For us, however, the prime importance lies in the sharp contrast between the Greek and the Jewish attitude. Upon the philosophically cultured man, the reasoning 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 Macc. 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 highly colored life of the Hellenic communities in which he dwelt. There is no exchange of vituperation. The denunciations hurled against Antiochus are impersonal, 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 unhistorical. 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 setting, the controversy is, judged by disputation standards, quite decorous. The terms that qualify the Jewish doctrine as “irrational” are almost controversial 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 enabled an independent political entity to be constituted.

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 common 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.[[229]]

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 unlettered that these claims would find quickest belief. However, the Jewish propaganda had also its philosophic 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 considering. 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 friction was relatively rare.

The literature of the opposition falls into two classes: first, that which scarcely knows the Jews except as a people of highly peculiar customs, and uses these customs as illustrations of rhetorical theses; and second, that which is inspired by direct animosity, either personal or, in the case of the Egyptians, racial in its character.

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.