention of Syria in 168 BC. Alexandria, too, was as much a city of
the
Jews, as of the Greeks, in fact it was the city with the largest Jewish
population in the empire.
The census figure for the
number of Jews
living in Egypt under Emperor Augustus amounted to one million. The
affluent
Judaism of the Hellenistic Diaspora was anything but exclusive. The
gospels
speak of rabbis who traveled land and sea to make a proselyte. Ptolemy
II,
Philadelphus (309
– 246 BC.) had
ordered the
sacred scriptures of the Jews to be translated into Greek. The
knowledge of
Biblical Hebrew became just as uncommon in the Jewish communities, as
is the
knowledge of Biblical Greek among Christians today. Gentile “friends
of the
faith” could
expect to
be admitted without being circumcised. Yet “owing to the barrier
which their
deeply rooted religious observances formed around them, the Jews never
became
fully absorbed in the surrounding populations” (Richard
Gottheil).
Only gradually it dawned on
Emperor
Augustus that the Sanhedrin’s privilege had created an internal
dualism in the Roman administration, since it permitted the Sanhedrin
to exercise civil
jurisdiction over all the Jews everywhere in the Empire. When the
Sanhedrin
allegedly authorized Paul to arrest and prosecute Jewish offenders in
Damascus,
he would have acted within the Sanhedrin’s rights. Therefore the Roman
regime
was very careful not to allow the autonomous bodies of Jews in the East
ever to
became a model for similar developments in the Western part of the
Empire.
There was toleration of their faith and Emperor Augustus bestowed
favors on a
Jewish colony in the Roman suburbs. He even supplemented his largess
for those
who on account of the Sabbath had missed the payout (Philo, de
legatione).
Personally, however, the emperor
avoided all contact with Jewish worship and attempted to rewrite the
charters
of rights and privileges in the Ionian cities of Greece.
Confronted with the
alternative, either
to withdraw from their faith or to assume full responsibility as active
participants in the municipal administration, the Jewish quarters (or ‘collegia’) in Ionia and Greece put
up stiff
resistance, causing unrest and riots. Augustus colleague in office,
Agrippa,
therefore confirmed the status quo. Any attempt to obstruct Jewish
observances
became subject to fines (Josephus Antiquity
XIV, 10:23).
Previously a mere concession by local authorities (Josephus,
Antiquities XII, 3:2;
XVI, 2:3-5), the
exemption
from military service and observing the Sabbath was now written into
imperial
law (Josephus, Antiquities XIV: 6:2-7;
Philo, De
Legatione 40).
The Romans
went even one step further. “Augustus
directed the governors of Asia not to apply against the Jews the
rigorous
imperial laws against unions and assemblies” (Mommsen). This was a sensitive issue, considering
that a confident emperor, such
as Trajan (98
– 117 AD.), expressed concerns
over inner security, when a
provincial governor asked for permission to set up a much needed
professional
fire brigade in Nicomedia, a quiet town, not exactly known for
political
upheavals (Pliny
the
younger,
Letters X:24). The Roman government was acutely aware
that the legislative
concessions and especially the tax privileges for Jews carried the seed
of race
hate and civil war into the local townships, even encouraged foreign
powers
from abroad to stir up trouble and lend
support to
rebellious factions.
On the other hand, although
Jews may have
been privileged "peregrini," legally they remained
foreigners and were deprived of all
the rights and honors to which a citizen in the cities of Greece and in
the
Roman state was entitled. The geographer Strabo (63 – 3 BC.), in his census of the four
classes of inhabitants in Libya,
reflected this in a distinction between Jews and citizens (Josephus,
Antiquities XIV, 7:2). Which meant that in the
Greek townships
the Jews were required to pay a municipal poll tax imposed upon foreign
residents. Only the privilege of full citizenship could assure full
equality.
For a Jew loyal to his faith, this made it difficult if not impossible
to
maintain the privilege of fiscal and judicial autonomy and of exemption
from
military service. Besides, the corporate charter of a city in those
days
required observance of the local cult, effectively excluding the Jews.
Philo declared that the Jews
consider as
their "real homeland" the country they inhabit (Philo In Flaccum,
7), and we hear
that in exceptional cases
the rights of citizenship were indeed accorded to individual Jews, but
the only
way to avoid all chicaneries with the local authorities was to acquire
Roman
citizenship. It carried advantages even in a Greek township. In
Ephesus,
Sardis, and Anatolia, a considerable number of Jews possessed Roman
citizenship (Josephus Antiquity,
XIV, 10:13,
14, 16-19). In
Jerusalem, in
66 AD., we hear of Jews who were Roman knights (Josephus, Wars II,
14:9). Even in
the capital, since the time of
Cicero, there was an electorate of Jewish citizens (Philo, de
legatione 23; Cicero, Pro
Flacco, 28; Acts 6:9). Acts is depicting Paul as a
citizen of Tarsus (Acts 21:39) with a claim to the
privilege of Roman
citizenship (Acts 16:37-39). Somebody here was
desperate to provide
his protagonist with the right credentials – rabbinic education and
Gentile
legal status. However a Jew who had Roman citizenship did not possess
the
"jus honorum,"
unless he abjured his national customs. The same thing was true of a
Roman who
embraced the Jewish faith. All the same, for the Gentile tax payer
Judaism was
an attractive proposition and induced a great number of non-Jewish
Orientals to
attach themselves to this privileged category of denizens in the
eastern
townships.
Women in particular felt
drawn to the
Jewish religion. Emperor Nero’s wife, Poppaea Sabina (30 – 65), a woman with an impeccable
Roman
pedigree, was known for her Jewish faith and her zealous patronage of
Jews.
Even royal houses, such as King Izates from Adiabene and his entire
family,
converted to Judaism (Josephus Antiquities
XX, 7:1,3).
However, the Jews’ undisguised contempt for the Hellenic cults,
pageants, and gymnastic displays, and their uncompromising religious
propaganda, didn’t make them the most popular people on Earth,
especially not
with the Greek population. The pious Jew would neither dine at the
table of a
Gentile nor receive him at his own table. He would not go to the
theaters, the
circuses, the gymnasia, nor even read a secular book, "unless it be
at
twilight."
Mixed
marriages remained something unheard of. In townships like Parium and
Tralles,
therefore, the exercise of Jewish religion was prohibited by local law (Josephus Antiquities
XIV, 10:8).
During the Jewish War, Jews
in Syria
suffered from daily assaults and the city council of Antioch demanded
their
deportation. In Rome the future pope Calixtus did time in the Sardinian
mines
for stirring up anti-Semitic riots (Hippolytus,
Philosophumena, 9:12). Even in this early period,
the
Christian clergy was generally hostile to the Jews, but the
intellectuals of
the first and second century, Gentile and Jewish, used to treat each
other with
respect.
Nicolaus of Damascus,
himself a Gentile
and noted peripatetic philosopher, carried diplomatic missions to
Augustus and
Agrippa on behalf of his Jewish client, Herod the Great. Philo of
Alexandria (BC. 20 – 50
AD.) attempted
to be the intermediary between
Judaism and Platonism. Pseudo Longinus’ brilliant essay On the
Sublime
might be the work by a Jew. Jews held
senior positions in the Empire’s administration. From 46 to 48 AD.,
Tiberius
Alexander was the procurator or prefect of Judea, before he became
chief of
staff under Nero’s general in Syria. He was responsible for preparing
the
campaign against Judea that eventually would lead to the fall of
Jerusalem and
the destruction of the temple. Until then the temple in Jerusalem had
functioned as the spiritual center of Judaism everywhere in the world,
similar
to the Vatican or the Kaaba. Every Jew was expected, at least for once
in his
life, to pay his respects to Jehovah by a visit to Jerusalem. Josephus,
Philo,
and even Seneca, presented the entire world as rushing toward Jewish
observances (Josephus, Contra
Apion II, 39; Seneca, Augustinus Civis Dei,
VI:11; Philo, De Vita
Moysis, 2),
while distinguishing the Jews by race
from the Jews by adoption "gentis eiusdem vel simila sectantes" (Suetonius, Tiberius 36; Dio
Cassius, XXXVII, 17). Yet before it could come
to this, the
events in the East were bringing the trend to a halt.
After 34 years of rule and
after ten
marriages, Herod the Great finally breathed his last. “The Jews,
being
delivered from Herod’s tyrannical rule, petitioned Augustus to put them
under
the jurisdiction of the legate of Syria. He, however, not willing to
set aside
Herod's will, gave to Archelaus the half of his father's kingdom, with
the
title of ethnarch, the royal title” (Josephus,
Antiquities XVII, 8:2,
9:2). Archelaus’
territory included Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea
with the cities of Jerusalem, Caesarea, Sebaste, and Joppa (Josephus,
Antiquities XVII, 11:2,
4-5). As it
turned out, the son was a chip
from the old block and in 6 AD. Archelaus’ subjects, "not being able to bear his barbarous
and
tyrannical regime," turned
to
Rome and sued for redress. Augustus banished the prince to Vienne, in
France (Josephus, Antiquities XVII, 9,
13:1-2). Running out of
suitable candidates, the emperor was
left with no choice. He placed the Jewish territories under the
jurisdiction of
the legate of Syria (Josephus, Antiquities XVII, XVIII,
1:1).
The Temple now fell under
the
jurisdiction of the pontifex maximus, the chairman of the board
for all legally acknowledged
cults in the empire, an office often held by the emperors themselves.
An
imperial stipend provided funds for daily sacrifices on the emperor’s
behalf.
An incident like Jesus’ alleged standoff on the Temple’s precinct
became an
affront to Roman authority as well as it challenged the Sanhedrin. In 4
AD. a
certain Judah of Galilee (sic!) became the leader of a rebellion.
Josephus describes him as a scholar
and assassin. Judah declared that paying taxes to Rome was in violation
of
Jewish religious law. Israel, he said, should have no king but God.
After Judah
was apprehended and executed, his followers formed a new terrorist
organization, the Sicarii, forerunners of the modern suicide bombers (Acts 5:37; Josephus, Wars 2:117-8, Antiquities 18.1-8). This did
nothing to
improve relations with the Romans, and the fall of the temple in 71 AD.
had
serious repercussions for the Jewry of the Diaspora. In 83 AD. Emperor
Domitian (81 –
96 AD.) ruled
against the
circumcision of everyone, who was not born Jewish. Proselytizing, from
one day
to the next, became illegal (Dio, Epitome
LXVIII p.361).
Domitian’s successor, Emperor Nerva, upheld the ruling (96 – 98
AD., Dio, Epitome
IXVIII, 1).
Although the partial adoption of Jewish
customs continued to be tolerated, a complete conversion was now out of
the
question.
In 110 AD. the regime in
Parthia forced the
prince of Armenia, into exile. According to the treaty with Rome,
Armenia was a
Roman clientele state, and although Parthia’s government was entitled
to bring
forward its own candidate, it needed formal approval from Rome. In 114
AD.,
after careful preparation, Emperor Trajan invaded Armenia, fully
annexing it to
the Empire, and then moved in on Parthia proper. In a sweeping campaign
the
Parthian state completely disintegrated and in Feb. 20, 116 the Emperor
informed
the Senate of the fall of the Parthian capital. Trajan was still
residing in
Babylon, when news reached him of a general uprising of all the Jews in
Libya,
Cyprus, Egypt, and Iraq. The rebellion reached beyond the Roman borders
and
apparently was orchestrated from inside of Iraq. It was the largest of
all
Jewish rebellions ever, but Judea in Palestine didn’t take part in it.
Some of
the ringleaders seem to have envisioned a Jewish empire; in Libya “a
certain
Andreas or Luke” was
crowned as king, indicating some kind of messianic movement. The
Sicarii and
the Zealots made a last showing, this time on the international scene.
It
became a war of mutual genocide.
In Libya, the Jews were accused of “cannibalism” (sic!) and of murdering 220,000
people. In Cyprus, the Jews from Salamis massacred the entire
population of the
city and many people in the country, 240,000 altogether (Dio Cassius, Epitome IXVIII, 32). The Greeks in Alexandria managed to put
up
resistance. Further up the Nile, things didn’t look good. The historian
Appian (95 –
165 AD.) gives a vivid
description of how he escaped, hiding
in the reeds on the Nile’s riverbank. Emperor Trajan acted with his
accustomed
energy. He placed his reserves and the navy under the command of his
best
general, Quintus Marcius Turbo. In retribution, a holocaust eradicated
the
Jewish population of Cyprus, and the island by pain of
death became off limits
for every Jew, even for the unfortunate traveler washed ashore from
shipwreck. In Egypt it came to two pitched battles with rebel forces
from Libya, and for the time being the Jewry in Alexandria was
practically annihilated (Appian, Histories XXIV:7). The events were still unfolding when
Emperor Trajan
fell fatally ill and was succeeded in 117 AD. by Emperor
Hadrian (117 – 138
AD.).
Hadrian decided to pull out of Iraq. He restored the occupied
territories to
Parthia in exchange for guarantees about Armenia. In 131 AD., after an
inspection tour to Syria, Emperor Hadrian decided to rebuild Jerusalem
and the
temple under a different name – Aelia Capitolina – and to consecrate
the new shrine
to Jupiter Optimus. Although exiled in Pella for more than sixty years,
since 71 AD., the still existing Sanhedrin of Jerusalem decided to take
action. Rabbi Akiva ben Yossef (50 – 135
AD.) forged an
alliance with the notorious
highwayman Simon Bar Kokhba. Jewish blacksmiths held back weaponry
from their
orders by the Roman armory. The insurrection came as a complete
surprise.
A
sovereign Jewish state was declared and Bar Kokhba minted coins with
the legend
“Prince of Israel” on
the obverse.
Hadrian sent in his
generals. The Jews
avoided major engagements and resorted to protracted guerilla warfare.
After a
slow campaign of torched earth in which some fifty fortresses and 985
villages
were destroyed, Bar Kokhba’s headquarters at Bethar fell to the Romans.
This
ended the war. For a brief period, until Hadrian’s death, Jewish
religion lost its
status as “religio licta” (Dio, Epitome
IXIX, 10-14). In
the senate, Emperor Hadrian moved against circumcision for
just everybody. A Roman citizen submitting himself or his slave to this
operation, even the surgeon performing the procedure, faced prosecution
(Paulus, V, 3), the confiscation of
property and either death or deportation (Paulus, V, 22:4). The crime of Judaizing was
held to be
identical with that of impiety or atheism (Dio
Cassius, Epitome
lXVII, 14). To
this day the synagogues have laid a
curse on Hadrian’s name. Fifteen years later, Emperor Antony Pius (138 – 161 AD.), would again authorize the
Jews to
circumcise and exercise their religion (Dio, Epitome
LXVII p.319),
but the circumcision of a non-Jew, even
if a slave, continued to be punished with the same penalty as
castration (Modestin; Digesta, XlVIII:8).
For the Christian of the
period this could mean only one thing. It was time to sever the
connection between him and Judaism. A visitor from Sinope on the Black
Sea, Bishop Marcion of Sinope (85 – 169 AD.), set out to do just that. In
fact this may actually mark the real birth date of Christianity as an
independent religion. Marcion wrote a book, the Antithesis, a polemic against the
Jewish Bible. He enunciated Jesus as the harbinger of a supreme but
previously unknown deity of compassion and mercy, vastly different from
Yahweh, the stern creator of good and evil. Marcion wrote: "To escape from the dominion of the
Demiurge, all that the Good God is asking of us is faith in His love.
Jesus has emancipated us from the legalistic requirements of Judaism."
Christians should not allow themselves to be soiled by the teachings of
the rabbis and their holy book.
With the seasoned confessors
in Rome’s congregation this didn’t chime well. They had not forgotten
the days when the Jewish Bible was still their only reference to
anything resembling “scripture.” It contained the prophesies they
quoted to confirm their faith. Much better received was Marcion’s Apostolicon, his edition of the
letters of Saint Paul, the first of its kind, but in the end the Church
of Rome asked Marcion to hand in his membership card. Too late to mend
the rift. Still in its formation period the emerging canon became an
anti-Semitic manifesto cover to cover.
The New Testament is repeating
in countless variations that the Jews had killed Jesus (Acts 4:10; 1 Thess. 2:14-16), that theirs is not salvation (Mk. 13:9; 16:16; Jn. 8.43-47 Acts 13:45-51 1 Jn. 2:22-23), and strongly hinting: kill the Jews (Mt. 23:37,38; 27:25; Titus 1:10-14; Acts 18:6): "Ye are of your father the devil.
Stiff-necked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost:
which of
the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them
which
showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now
the
betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7.51-53). The Apostle Paul, rejecting the law of
the Jews as
an obstacle to salvation altogether (Rom. 4:15, 7:5, 10:9, 11:6
and 1 Cor. 5:7-8), was
the first to issue the infamous blood-libel (1 Thess. 2:15-17). In the
mouth of Jesus himself –
supposedly a Jew and a rabbi – words are put, which announce that "upon
you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth," (Mt. 23:35), and: "The
children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there
shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Mt. 8.12). The fathers of the church follow suit on
received “wisdom.” Even a man
as urban and humane as the theologian Origen (185 – 253/5 AD.)
was able to accuse the Jews to "have committed a crime of the most
heinous kind, in conspiring against the savior." This was the voice of a moderate. The
far
less inhibited Christian ayatollah Chrysostomus (347 – 407 AD.)
went on bitching about the synagogues as "a den of thieves and a
haunt
of wild animals. This is why Christ said ask for my enemies, who did
not want
me to reign over them, bring them and slay them before me" (Orationes VIII, Adversus Judaeos). In Africa, Saint Augustine, as usual,
could not bear to stay behind:
"Judas is the image of the Jewish people. They bear the guilt for
the
death of the savior, for through their fathers they have killed the
Christ."
Things seemed to take a turn
for the better, however, in 212 AD. Emperor Caracalla's Constitutio
Antoniniana
conferred Roman citizenship
on every
free man in the Empire. Caracalla was a foul character – when he
acceded to the purple, his brother and 20,000 people died – but he also
was a gifted solicitor. Originally conceived as a measure to simplify
taxation and cut down on the overheads of the imperial revenue, a new
identity, somewhat corresponding to a citizenship of the empire (Ulpian, L, 3; Digesta, L, 2:3) began replacing the old
system of regional charters. The empire was on the way to become a
Roman nation state (Digesta, I. 5). By a stroke of his pen,
Caracalla had removed the obstacles for Jews to become eligible for the
"jus
honorum,"
and the
full exercise of civil rights, of "connubium, commercium, testamenti
factio,"
even of holding
guardianship over non-Jews (Modestin, L, 15:6, Digesta XXVII, 1). Jews could now exercise
all the rights
of a citizen, without being forced to observances contravening their
religion. The
respite was brief.
In 395 AD. the local bishop
of Callinicum (modern Raqqa) in Syria, was seen to take the lead in an
act of vandalism against the local synagogue. Emperor Theodosius,
despite his flaws, a good natured person, was outraged and demanded an
inquest. Instead the prelate of Milan, the Saint and
anti-Semite, Bishop Ambrose of Milan, sent him a memo worthy of a Nazi
ideologue, combining threats and blackmail with allegations, innuendo
and solicitous interpretations:
"A report was made by the commander of the
armies in the East that a synagogue had been burnt, and that this was
done at the instigation of the Bishop. You gave command that the others
should be punished, and the synagogue be rebuilt by the Bishop himself.
Are you not afraid this prelate might oppose your Count with a refusal?
He will then be obliged to make him either an apostate or a martyr,
either of them equivalent to persecution.”
“I think you can see where this is going.
Suppose the said Bishop had himself kindled the fire and gathered the
crowd, in order not to lose an opportunity of martyrdom, saying “why
not do what will not find a reward in heaven if it remains unpunished?”
Suppose he declared that he set fire so not to leave a place where
Christ is denied. If you think the Bishop firm, don’t make a martyr of
a firm man; if you think him vacillating, avoid causing his fall, for
he who causes the weak to fall has a heavy responsibility. But let it
be granted that no one will bring the Bishop to book, for I have asked
this of Your Grace, and although I have not yet read that this edict is
revoked, let us notwithstanding assume that it is revoked (sic! What a
presumptuous bastard!). What if there are other officials offering in a
more timid spirit to restore the synagogue at their own costs; or that
the commander of the East already has ordered it to be rebuilt from the
funds of Christians? Then Your Majesty will have an apostate general,
and to whom will you then entrust your victorious standards? (sic! What
business is it of this cleric here even to have an opinion?) Shall,
then, a place be made for the unbelief of the Jews out of the spoils of
the Church, and shall the patrimony, which by the favor of Christ has
been gained for Christians, be transferred to the treasuries of
unbelievers? We read that old temples were built for idols from the
spoils of defeated enemies. Shall the Jews write this inscription on
the front of their synagogue: "The temple of impiety, erected from the
plunder of Christians?” But, perhaps, it is the cause of law and order
moving you. Which, then, is of greater importance, law and order or the
cause of religion?”
"There is, then, no adequate cause for
punishing the burning of a building, much less since it is a synagogue,
a home of unbelief, a house of impiety, a receptacle of folly, which
God Himself has condemned. For thus we read, where the Lord our God
speaks by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah: "And I will do to this
house which is called by My Name as I have done to Shiloh, and I will
cast you forth from My sight, as I cast forth your brethren, the whole
seed of Ephraim. And do not pray for that people, do not ask mercy for
them, for I will not hear you." So God himself forbids intercession on
behalf of the Jews. Shall I remind you how many churches the Jews had
burnt in the time of the Emperor Julian? The two at Damascus, one now
scarcely repaired at the cost of the Church – not of the Synagogue –
the other still in ruins? Churches burnt at Gaza, Ascalon, Berytus, and
no one is demanding punishment. And what of the basilica in Alexandria,
burnt by heathen and Jews? It was never avenged, shall the Synagogue
have this privilege? The judge was ordered not to merely report the
deed, but punish it, and demand the return of the money chests carried
away. What could a Synagogue possibly possess in town with barely
anything? What possession could these scheming Jews have lost by the
fire? These are dissimulations by the Jews, and how can they not
refrain from calumny, having calumniated Christ by false witness,
liars, even in things belonging to God?”
“Will you allow the Jews to triumph over
the Church of God? Allow the Synagogue to rejoice in this sorrow to the
Church? The people of the Jews will add this to their solemnities, in
memory of their triumph over the people of Christ.” Finally the
legal clincher:
“Jews reject that they themselves are bound
by Roman law and yet seek redress by invoking this law? Where were
those laws when they were the ones to set fire to our churches? If
Emperor Julian did not redressed the Church because he was an apostate,
will Your Majesty redress the injury done to the Synagogue, because you
are a Christian?" Since the Church shut out the Synagogue, why is it
that again the Synagogue should exclude the servant of Christ from the
bosom of faith? The gods (sic!) will themselves avenge the injury done
to them. Who is to avenge the Synagogue? Christ, whom they slew, whom
they denied? Will God the Father avenge those who do not receive Him
since they do not receive the Son?” (Ambrose
of Milan, Letters XL).
Ambrose, the jurist, the
prelate and chief administrator knew exactly what he was doing, that he
was setting a legal precedent for canonical law and the relations of
the Christian Church and the Christian State with the Jews.
Emperor Theodosius complied.
Ambrose was not a man to make empty threats when he closed his letter
with the apropos remark: "I, indeed, have done what could
be
done consistently with honor to you, that you might rather listen to me
in the
palace, lest (sic!), if it were necessary, you should
listen to me in Church” (Ambrose of Milan, Letters XL). Consequently Alexandria's
bishop, St. Cyril in 415 AD. – another "doctor of the church" and in
his spare time accessory to murder – felt himself fully justified,
legally and morally, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from
Alexandria, some 40,000 people. After 700 years of residence, the army
was called in to raid the Jewish quarters. The soldiers raped the women
and looted homes and synagogues. Survivors went into permanent exile.
Finally, in 617, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius ordered all Jews in
his jurisdiction to be forcibly converted. Many preferred exile and
went to Spain, which seemed a safe haven. Little did they know.
© –
3/25/2009 – by
michael sympson, 5,650 words, all rights reserved