Israel in Europe

by G. F. Abbott

♦59 B.C.♦

It was not long after that date that Cicero pleaded the cause of the Praetor Flaccus, accused of extortion during his government of Asia Minor. The Roman Jews took a keen interest in the case, and many of them crowded to the trial, for among other charges brought against the ex-praetor was that of having robbed the Temple of Jerusalem. When Cicero reached that count of the indictment, he gave eloquent testimony to the importance of the Jewish element in Rome, to the feelings which he, in common with others, entertained towards them, and to his own want of spirit. “Thou well knowest,” says the orator, addressing the Prosecutor, “how great is their multitude, how great their concord, how powerful they are in our public assemblies. But I will speak in an undertone, so that none but the judges may hear. For there is no lack of individuals ready to incite those fellows against me and all honourable persons. But I will not help them to do so.” Then, in a lowered voice Cicero proceeds to defend his client’s conduct towards the “barbarous superstition” of the Jews, and his patriotic defiance of the “turbulent mob who invade our public assemblies.” “If Pompey,” he says, “did not touch the treasures of the Temple, when he took Jerusalem, his forbearance was but another proof of his prudence: he avoided giving cause of complaint to so suspicious and slanderous a nation. It was not respect for the religion of Jews and enemies that hindered him, but regard for his own reputation.... Every nation has its own religion. We have ours. Whilst Jerusalem was yet unconquered, and the Jews lived in peace, even then they displayed a fanatical repugnance to the splendour of our state, the dignity of our name, and the institutions of our ancestors. But now the hatred which the race nourished towards our rule has been more clearly shown by force of arms. How little the immortal gods love this race has been proved by its defeat and by its humiliation.”[9]

Time did not heal the wound. Pompey had already amalgamated the Jewish kingdom in the Roman province of Syria and carried the last of the Hasmonaean princes captive to Rome. Five years later the proconsul Sabinius stripped the High Priest of the last shreds of civil authority and divided Judaea into five administrative districts. ♦57, 56, 55 B.C.♦ Frequent insurrections broke out in Palestine, and were quelled with greater or less difficulty; the last of them resulting in the robbery of the Temple of a great part of its riches by the Proconsul Marcus Crassus, while not long after the Quaestor Cassius, who acted as Governor after the death of Crassus, sold 30,000 disaffected Jews into slavery; and this state of things lasted till the fall of the Roman Republic.

♦47 B.C.♦

Julius Caesar, like Alexander, was not slow to realise the weight of the Jewish factor in the complex problem presented by the conglomeration of nations which he had set himself to rule. The numbers of the Jews scattered throughout the Empire entitled them to serious consideration; their wealth, their activity, and their unity rendered them worthy of conciliation. Moreover, Caesar, with the eye of a true statesman, saw that the representatives of this race, so capable of adapting themselves to new climatic and political conditions, and yet so tenacious of their peculiar characteristics, might help to promote that cosmopolitan spirit which was the soul of the Roman Empire. These considerations were further reinforced by feelings of gratitude; for Caesar had derived great assistance from the powerful Jewish politician Antipater during his Egyptian campaign. He, therefore, like his illustrious predecessor, granted to the Jews of Alexandria special privileges, shielding their cult from the attacks of the pagan priests, and affording them facilities for commerce, while in Palestine he reunited the five administrative districts under the authority of the High Priest and restored to the Jews some of the territory of which Pompey had deprived them. In Rome also Caesar manifested great friendship to the Jews. The Roman Jews showed that they were not insensible to these acts of kindness. At the tragic death of their benefactor they surpassed all other foreigners in their demonstrations of grief. Amidst the general lamentation, to which every race contributed its share after its own fashion, the Jews, we are told, distinguished themselves by waking and wailing beside the funeral pyre for many nights.[10] This spontaneous offering of sorrow on the part of the foreign subjects of Rome forms the best testimony to the nobility of Rome’s greatest son. Caesar might well claim the title of Father of mankind.

♦44 B.C.♦

The end of Caesar’s life proved also the end of the consideration enjoyed by the Jews under his aegis. Augustus, indeed, unbent so far as to order that prayers for his prosperity should be offered up in the Temple of Jerusalem, and even established a fund for a perpetual sacrifice. But this was only an act of courtesy dictated by reasons of policy. His real feelings towards the Jews and their religion are better illustrated by his biographer’s statement that, while treating the old-established cults with the reverence to which their antiquity and respectability seemed to entitle them, “he held the others in contempt.” Among the gods deemed unworthy of Imperial patronage were those of Egypt and Judaea. During his sojourn in the land of the Pharaohs Augustus refrained from turning aside to visit the temple of Apis. Nor was he more respectful towards Jehovah. On the contrary, “he commended his grandson Caius for not stopping, on his passage through Palestine, at Jerusalem to worship in the Temple.”[11] The ancient writer’s juxtaposition of Apis and Jehovah, linked at last in common bondage, is as significant as it is quaint.

Under the successors of Augustus the Jews of Rome had more than neglect to complain of. Their suppression appears to have been now regarded as a public duty. The biographer of Tiberius, in enumerating that emperor’s virtues, among other proofs of patriotism, includes his persecution of the obnoxious race. After describing the measures taken against “outlandish ceremonies” generally, and how those given to Egyptian and Judaic superstitions were compelled to burn all their ritual vestments and implements, he proceeds to inform us calmly that “the Jewish youth, under pretence of having the military oath of allegiance administered to them, were distributed over the most unhealthy provinces, while the rest of the race, or those who followed their cult, were banished from the city under pain of perpetual servitude if they disobeyed.”[12] The indignation which these arbitrary measures must have stirred up among the Jews found vent in the following reign. The immediate cause of the explosion was Caligula’s order that his own effigy should be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem and that divine honours should be paid to him throughout the empire—an order which, however natural it might have appeared to a Roman, outraged the vital principle of Hebrew monotheism. ♦41 A.D.♦ The result was stern and unanimous resistance on the part of the Jews, bloodshed being only averted by the imperial lunatic’s opportune death.[13]

Meanwhile the Jews of Alexandria shared the woes of their brethren in Palestine and Rome. Their prosperity moved the envy of their Greek fellow-citizens, and the two elements had always met in a commercial rivalry for which they were not unequally matched. If Hebrew astuteness found its hero in Jacob, Odysseus formed a brilliant embodiment of Hellenic resourcefulness. Both characters are typical of their respective races. They are both distinguished not only by strong family affections, by a pathetic love of home when abroad and a passionate longing for travel when at home, by conjugal fidelity tempered by occasional lapses into its opposite, and by deep reverence for the divine, but also by a mastery of wiles and stratagems unsurpassed in any other national literature. It was, therefore, not surprising that the descendants of these versatile heroes should regard each other as enemies. The hostility was increased by social and religious antipathy and by the favours which the Greek kings of Egypt had always showered upon the Jews. The fables and calumnies originally invented by the Seleucid oppressors of Palestine spread to Egypt, where they were amplified by local wits.

Under Augustus and Tiberius the lurking animosity was obliged to content itself with such food as the Greek genius for sarcasm and invective could afford; but the accession of Caligula supplied an opportunity for a more practical display of hatred. The Governor of Alexandria, being in disgrace with the new Emperor and afraid lest the Alexandrians should avail themselves of the circumstance and lodge complaints against him in Rome, became a tool of their prejudices. Two unprincipled scribblers led the anti-Jewish movement. Insult and ridicule were succeeded by violence, and in the summer of 38 A.D. the synagogues of the Jews were polluted with the busts of the Emperor. The governor was induced to deprive the Jews of the civil rights which they had enjoyed so long, and the unfortunate people, thus reduced to the condition of outlaws, were driven out of the divisions of the city which they had hitherto occupied and forced to take up their abode in the harbour. Their dwellings were looted and sacked, the refugees were besieged by the mob in their new quarters, and those who ventured out were seized, tortured, and burnt or crucified. The persecution continued with intermittent vigour until the Jews resolved to send an embassy to Rome to plead their cause before the Emperor. One of the envoys was the famous Jewish Hellenist Philo. Caligula, however, declined to listen to rhetoric or reason; but, on the contrary, he issued the order for his own deification, which, as has been seen, was frustrated only by his death.