We know further that the demands upon them did not end there. In Palestine the organization of the Sanhedrin had maintained itself, although only in the form of several schools under the general presidency of the Nasi, whom Romans and Greeks called the Patriarch. The maintenance of these schools and those who labored in them was a religious duty which most Jews voluntarily assumed. The money was collected by apostoli, “envoys,” despatched to the various Jewish synagogues for that purpose.[[399]] The early Christian emperors believed, or professed to believe, that the payment of this tax was a grave burden to the poorer Jews, and that irregularities were committed in its enforcement. The Jewish sources, all of which are Palestinian, naturally show no trace of this complaint; nor is it likely that there was much foundation for it except in certain localities already grievously burdened by constantly increasing dues.
Besides these various classes into which the tax-paying Jewish citizens fell, there were also Jews who did not share in the support of the state at all. Jewish slaves existed in the third and fourth centuries too, but they can scarcely have been numerous. A Jewish slave belonging to a Jewish master was practically only a servant bound for a term of years.[[400]] Within a relatively short space of time he could demand his freedom by Biblical law. If his master was a pagan, a religious duty devolved upon all other Jews, and particularly the local synagogue, to redeem him.[[401]] Often, to be sure, that duty could not be carried out. Not every master would sell, and not every synagogue was financially able to supply the necessary funds. In general, however, it added another motive to those already existing that made emancipations frequent.
The social position and occupations of the Jews throughout the empire are only slightly known. For Egypt and Rome we have fuller documents than elsewhere, except for Babylon, which was outside the empire. We have no means of determining whether the facts found in Egypt and Rome are in any way typical. One negative statement may however be safely made. They were only to a very slight extent merchants or money-lenders. In most cases they seem to have been artisans. The inscriptions in the Jewish catacombs show us weavers, tent-makers, dyers, butchers, painters, jewelers, physicians.[[402]] In Egypt we meet sailors and handicraftsmen of all description.[[403]] Vendors, of course, on a small and large scale were not wholly lacking. Indeed it would be impossible to understand the individual prosperity of some Jews or of some communities except on the assumption of commercial occupations and success. However, in general, commerce was principally in the hands of Syrians and Greeks, especially the former, whose customs and cults spread with them over the Mediterranean.
We may say, in conclusion, that the economic and political position of the Jews in the empire was unique in one sense. There were no other groups that had exactly the same rights, or were subject to exactly the same demands as the Jews. But in another sense that position was not at all unique. Many other groups of men had rights somewhat like those of the Jewish synagogues, and played a part in the social economy similar to theirs; and, as individuals, there was probably nothing to mark out the Jew from his fellows in the community.
We cannot tell how far and how long the Jews would have been able to maintain their position. There seems however to have been nothing in the conditions of the Diocletianic empire that threatened the stability of the synagogues in the form in which they were then found. The religious basis of the state—the maintenance of a common cult for the whole empire—had practically been abandoned. At one time, under Aurelian,[[404]] the emperor’s devotion to the solar cult had almost made of that the state religion. But in general it may be said that the absolutism of Diocletian rendered such bonds unnecessary. Where all men were born subjects or slaves (“slaves of their duties,” servi functionum, the guild-men are called explicitly[[405]]) of the same master, it could be considered indifferent whether they all maintained the same theology.
But whether the Jews might have maintained their position or not, if the conditions had remained the same, is a purely hypothetical question. When Christianity became the state religion, under Theodosius,[[406]] a step was taken that Jews must perforce regard as retrogressive. In ancient times participation in the common sacra was of the essence of membership in a state.[[407]] That principle was, however, tolerantly enforced. In the first place the mere existence of private sacra was not deemed to imperil the public sacra. Secondly, exceptions and exemptions that did not take offensive forms were freely allowed. But when Theodosius established Christianity, he consciously strove to make the ecclesia coterminous with the empire. “As well could those be saved who were not in the ark with Noah,” Cyprian[[408]] had cried, “as they be saved who are not in the church.” What was originally a group of elect, a company of saints (ἅγιοι), “the salt of the earth,”[[409]] had been expanded into a world-filling community.
Not only was the ancient theory revived, but it was revived without the qualifications that had made the ancient theory a livable one. No other sacra could be permitted to exist. Not to be in the ecclesia, was not to be in the empire. Only the practical impossibility of really enforcing that theory restrained the zealous and triumphant leaders. Of course, the development of law was continuous. The new basis of citizenship was never actually and formally received as a legal principle. Yet gradually the limitation of civic rights, which non-membership in the church involved, operated to work an exclusion from citizenship itself. In a very short time those who were not within the church were in a very real sense outside the state, merely tolerated sojourners, and subject to all the risks of that precarious condition.
SUMMARY
What has been attempted in the foregoing pages is an interpretation of certain facts of Jewish, Roman, and Greek history within a given period. For that purpose it has been necessary to analyze fully the terms used, and in many cases rather to clear away misconceptions than to set forth new points of view. A brief retrospect is here added.