The Status of the Jews in Egypt / The Fifth Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

That the settlement at the Cataract was not very exceptional is shown not only by the reference to a Jewish resident of Abydos[20]—purely a centre of Egyptian religion—but also by a discovery this year of a rock tomb of early date which had been re-used about the fifth century B.C.[21] and inscribed with long documents in Aramaic, equal to over fifty feet of writing. M. Giron came to examine them, but they are so far damaged that it would need a longer study than he could spare to transcribe them. It is to be hoped that some other Aramaic scholar will undertake the work. This tomb is a few miles back in the eastern desert, opposite to Oxyrhynkhos. It proves that in this region of Middle Egypt there was also a Jewish settlement commonly using Aramaic.

The close of the Persian age brought in new conditions under Alexander. Wide as had been the liberty of Judaism under the international empire of Persia, it obtained still more liberal treatment from the Macedonian conqueror. In consequence of the assistance that the Jews had given against the Egyptians, Alexander granted to them equal rights with the Greeks in the new foundation of Alexandria.[22] They had there a separate quarter called the Delta,[23] and they were allowed to be called Macedonians,[24] to mark them as being under royal protection. This status in Alexandria, though suspended by Caligula, was renewed by Claudius. The Jews had also other places assigned to them in Egypt, and were ruled by an ethnarch, who was chief judge and registrar of the whole of the settlers.[25]

In the Fayum they naturally found space, as the province was land reclaimed from the lake, in order to settle Greek troops as colonists. A village of Samareia is named,[26] also Jews in Psenuris.[27] At Thebes Simon son of Eleazar was tax collector.[28] Ptolemy Philopator tried to curb the power of the Jews in Egypt; and the libellous retort on him is the subject of the third book of Maccabees.[29]

The number of Jews in Egypt, and their familiarity with Greek, led to various Greek translations of books of the Hebrew Scriptures.[30] These, in popular rather than literary style, were probably used by proselytes, and followed in synagogues where Hebrew was drifting out of use. They were at last compiled, and probably completed by adding all the remaining books which were familiar as religious literature, though not canonical. Thus seems to have grown up the Greek version known as the Septuagint. Its differences from the Hebrew must not all be assigned to caprice, for its sources probably antedate the formal text of the Masorah. It represents to some extent the sources of the final orthodox text. The production of such a body of translation in Egypt is proof of the large demand that must have existed in a population far more familiar with Greek than with Hebrew.

The next chapter of the Jewish history in Egypt opens out a wide view. The troubles in Palestine caused by the Hellenistic party seizing on the Temple, and the persecutions by Antiochus, had driven large numbers of Jews to settle in the Delta of Egypt; in fact, as later references seem to show, the Eastern Delta was largely occupied by Jews. It was the Hyksos occupation repeated, only in this case the settlement was probably not that of pastoral nomads, but of agriculturalists and traders. The extent of the settlement is indicated by the need for a national centre of worship on a large scale. At first Jerusalem would of course be entirely the focus of religion; but when the Temple fell into the hands of the Hellenizing party, and the High-Priesthood became entirely the prey of violence and bribery, it was more and more difficult to regard the Holy City as a religious home. This severance, and the distance across a long desert journey, would lead to an entire estrangement, and the practical cessation of all Temple worship. The loss of a religious centre, and the presence of an heir of the High-Priesthood, driven out of Jerusalem by the crimes of his relatives, would at last lead to the rise of a new national centre in the midst of the faithful who were thus living in exile.[31] There must have been a large support for the project before Oniah would venture to start so great an enterprise. The vast amount of work that was done in constructing the new city shows that there was a large and wealthy population involved. The letter of application for the site, and the reply granted by Ptolemy VII, seem quite in accord with the times, and there is no reason to suppose that this title-deed of occupation would be lost to sight, and then re-invented.

The site having been granted, of a deserted city, with ruins of an Egyptian palace of Rameses III, and a massive fortification wall of the Hyksos period, there was abundant material for constructing the new city. A large area was laid out beyond the wall of the old city, deliberately modelled upon the plan of Jerusalem and the temple hill. So close is the copy that Professor Dickie in his study of Jerusalem could combine the plans to help in restoring the detail of Jerusalem. The old Egyptian site was adopted as equivalent to the town of Jerusalem, and the new hill was constructed to copy the Temple, and continued northward to imitate Bezetha, leaving a deep gap representing the Tyropœan valley. To throw up these great artificial hills, to face the temple hill with stone walling, up to 100 feet high, to lay out the new city and the fortifications covering six acres, must have needed a large body of supporters, and is the strongest evidence of the numbers and status of the Jews in this district, about twenty-eight miles north of Memphis.

The status of the Jewish settlers in Egypt was influential. Oniah, the heir of the High-Priesthood, was associated with Dositheos, another Jew, as generals of the whole army of Ptolemy VII.[32] He later supported the widowed queen against the attacks of Ptolemy Physcon.[32] He lived at Alexandria, and seems to have been powerful in the court. We also read of an adventurous Jew named Yosef,[33] who outbid all the tax farmers and obtained great power, which was extortionately used in the Ptolemaic province of Palestine. Under Ptolemy VII also we find the Jews of Athribis,[34] the central city of the Delta, dedicating a synagogue. The spread of Jewish settlement was far beyond the city of Oniah, as in Caesar’s time the march of troops from Pelusium to Alexandria was dependent on the goodwill of the Jews of Onion.[35] The road between those cities is more than fifty miles north of the city of Oniah, and it seems therefore that the settlement which was in allegiance to that city must have extended over most of the eastern side of the Delta. As the Jews were already sharing Alexandria on equal terms with the Greeks, they must have pretty well absorbed the management of the Delta. It is in this connection that we must view the statement that they had “entire custody of the Nile on all occasions.”[36] Probably as holding mortgages on interest in much of the land of the Delta, they organized a management of the inundation to ensure the solvency of their securities. The modern Debt Control taking over the management of the Irrigation Department is the parallel to the Jewish custody of the Nile.

There was also another and entirely different side of Jewish life in Egypt. In Josephus we read a long account of the Essenes,[37] to which sect this Pharisee of the High-Priestly family had devoted himself in his youth. This account of the Ascetics of Palestine so closely accords with the account that the Alexandrian Jew Philo gives of the Therapeutae in Egypt[38] that they seem to be identical. This spread of asceticism appears to have been started by the Buddhist mission from India. It was entirely foreign to the Western ideals, yet it took root quickly after Asoka’s mission. Indian figures are found of this period at Memphis, and a multitude of modelled heads of foreigners also found there,[17] can only be paralleled by the modelled heads of foreigners made now for a Buddhist festival in Tibet, and thrown away as soon as the ceremony is over. The influence which thus came into Egypt with the Indians of the Persian occupation is found in working order by 340 B.C., and it was probably strengthened and organized by the Buddhist mission in 260 B.C., and so grew until we meet with the full description of long-established communities in the pages of Philo and Josephus. These bodies were apparently composed of philosophical Jews and proselytes largely influenced by the Alexandrine mixture of Oriental beliefs with Greek theorizing.

Though we are reviewing the status of the Jews, that must include their intellectual as well as social position. The Alexandrian school of thought, as we have it in the Hermetic books[39] and in Philo, was a new development in the world, freely reasoning on the nature of God and of man, starting from various beliefs which were chosen for their prominence and compatibility, and coming to conclusions which are curiously similar to some modern thought. These ideas are the ground for various dogmas which naturally grew up from it in the development of that Jewish sect of Christianity.