The transference of the four thousand recruits, libertini generis, to Sardinia undoubtedly took place, and was very likely the expression of alarm on the part of Sejanus or Tiberius at the spread of Judaism in Rome. It may well be that the removal of these men was caused rather by the desire to withdraw them from the range of proselytism than by the purpose of allowing them to die in the severe climate of Sardinia. There is as a matter of fact no evidence that Sardinia had a noticeably different climate from that of Italy. It was one of the granaries of the empire.[[336]]
Perhaps we may reconstitute the decree as follows: The penalty imposed was, for foreigners, expulsion; for Roman citizens, perhaps exile; for freedmen, forfeiture of their newly acquired liberty in favor of their former masters or the latter’s heirs. This last fact will explain the statement of Suetonius. Many of the people affected were no doubt freedmen, and several instances where such a penalty was actually inflicted would account quite adequately for the words perpetua servitus of Suetonius. The “malicious prosecution,” calumnia, which Seneca asserts his father did not fear, would be based, as against Roman citizens, on the violation of this law against fraudulent practices, of which, as we have seen, the adoption of foreign rites would be taken as evidence.
The personal relations between Gaius and the Jewish king Agrippa seemed to guarantee an era of especial prosperity for the Roman Jews. However, the entire principate of that indubitable paranoiac was filled with the agitation that attended his attempt to set up his statue at Jerusalem. His death, which Josephus describes in gratifyingly minute detail, brought permanent relief on that point.
It is during the reign of his successor Claudius that we hear of another expulsion: Iudaeos impulsore Chresto adsidue tumultuantis Roma expulit (Suet. Claud. 25), “The Jews who engaged in constant riots by the machinations of a certain Chrestus, he expelled from Rome.” It has constantly been stated that this refers to the agitation in the Roman Jewry which the preaching of Christianity aroused. For that, however, there is no sufficient evidence. Jesus, to be sure, is called Chrestus, Χρηστός, the Upright, in many Christian documents.[[337]] This play upon words is practically unavoidable. But Chrestus is a common name among all classes of society.[[338]] Jews would be especially likely to bear it, since it was a fairly good rendering of such a frequently occurring name as Zadok. The riot in question was no doubt a real enough event, and the expulsion equally real, even if it did not quite imply all that seems to be contained in it.
If it were a decree of general expulsion of all Jews, it would be strikingly at variance with the edicts in favor of the Jews which Claudius issued, and which are contained in Josephus (Ant. XIX. v.). As in the case of other documents cited here, there is no reason to question the substantial accuracy of their contents, although they are surely not verbatim transcriptions from the records. It is as clearly impossible in the case of Claudius as in that of Tiberius to suppose an arbitrary disregard of law on his part, so that a general ejection of all Jews from the city, including those who were Roman citizens, is not to be thought of.
Neither Tacitus nor Josephus mentions the expulsion. The silence of neither is conclusive, but it lends strong probability to the assumption that the decree cannot have been so radical a measure as a general expulsion of all Jews from the city would be. The passage from Suetonius is concerned wholly with acts of Claudius affecting foreigners—non-Romans, i.e. Lycians, Rhodians, Gauls, Germans—and if we keep in mind Suetonius’ habits of composition, it is highly likely that he has put together here all that he found together in his source. We are to understand therefore by the Iudaei of this passage only foreign Jews, which implies that the majority of the Jews were not affected by it at all.
But were even all foreign Jews included? Is there anything in the passage that is not perfectly consistent with the assumption that some relatively small group of Jews led by a certain Chrestus was ejected from the city for disorderly conduct? The silence of the other writers, the total absence of effect on the growth of the Jewish population, would seem to make this after all the simplest meaning of Suetonius’ words.
The fact of the expulsion is confirmed by that passage in the Acts of the Apostles in which the meeting of Paul and Aquila at Corinth is mentioned (Acts xviii. 1, 2): “[Paul] found a certain Jew born in Pontus, lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome).” The testimony is late,[[339]] but it will be noticed that Aquila is an Asiatic by birth, and so very likely had no legal right of residence at Rome in any circumstances.
Finally, expulsion “from Rome” may have meant only exclusion from the pomoerium, the sacral limit of the city that followed an imaginary line not at all coincident with its real walls. To escape from the operation of the decree, it would merely have been necessary to cross the Tiber, where as a matter of fact the Jews generally lived, since the Transtiberine region was not included in the pomoerium. In general, expulsion from the city specified that the expelled person might not come within the first milestone, but in view of the difficulties presented by the assumption of a real expulsion, this supposition may also be considered.
Mention has already been made of the special association of Claudius’ successor, Nero, with the Jews. The success that attended their efforts at propaganda during that emperor’s reign is evidenced by the fact that Poppaea Sabina became a semi-proselyte. And during Nero’s reign occurs an event of special importance to the Jews of Rome, the first Christian persecution.