Rome and the Jews

 

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