THE LEGAL POSITION OF THE JEWS IN THE LATER EMPIRE
The empire established by Augustus was, as has been set forth (above, p.
259), a more or less abstract thing. It was the _imperium_, or supreme
authority, which a single community, the city-state of Rome, exercised
over all the other communities existing within certain not over sharply
defined geographic limits. This _imperium_ was, by Roman statute or
series of statutes, almost completely delegated to a single individual.
The delegation however was not quite complete, and the legal theory that
made it incomplete remained to work no little mischief in a crisis like
the death of Nero or Domitian or Commodus.
When Diocletian reorganized the empire in 286 C.E., the theory was
completely changed. The _imperium_ was now a _dominium_; it was the
authority that a single man possessed over all the inhabitants of a
region greater even than it was under Augustus, and that authority was
in point of law as limitless as that of a master over his slaves.
Between Augustus and Diocletian the reign of the Severan emperors,
particularly the promulgation of the Edict of Caracalla, the Constitutio
Antonina, which extended Roman citizenship to almost all the free
inhabitants of the empire, may be considered the turning-point of the
tendency toward absolutism.[387] It broke finally and completely with
the legal theory that the _populus Romanus_ was a paramount community
within a complex of other similar and inferior communities. From that
time on nearly all those who could possess rights and obligations at
all, whether in regard to one another or to the state, were members of
the paramount community, and the delegation of the _imperium_ to the
_princeps_, which had until then been subject to the remote but still
conceivable possibility of revocation, became irrevocable by the sheer
impossibility of conceiving the _populus_ as acting in the only way the
_populus_ could legally act, by direct vote when assembled in mass in
the Campus Martius.
In the period between Caracalla and Diocletian the vast political
machine snapped at many points. Diocletian’s skill enabled it to go on
for a considerable time, and yet the changes he instituted were
administrative rather than social. Internally the new _populus Romanus_
took its form in the third century.
A calculation of doubtful value makes the population of the empire at
that time about 85,000,000.[388] Of these about half were slaves, _i.e._
at law not participants in the empire at all. The other half were nearly
all _cives Romani_, Roman citizens, and it is the position of these
_cives_ that now concerns us.
Upon the _civis Romanus_ devolved the task of maintaining a frightfully
expensive governmental machinery. The expense consisted in the fact that
a huge army had to be maintained on what was practically a war footing
all the time, because, as a matter of fact, war with the barbarians on
the northern frontier and with the Parthians in the East was always
going on. Compared with that, the expenses of the court itself, although
considerable, were scarcely important; but an important item was the
vast horde of civil employees which the execution of so tremendous a
budget necessitated. Then the local civic centers, generally the remains
of old independent communities, had an organization of their own that
was partly ornamental, but in all circumstances costly. That is to say,
a very large share of the available wealth of the empire was diverted
into unproductive channels, since it was devoted to the purpose of
maintaining a machinery not altogether necessary to guard that wealth.
Many of the nations of modern Europe have a military budget relatively
and absolutely greater than that of the Roman empire of the third
century; but in these nations the economic system has a high degree of
efficiency, compared with that of the older state, and the waste is
incalculably less. The great difference lies in the slave system, which
was the foundation of ancient society. The total absence of individual
incentive wherever the slaves were worked in gangs—and that was,
perhaps, true of the majority of slaves—made the efficiency and
consequent productivity of each laborer much less.
We must further remember that human waste was also much greater, owing
to the absence of all measures to restrict it. Only the most elementary
of sanitary precautions existed, and they were directed against definite
diseases of plainly infectious character. With a great percentage of the
population undernourished, the ravages of any disease with epidemic
tendencies must have been enormous. Even in the absence of any plague,
such a scourge as consumption alone must have been much more generally
destructive than it is now. As has been recently suggested, malaria in
Italy had a heavy account to answer for in producing the physical
debilitation of the _populus Romanus_, and was therefore a real factor
in the gradual decay of the Roman state.[389]
The incidence of the state burdens was not regulated as it is at the
present time. Taxes were imposed within certain districts, and upon each
district devolved the duty of satisfying the impost. For a long time
Italy had been free from such a burden, but even this exceptional
position was abrogated by Constantine in 300 C.E.
How each district accomplished its task was a local matter, and was
determined by its individual development. Until the reorganization
effected by Diocletian, the old national units had in the main been kept
intact. That is to say, Egypt remained what it had been under the
Ptolemies and for thousands of years before—a strongly centralized
kingdom, rigidly bureaucratic, but measurably well organized. Asia,
again, was a group of independent cities and certain larger districts,
principally rural, the kingdoms of Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, etc.
The tax which the particular province had to deliver was apportioned
among the various units according to their apparent capacity. Here and
there a poll-tax existed, levied upon every inhabitant alike, and on the
existence of this poll-tax far-reaching theories have been constructed.
The obligation of the individual toward the state was determined by one
fundamental fact, viz., domicile, or right of residence. Before the
Constitutio Antonina there was only one class of inhabitants that
possessed an almost unlimited right of residence, the _cives Romani_.
But even these could not live indiscriminately in Egypt, for example,
which was at all times an exceptional province, and was considered a
sort of imperial appanage. As a matter of fact, it is in Egypt that we
see the first development of the _colonatus_, destined to be of so
fundamental importance in the creation of the feudal system. It may be
that the _colonatus_ was found practically everywhere in the Hellenistic
states, but its growth in Egypt goes back to Pharaonic times, and its
fullest expansion was found there.
The principle of the _colonatus_ was the permanent obligation of the
agricultural free laborer to remain on the soil he tilled. Originally it
applied only to the state lands, but in the third century these state
lands became largely private property, and the serf-like _coloni_ went
with them. All over the empire there were still, in spite of the
_latifundia_, or agriculture on a big scale, a large number of peasant
proprietors; but with the impossibility of competing with the production
of the _latifundia_, these peasant proprietorships were soon converted
into holdings resembling the _colonatus_, or actually that.
Now, as long as the _civis Romanus_, as a prerogative of his position,
paid no tax, his right of residence was unqualified. When he too had to
submit to a direct tax, the place where he resided became a matter of
prime importance. The tax that was imposed upon any given locality could
be met only if all those subject to tax, living there, paid their dues.
Consequently those who by birth were domiciled there could not remove
themselves without lessening to that extent the power of that district
to meet its state obligations. At first, to be sure, this cannot have
been a matter of first-rate importance. Changes of domicile after all
were rare, and took place principally among the wealthier classes, a
fact that made it easy to insure that no loss would accrue to the
community abandoned. But as conditions of ordinary living deteriorated,
the practice of deserting one’s legal residence became more frequent,
and needed the intervention of the central authorities, since the local
magistrate had no jurisdiction whatever beyond the strictly
circumscribed limits of his commune. As soon as it was possible for a
commune to claim from its members, wherever they happened to be, their
contribution to the communal tax, there arose the corollary that for all
practical purposes the tax-paying member might not leave the place where
his tax was due. The _colonatus_ had been applied to the urban laborer.
But the chaining of the individual to his commune was not sufficient
unless his paying power was maintained. The same motives that impelled
men to evade their fiscal duties by change of domicile, would make them
idle and sullen paupers in the places where they were forced to remain.
It was a part of the state system which the Severan emperors introduced
to make the paying power of the citizen certain by means of the
compulsory guilds.[390] These latter were natural outgrowths of former
voluntary associations. The formation of guilds of laborers, either free
or consisting partly of freemen and slave laborers, was as old as the
state itself. The evident superiority of training which such groups
insured alone justified them. From time to time certain privileges and
exemptions were conferred upon them—always in return for definite state
functions[391] which they took upon themselves as well as the industrial
functions which were their reason for existence. Indeed, in the
municipal towns the _collegiati_, or members of these publicly
sanctioned industrial guilds, formed an order of citizenship second only
to that of the decurions, or municipal senate.
While the various _collegia_ were at first voluntary associations, it is
evident that the sons of members would tend to follow the callings of
their fathers without statutory command to that effect. When, however,
the dues of the corporation to the state became onerous, the voluntary
choice of a calling might leave certain _collegia_ quite deserted. At
what time this danger became so serious that special legislation was
required, we do not know, but there is a vague and textually uncertain
passage in the Life of Alexander Severus, in the _Historia Augusta_,
which indicates that a reorganization of the trade-guilds was undertaken
by that emperor. If it was so, the appearance soon afterwards of the
compulsory guild in full development makes it likely that the compulsory
principle was officially recognized or perhaps extended then.
But it was not merely the artisans of the empire that were included in
any organization or reorganization of the _collegia_. Like all other
corporate bodies the trade-guilds, if not wholly religious in form,
possessed a common cult or ceremony, and this common possession made it
easy to consider them as not essentially different from _collegia_
directly and solely religious—the Greek θίασοι for example.
In these, the voluntary principle remained even after the compulsory
guilds were fully developed, although in point of fact they were
generally rigidly hereditary at all times. Here too, after Alexander
Severus, there must have been a certain legal restriction placed upon
arbitrary withdrawal from such cult-organizations, even if their ritual
was openly and unmistakably foreign, such as that of the Jews, the
orgies of Atthis, or the mysteries of Mithra. Some restriction would be
necessary, because membership in these organizations, as far as they
were tolerated by law, involved the payment of certain dues to the
state, and the state could not see with equanimity the obligation to pay
these dues discarded and no new ones assumed in its place.
The dues to the state did not consist altogether, and soon not even
principally, in the actual taxes levied upon a community, and portioned
among its constituent members, whether individuals or corporations.
Indeed these latter were paid to what seems to us a wholly
disproportionate extent by a small and wealthy class in the community.
The taxes, whether they consisted of ground-rent for state lands,
harbor-dues, or taxes on certain sales, were principally paid by the
large traders and investors, who were in every case the governing body
of the local communes. In provinces where a poll-tax was levied, and
where a tribute was imposed as on conquered territory, which the
province really was, these direct taxes, when brutally executed on the
peasant’s grain, were oppressive enough, but in many parts of the Roman
world they were in effect λειτουργίαι, “liturgies,” _i.e._
the burdens assumed by or imposed upon private persons of making large
contributions in service to the state in proportion to their means. The
principle of the liturgy was common to most Greek states, and was
capable of indefinite extension.
And there was one state burden rapidly increasing in gravity, which was
generally met on the principle of the liturgy, although the state too,
as early as the time of Trajan,[392] was compelled to attempt it in
part. That was the care of incompetents, by which term we may understand
all free individuals who could not support themselves wholly by their
personal efforts, _i.e._ widows and orphans, as well as destitute
freemen. The proletariat of the empire not only had no share in its
burdens, but itself formed the empire’s chief economic burden.
The organization of the system was of very old standing. From time
immemorial the minor children and the women of a family and of a clan
had been under the legal control and care of the family’s head. In the
developed system of law, the technical terms were _tutela_ and _cura_,
the former being the guardianship of a child until fourteen, the latter
the guardianship of a youth until twenty-five, as well as the care of an
adult incompetent. This system of guardianship was further extended, but
always remained the same in principle. It was the duty of the family to
provide for its destitute members, and the legal extension the system
underwent was simply that of widening the family circle. Not merely
close relatives but remoter kinsmen were drawn into it as far as the
obligations of guardianship were concerned; and in default of kinsmen,
the guild, society, or commune assumed the wardship of minors, and was
answerable for their maintenance.
It is easy to understand how important this item of state service
became, when we recall how large a part of the municipal budgets in
England during many centuries was concerned with the care of the poor.
But after the disintegration of the slave system on its economic side,
the number of persons for whose care this provision had to be made must
have been much greater than it was in England at any time. If nothing
else, the minute care with which the burdens of wardship were
apportioned, the precautions against their evasion, the great part its
discussion played in legal literature,[393] will make it evident that
wardship of minors was a vitally important matter, and its
administration one of the chief functions of citizenship in the empire.
Many groups of men were practically exempted from all other state dues,
provided the guardianship of minors within that group was assumed.
The maintenance of the poor is almost a corollary of the compulsory
wardship of women and minors. The artisan whose efforts no longer
sufficed to maintain his family often absconded, or in very many cases
succumbed physically to his tasks, leaving in either case a family for
whose wardship his kinsmen or colleagues had to provide. The state
foundations instituted and maintained by Trajan and his successors were
probably abandoned during the third century, when the _tutela_ was
systematized and minutely regulated.
All in all, every member of the state as such had certain fiscal duties
to the state, _munera_, and his performance of these _munera_ determined
his place in the state. The social cleavage between the _honestiores_,
the “better classes,” and the _humiliores_, “the lower classes,” was of
very great importance in criminal law, since the severity of the penalty
varied according to the class to which the convicted criminal belonged;
but we are not told on what basis the judge determined whether any given
man was _honestior_ or _humilior_, and the whole distinction seems
somewhat un-Roman.[394] For other purposes the various honors and ranks
which multiplied in spite of the sinking significance of the many
constituent communities were much less important than the drastically
enforced classification of citizens by the taxes they paid.
The Jews of the Roman empire were to be found in all the classes that
existed. As long as innumerable forms of local citizenship existed,
distinct from citizenship in the Roman state, Jews might be met in all
those groups. But when the Constitution of Caracalla merged all the
local forms of citizenship in the _civitas Romana_, practically all the
Jews then living in the empire became Roman citizens, although it is
highly likely that the old names did not at once disappear.
Only one exception is known to have been made by Caracalla. A certain
class of inhabitants known as the _dediticii_ were excluded from his
general grant. To analyze the exact position of these _dediticii_ would
demand more detailed argument than can here be offered, especially since
it is a highly controversial matter. Recently it has been urged that all
those who paid a poll-tax, particularly in Egypt and Syria, were classed
as _dediticii_ and consequently excluded from Roman citizenship. For
this, however, there is not the remotest evidence. In the Institutes of
Gaius[395] there is an unfortunate lacuna where the matter is discussed,
but from what is said there, it is likely that as early as the Antonines
the _dediticii_ in Rome were a class of freedmen suffering legal
disabilities for proven offenses, and that there were few others. The
exemption of the _dediticii_ from the benefits of the Edict of Caracalla
was therefore perfectly natural, and did not in the least imply the
exemption of those who paid the poll-tax in Egypt and Syria, among whom
were many Jews.
As Roman citizens domiciled in the various quarters of the empire, the
Jews were subjected to the obligations that went with that domicile. So
in Egypt a great number of Jews paid a poll-tax, although many of them,
especially in Alexandria, were exempt. In Syria and Asia, where many
communities still had tribute to pay, the Jewish members of those
communities were equally assessed.
But besides being legally domiciled in some definite place, the Jews in
every place formed cult-organizations. Apostasy in the case of the Jew
meant no more than the abandoning of this organization, “separating
himself from the congregation.”[396] Those who did so found themselves
at once obliged to perform the rites of the state worship in the many
cities where such rites were legally enforced, or to enter other
cult-associations, since it was only as a member of the Jewish
corporation that he secured the privilege of abstention.
These Jewish corporations were known as “synagogues,” a term more
properly denoting the meetings of the societies. The word was used of
other associations as well as of the Jewish. A word of kindred origin
and meaning, _synodos_, was almost a general term for corporation
everywhere.[397] However “synagogue” became gradually appropriated by
the Jewish _collegia_, and in inscriptions in which the word occurs it
is generally safe to assume a Jewish origin.
Like all other similar corporations or guilds, the Jewish synagogues had
special _munera_. One which was almost unique was the Jewish tax, the
_fiscus_ _Iudaicus_, or didrachm, which, since 70, had been levied on
all the Jews, originally for the support of the Capitoline temple, but
probably long merged into the general fiscus, or imperial treasury. It
is unique, because there does not seem to have been any other tax which,
like this one, was wholly devoid of local basis, and did not depend on
domicile at all. Otherwise membership in the Jewish synagogue conferred
a highly valued and general exemption. The Jews could not be required to
perform any task that violated their religious conviction. This
privilege is formulated in a constitution of Caracalla, but it seems
rather a confirmation of one already existing than a new grant.[398]
According to this privilege, Jews were immediately relieved from all
dues connected with local or state worship or with the temples. As many
Jews were in a financial position that would ordinarily invite the
imposition of just these liturgies, that meant a very great relief. All
other liturgies, including the _tutela_ both of Jews and of non-Jews, we
are expressly told the Jews were subject to.
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.
The Jews, as one of the Mediterranean nations, began to come into close
contact with Greek civilization about the time of Alexander. Greece was
then entering on a new stage in her development. The Macedonian hegemony
produced a greater degree of political unity than had been previously
achieved, but above all a real cultural unity had been created, and was
carried by arms and commerce over the East. To this the Jews, as other
nations did, opposed a vigorous resistance; and this resistance was
successful in so far as it allowed the creation of a practically
independent nation, and particularly it stimulated the independent
development of Jewish institutions, especially religious ones.
In religion the Jews came into further and more extensive conflict with
their Greek environment. For many centuries all the East had known a
great spiritual unrest, from which had grown various religious
movements. Of all these the common goal was the attainment of a personal
immortality, the “salvation of the soul.” Among the Jews too this
movement had been active, and had produced concrete results in sects and
doctrines. The Jewish aspect of this general movement would have
remained a local development, had it not been given a wider field by the
unusual position of the Jews, due to their dispersion.
For this dispersion various causes can be assigned. Perhaps the most
potent single cause was the fact that the Jews, who rigorously opposed
exposure of infants, and encouraged in other ways the growth of their
population, increased too rapidly for the very limited resources of
their small and niggardly territory. At any rate the kingdoms of the
successors of Alexander found Jews as colonists in many of the new
foundations in Asia, Syria, and Egypt, especially the last, where, as a
matter of fact, Jews had lived from pre-Persian times. Within these new
and, in many cases, old communities the doctrines preached in Palestine
became a means of propaganda, and enabled the Jews to do more than
maintain themselves in the exceptional position which their highly
specialized religion necessitated.
The Jews were by no means the only religious group in the Greek
communities with proselytizing tendencies. But they were unique in so
far as they were permanently connected with an existing national group,
with which they maintained relations. This made friction of some sort
inevitable at first, since some community of religious observances for
all citizens of a single state was axiomatic for ancient times. However,
the anomaly of the Jewish position became less glaring in course of
time.
The first stage of Jewish influence is marked by two things, a
constantly increasing dispersion and an equally increasing propaganda
that reached all stages of society.
The advance of the power of Rome at first did not change these
conditions. In fact that advance materially assisted both the dispersion
and its propaganda, since the support of Rome was an invaluable asset
for the Hasmonean kingdom. Even the conquest by Pompey had no other
effect than to accelerate the indicated development, especially within
Italy and Rome itself.
But the relations of the Jews with the Greco-Roman world entered upon a
second stage, the stage of armed conflict, when the national and
religious aspirations of certain classes of Jews, which culminated in
the Messianic hope, came into contact with the denationalizing
tendencies of the imperial system. This conflict was in no sense
inevitable, and might easily have been avoided. In addition to the
internal movements that provoked the series of rebellions between 68 and
135, there was a constant excitation from without. The hereditary
enemies of the Greek East and its successor, the Roman Empire—the
Persians and their kinsmen and successors, the Parthians—maintained not
only their independence but also their hostility, and the fact that the
Jews lived in both empires, and that Parthian Jews communicated freely
with the others, presented a channel for foreign stimulation to revolt.
The third stage of Jewish relations consists of an adjustment of the
Jews to the rapidly centralizing empire, of which the administrative
center was moving eastward. The center of wealth and culture had always
been in the East. The reforms of Hadrian and his successors prepared the
way for the formal recognition of the new state of things in the
Constitutio Antonina, the Edict of Caracalla, which gave Roman
citizenship to almost all the freedmen of the empire. This is the great
period of Roman law, when, in consequence of the enormously extended
application of the civil law, a great impetus was given to the
scientific analysis and application of juristic principles. Out of this
grew the bureaucratic system perfected by Diocletian, and begun perhaps
by Alexander Severus, in which, as told in the last chapter, the attempt
was made to classify every form of human activity in its relation to the
state.
A new stage of Jewish relations begins with the dominance of
Christianity; and that, as was stated at the beginning of this study,
lies outside of its scope.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
Footnote 1:
To what extent the Jews of the present day or those of earlier times
may be considered racially pure, depends upon what criteria of race
are adopted. At present there is no general agreement among
ethnologists on this subject. The historical data are very uncertain.
At all events absolute racial unity of the Jews of the Dispersion
cannot be maintained. The facts of their vigorous propaganda and their
extensive slave-property are too well attested. But it is wholly
impossible to determine how far the admixture went.
Footnote 2:
The best edition of Philo is the still unfinished one which is being
prepared by two German scholars, Wendland and Cohen. In this the
_Apologia_ has not yet appeared. Earlier editions are those of Mangey
(1742) and Holtze (1851).
Philo’s works were translated into English by C. D. Yonge (Bohn’s
Library, London, 1854).
Footnote 3:
In Greek the two commonest editions of Josephus’ works are those of
Niese (1887-1895) and of Naber (1896). Neither completely satisfies
all the demands that may be made for the adequate presentation of the
text.
The old English translation of W. Whiston, so widely circulated both
in England and America, is very inaccurate. The revision of this
translation by A. R. Shilleto (1889-1890) has only slightly improved
it.
Footnote 4:
The references to the Jews in the inscriptions and papyri have not, as
yet, been collected. Mr. Seymour de Ricci planned a collection of the
Greek and Latin inscriptions to be called Corpus Inscriptionum
Judaicarum. This Corpus was, at least partly, in manuscript form in
1912, but no part has been published. Mr. de Ricci’s article on
“Inscriptions” in the Jewish Encyclopedia, and Johannes Oehler,
Epigraphische Beiträge zur Geschichte des Judentums (Monatsschrift f.
Gesch. u. Wiss. d. Jud. 1909, xvii. 292-302, 443-452, 524-538) give a
practically complete collection.
CHAPTER I
GREEK RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS
Footnote 5:
It is nowhere directly stated that the power of a god did not extend
beyond a definite locality. But the numerous local epithets applied to
the various gods indicate it. We need mention only such typical
references to the θεοὶ ἐγχώριοι as Aesch. Septem. 14,
Soph. Trach. 183, and Thuc. ii. 74.
Footnote 6:
Cf. Dionysus in the “Frogs” of Aristophanes, Heracles and Poseidon in
the “Birds.” The other comic poets, even Epicharmus, the oldest, dealt
with even greater freedom with the gods. Even the scanty fragments of
Cratinus and Amphis indicate that fact. In Sicily, an entire dramatic
genre, that of the Φλύακες, contained practically nothing
but situations in which the divine personages of the myths were the
subjects of the coarsest fun.
Footnote 7:
Such heroic friendships as that of Achilles and Patroclus were
perverted early in the imagination of Greeks. Cf. Aeschylus, in Athen.
xiii. 601 A, and Aeschines, i. 142. So also the story of Apollo and
Admetus became a love story for Alexandria; Callimachus H. ii. 49.
Footnote 8:
The subject has been discussed in full by de Visser, _De Graecorum
deis non referentibus speciem humanam_ (Leyden, 1900;) 2d ed. in
German, 1903. So at Phigaleia, in Arcadia, Demeter had the form of a
horse; the Brauronian Artemis was a bear; Apollo Lykeios was sometimes
adored in the form of a wolf.
Footnote 9:
Aegean and Mycenean are both used to designate the civilization that
preceded that of historical Greece. Aegean, however, has, to a large
extent, superseded the older term. For the specifically Cretan form of
it, Minoan is generally employed.
Footnote 10:
In spite of the apparently well-defined personalities of the Homeric
gods and a poetic tradition of many centuries, the sculptors of later
times found it necessary to indicate the subject of their labors,
either by some well-known attribute, such as the caduceus, or a sacred
animal, or a symplegma representing a scene of a known legend. Without
these accessories, archeologists often find themselves at a loss when
they are required to name the god intended. Cf. Koepp, Archäologie ii.
88 seq.
Footnote 11:
It is not suggested that prayer could not exist without sacrifice. But
where sacrifice did take place, the act of worship did not lie in the
sacrifice alone, or in the propitiatory allocution that accompanied
it, but in the two together.
Footnote 12:
Cf. Apollo Soter, Soph. O. T. 149, Dionysus Soter, Lycophr. 206, Zeus
Soter, Aristoph. Plut. 1186, etc.
Footnote 13:
Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, _passim_. The term is
rarely used by recent investigators.
Footnote 14:
For the sacrificial act when addressed to gods, the word was
θύειν; addressed to heroes, ἐναγίζειν.
Herod, ii. 44. The color of the sacrificial animal for heroes was
usually black, and no part of the flesh was eaten. Cf. Sch. Hom. Il.
i. 459.
Footnote 15:
For heroes whose position in the state was as high as that of gods, we
have only to refer to the eponyms of the Cleisthenic tribes at Athens,
Theseus, Cecrops, Erechtheus, etc.
Footnote 16:
Local deities, such as Pelops at Olympia (Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 149),
Archemorus at Nemea (Arg. Pind. Nem. i), Tlepolemus at Rhodes (Sch.
Pind. Ol. vii. 146).
Footnote 17:
Cf. Suidas. s. v. Ἀναγυράσιος, Alciphro, iii. 58.
Footnote 18:
The doctrine of Socrates cited by Xenophon, Memor. iv. 7, represents
popular Greek feeling on the subject of theological speculation.
Footnote 19:
Xenophanes of Colophon (sixth cent. B.C.E.) cited in Sex. Emp. adv.
Math. ix. 193. The lines are frequently quoted, and are to be found in
any history of philosophy.
Footnote 20:
A monotheistic or pantheistic tendency showed itself in the attempt on
the part of poets like Aeschylus and Pindar to absorb the divine world
into the personality of Zeno. Cf. Aesch. Heliades, 71:
Ζεύς ἐστιν αὶθήρ, Ζεὺς δὲ γῆ Ζεὺς δ’ οὐρανός,
Ζεύς τοι τὰ πάντα χ ὥτι τῶνδ’ ὑπέρτερον.
Footnote 21:
The solar myth theory was especially advocated by Max Müller in his
various books and articles. Most of the older writers on mythology,
_e.g._ in the earlier articles of Roscher’s Lexikon, accept it as an
established dogma. There can be no reasonable doubt that the celestial
phenomena of sun, moon, and stars exercised a powerful influence on
popular imagination.
Footnote 22:
Dionysus came into Greece probably from Thrace and Macedon about the
tenth century B.C.E. By the sixth century there was no Greek city in
which he was not worshiped. As far as any center of his worship
existed, it may be placed in Boeotia. Cf. Farnell, Cults of the Greek
States, chs. iv. and v.
Footnote 23:
We find Aphrodite firmly established among Greek gods from the
earliest times. It may be that the Semitic or Oriental connections
which have been found for her (cf. Roscher, s. v. Aphrodite, Roscher’s
Lex. i. 390-406) are due to the readiness with which she was
associated with Oriental female deities. That fact, however, is itself
significant.
Footnote 24:
The merchants of Citium formally introduced into Athens the worship of
their local Aphrodite; Dittenberger, Syll. no. 551. Sarapis, Isis, and
Sabazios also early found their way into Athens.
Footnote 25:
The statement that ἀσέβεια was a negative offense, that
its gravamen consisted not in introducing new divinities, but in
neglecting the established ones, is made by Wilamowitz (Antigonus von
Karyst, p. 277). It is, however, only qualifiedly true. The Greeks
found purely negative conceptions difficult. Impiety, or
ἀσέβεια, was not the mere neglect, but such a concrete
act as would tend to cause the neglect of the established gods. The
indictment against Socrates charged the introduction of καινὰ
δαιμόνια, but only because that introduction threatened the
established form. The merchants of Citium (cf. previous note) might
introduce their foreign deity with safety. No such danger was deemed
to lie.
Footnote 26:
The stories of Lycurgus (Il. vi. 130) and of Pentheus (Euripides,
Bacchae) are a constant reminder of the difficulties encountered by
Dionysus in his march through Greece. Then, as has always been the
case in religious opposition, the opponents of the new forms advanced
social reasons for their hostility (Eurip. Bacchae, 220-225).
Footnote 27:
The Egyptian origin of the Eleusinian mysteries is maintained
especially by Foucart, Les grands mystères d’Eleusis.
Footnote 28:
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter dates from the close of the seventh
century B.C.E., perhaps earlier. In it we find the Eleusinian
mysteries fully developed, and their appeal is Panhellenic.
Footnote 29:
Homer certainly knows of no general worship of the dead. But the
accessibility of the dead by means of certain rites is attested not
only by the Νέκυια (Od. x. 517-520), but by the slaughter
of the Trojan captives at the funeral of Patroclus (Il. xxiii. 174).
The poet’s own attitude to the latter is not so important as his
evidence of the custom’s existence.
Footnote 30:
In later times any dead man was ἥρος, and his tomb a
ἡρῷον; C. I. G. 1723, 1781-1783.
Footnote 31:
The kinship of gods and men was an Orphic dogma, quickly and widely
accepted. Pindar formulated it in the words ἕν ἀνδρῶν, ἕν θεῶν
γένος; Nem. vi. i. Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 41 C.
Footnote 32:
Od. iv. 561.
Footnote 33:
Hesychius, s. v. Ἁρμοδίου μέλος.
CHAPTER II
ROMAN RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS
Footnote 34:
Adolph Bastian presents his theory of _Grundideen_ in his numerous
writings. It has, however, been found difficult, if not impossible,
even for anthropologists to present the details of that theory with
either definiteness or clearness.
Footnote 35:
Cf. W. Warde Fowler, Roman Religion, in Hasting’s Dictionary of
Religions (consulted in proof).
Footnote 36:
The relation, or the contrast, between magic and religion has been a
constant subject of discussion since the publication of Tylor’s
Primitive Culture. For the present the contrast stated in the text may
suffice.
Footnote 37:
_Sei deo sei deivae sac_ (C. I. L. vi. 110); _sive deo sive deae_
(_ibid._ iii, 1212); _sei deus sei dea_ (_ibid._ xiv. 3572). _Cf._
also Not. d. Sc. 1890, p. 218.
Footnote 38:
Such a story as that of Mars and Nerione may belong to genuine Roman
mythology. The enormous spread of Latin translations of Greek poems,
and the wide popularity of Greek plays, rapidly drove out all the
native myths which had attained no literary form.
Footnote 39:
Livy V. xxi. 3, 5.
Footnote 40:
Macrob. Sat. III. ix. 7-8.
Footnote 41:
The authenticity of this particular application of the formula has
been questioned; Wissowa, s. v. Evocatio (deorum); Pauly-Wiss. vi.
1153. The proofs that the formula has been extensively modified are
not conclusive. The _evocati di_ received a special form of ritual at
Rome. Festus, p. 237, a, 7. Cf. Verg. Aen. ii. 351-352.
Footnote 42:
For the Dioscuri, Livy, II. xx. 13. Apollo, Livy, III. lxiii. 7; IV.
xxv. Both introductions are placed in the fifth century B.C.E. The
historical account of the reception of Cybele and of Asclepius, Livy,
Per. ix. and xxix. 10 seq.
Footnote 43:
The _lectisternium_ is generally conceded to be of Greek origin. The
ceremony consisted in formally dressing a banquet table and placing
thereat the images of some gods, who reclined on cushions and were
assumed to be sharing in the repast.
Footnote 44:
Cic. De Nat. Deor. i. 119.
CHAPTER III
GREEK AND ROMAN CONCEPTS OF RACE
Footnote 45:
The extreme of racial fanaticism will be found in H. S. Chamberlain,
Grundzüge des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.
Footnote 46:
Aristophanes, Acharn. 104, Ιαοναῦ and the Schol. _ad
loc._: ὂτὶ πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας Ἰάονας ἐκάλουν οι
βάρβαροι.
Footnote 47:
After the defeat of the Persians, the victors set up a tripod at
Delphi, about the stem of which a bronze serpent was coiled. About
this serpent ran an inscription, τοίδε τὸν πόλεμον
ἐπολέμεον, “The following took part in the war.” Then follows
the list of the Greeks beginning with the Lacedemonians. Here, if
anywhere, a collective term denoting the common origin of all these
nations might have been expected.
Footnote 48:
Euripides, Iph. Aul. 1400; Aristotle, Pol. I. ii. 4; ὡς ταὐτὸ
φύσει βάρβαρον καὶ δοῦλον ὄν.
Footnote 49:
Isocrates, Pan. 181.
Footnote 50:
Demosthenes, In Mid. 48 (xx. 530).
Footnote 51:
Daniel xi. 3.
Footnote 52:
Besides the flings at barbarian descent scattered throughout the
orators (cf. Dem. In Steph. A. 30), Hellenic origin was required for
all the competitors in the Olympian games. Herodotus, v. 22.
Footnote 53:
The secretary of Appius Caecus was a certain Gnaeus Flavius, grandson
of a slave, who became not merely _curule aedile_, but one of the
founders of Roman jurisprudence. (Livy, IX. xlvi.). Likewise the
Gabinius that proposed the Lex Tabellaria of 139 B.C.E. was the son or
grandson of a slave, _vernae natus_ or _nepos_. (Cf. the newly
discovered fragment of Livy’s Epitome, Oxyr. Pap. iv. 101 f.) The
general statement is made by the emperor Claudius (Tac. Ann. xi. 24),
in a passage unfortunately absent in the fragments of the actual
speech discovered at Lyons.
Footnote 54:
Cicero, In Pisonem (Fragments 10-13). Aeschines, In Ctes. 172.
Footnote 55:
Muttines, a Liby-Phoenician (cf. Livy, XXI. xxii. 3, _Libyphoenices
mixtum Punicum Afris genus_), becomes a Roman citizen (_ibid._ XXVI.
v. 11).
Footnote 56:
Ennius ap. Cic. de. Or. iii. 168.
Footnote 57:
Mucius defines _gentiles_, _i.e._ true members of Roman _gentes_, as
follows (ap. Cic. Topica, vi. 29): _Gentiles sunt inter se qui eodem
nomine sunt, qui ab ingenuis oriundi sunt, quorum maiorum nemo
servitutem servivit, qui capite non sunt deminuti._ Literally taken,
that would exclude descendants of former slaves to the thousandth
generation. But Pliny demands somewhat less even for Roman knights.
The man is to be _ingenuus ipse, patre, avo paterno_ (H. N. XXXIII.
ii. 32).
Footnote 58:
Gallic was still spoken in southern Gaul in the fourth century C.E.,
Syriac at Antioch in the time of Jerome, and Punic at Carthage for
centuries after the destruction of the city.
Footnote 59:
The racial bond upon which modern scientific sectaries lay such stress
was constantly disregarded in ancient and modern times. The Teutonic
Burgundians found an alliance with the Mongol Avars against the
Teutonic Franks a perfectly natural thing.
CHAPTER IV
SKETCH OF JEWISH HISTORY BETWEEN NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND CONSTANTINE
Footnote 60:
The Carduchi, Taochi, Chalybes, Phasiani (Xenophon, An. IV. iii. 6),
make friends with the Greek adventurers, or oppose them on their own
account without any apparent reference to the fact that the army of
the Ten Thousand was part of a hostile force recently defeated by
their sovereign.
Footnote 61:
Herodotus, vii. 89: παρείχοντο δὲ αὐτὰς (sc. τὰς
τριήρεας) εοἵδε, Φοίνικες μὲν σὺν Σὺροισι τοῖσι ὲν τῆ
Παλαιστίν ῃ, and he later defines the name specifically
(_ibid._): τῆς δὲ Συρίας τοῦτο τὸ χωρίον καὶ τὸ μέχρι Αιγύπτου
πᾶν Παλαιστίνη καλέεται.
Footnote 62:
Aramaic Papyri Discovered at Assuan, edited by Sayce and Cowley,
London, 1906. Aramäische Papyri ... zu Elephantine, ed. Sachau,
Leipzig, 1911.
Footnote 63:
Josephus, Antiquities, XI. vii. Reference to the same incident in
Eusebius, Chron. (Ol. 103), Syncellus (486, 10), and Orosius (iii. 7)
depends upon Eusebius. The general statement of pseudo-Hecataeus (ap.
Joseph, in Ap. i. 22) is, of course, worthless as evidence.
Ochus was especially noted for his sacrilege. (Cf. Aelian, N. A. x.
23).
Footnote 64:
After the death of Antiochus Sidetes, in 129 B.C.E., the various
occupants or claimants of the Syrian throne are scarcely to be
distinguished by nickname or number. They are uniformly imbeciles or
puppets, and the last of them, Antiochus XIII, dies miserably at the
hands of a Bedouin sheik.
Footnote 65:
In the Talmud John Hyrcanus is always יהוחנן כהן הגדל,
but Alexander is יני המלך. On the coins John styles
himself High Priest; but Jannai, on both his Hebrew and Greek coins,
bears the title of King, יהונתן המלך and Αλεξάνδρου
βασίλεως. Cf. Madden, Coins of the Jews. We have no record that
the royal title was specifically bestowed upon Jannai, either by the
Seleucids or by the people. It is therefore likely that it was assumed
without such authorization. The high-priesthood, on the other hand,
was duly conferred upon Simon and his descendants.
CHAPTER V
INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE JEWS DURING THE PERSIAN PERIOD
Footnote 66:
Cf. especially the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in the
editions of Kautzsch or Charles.
Footnote 67:
That the name is Sira and not Sirach, as it appears in the LXX, is
generally accepted. It was the practice of Greeks to put a final
Χ to foreign names to indicate that they were
indeclinable. Cf. Ἰωσήχ (Luke iii. 26) for José.
Footnote 68:
Ecclesiasticus xlviii. 24.
Footnote 69:
Job iv. 7 seq.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST CONTACT BETWEEN GREEK AND JEW
Footnote 70:
Σύριος means scarcely more than “Oriental” in Aeschylus
(Persae, 81, Σύριον ἅρμα; and Ag. 1312, Σύριον
ἀγλάϊσμα).
Footnote 71:
Except Hittite and Amorite, these names have no non-Biblical
occurrence.
Footnote 72:
Caphthor is rendered Cappadocia in the LXX (Amos ix. 7), for no better
reason, it may be, than the similarity between the first syllables.
The Keftiu ships of the Egyptian monuments are scarcely other than
Mycenean, and if they came from Crete, Minoan (Breasted, Ancient
Records of Egypt, ii. 492). That the Philistines are of Cretan origin
is, in the absence of monumental sources, a pure theory. It fits in
well, however, with what we do know of them.
Footnote 73:
The Jews were commanded by Ezra to put away their “strange wives”
(Ezra x. 10) for the specific reason that the latter incited them to
idolatry. Instances of intermarriage occur in the papyri from
Elephantine (see ch. IV., n. 3).
Footnote 74:
Datis and Artaphernes commanded the Persian troops defeated at
Marathon, 490 B.C.E. Mardonius was defeated at Plataea in 479.
Footnote 75:
Joel iii. 6. There is nothing in the extant Book of Joel inconsistent
with a pre-Exilic date. Such slave raids as the Phoenicians are here
accused of making, the Greeks made freely in Homeric times, and Greek
merchants were already in every mart. In the famous picture of a
golden age in Isaiah, Jewish captives are to be assembled “from
Assyria, Egypt—and from the islands of the sea” (Isaiah xi. 11), a
passage indubitably pre-Exilic. The “islands of the sea,” however, are
obviously Greek.
Footnote 76:
In the lexicon of Stephen of Byzantium (s. v.) we read Σύροι
κοινὸν ὄ νομα πολλῶν ἐθνῶν. Strabo, writing in the time of
Augustus, includes most of the nations of Asia Minor, such as the
Cappadocians, etc., under that term (xvi. 2).
Footnote 77:
The famous Harpy-tomb from Xanthus in Lycia, now in the British
Museum, dates from the sixth century. It is, however, so highly
developed a work that it presupposes a long history of mutual artistic
influence between Greece, Ionia, and Lycia.
Footnote 78:
One of the magnificent sarcophagi found in 1887 at Sidon by Hamdi Bey.
They are all published in sumptuous form by Hamdi Bey and Reinach, Une
nécropole royale á Sidon, Paris, 1892. An excellent and convenient
description may be found in Hans Wachtler, Die Blütezeit der
griechischen Kunst im Spiegel der Reliefsarcophage, Teubner, 1910 (Aus
Natur u. Geisteswelt, no. 272).
Footnote 79:
Strato, king of Sidon in 360 B.C.E. Athen. xii. 531. Cf. Gerostratos
of Arados at about the same time.
Footnote 80:
Herodotus, ii. 104 (cf. ii. 37).
Footnote 81:
Aristotle states the fact in the Meteorologica, II. iii. 39, but does
not mention the Jews.
Footnote 82:
Textes, p. 8. n. 3.
Footnote 83:
In the royal tombs at Sidon excavated by Hamdi Bey (see above, n. 9.),
one of the monuments bears a long Phoenician inscription of a king of
Sidon. It begins: “I, Tabnit, priest of Astarte and king of Sidonians,
son of Eshmunazar, priest of Astarte, and king of the Sidonians.”
Footnote 84:
Plato, Euthyphro, 3 C., and _passim_.
Footnote 85:
Aristotle, Rhetoric, III. vii. 6.
Footnote 86:
Reinach, Textes, pp. 10-12. Müller, Frag. hist. graec. ii. 323, quoted
in Josephus, In Ap. i. 22.
Footnote 87:
The untutored philosophers of Voltaire’s stories were quite in the
mode of the eighteenth century, which had discovered the “noble
savage,” and were quite convinced that civilization was a
retrogression from a state of rude and primitive virtue. It was,
further, a convenient cloak behind which one might criticise an
autocratic régime. Hence the flood of “Turkish,” “Chinese,”
“Japanese,” etc. “Letters,” of which Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes
are the most famous. Modern instances are “The Traveller from
Altruria” of Mr. Howells, and Mr. Dickinson’s “Letters of a Chinese
Official.”
Footnote 88:
Cited by Diogenes Laertius, i. 9 (Müller, Frag. hist. graec. ii. 328).
Footnote 89:
Reinach, Textes, p. 13; Müller, Frag. ii. 437; Clemens Alex, i. 15.
Megasthenes had previously resided at the court of Sibyrtius, satrap
of Arachosia (southern Afghanistan). Arrian, Anab. V. vi. 1.
Footnote 90:
Clemens Alex. Str. v. (Sylberg), pp. 607 seq. Justin Coh. ad Graecos,
25.
Footnote 91:
Cf. Ecclesiasticus l. 26; Zech. ix. 2.
Footnote 92:
At Elephantine we learn from the papyri recently from there (Pap. 1,
Sachau) that the Jews had a shrine consecrated to יהו and
that in 410 B.C.E. it was destroyed by the priests of a rival Egyptian
temple.
Footnote 93:
Reinach, Textes, p. 39. Müller, Frag. iii. 35.
CHAPTER VII
EGYPT
Footnote 94:
This fragment, of the authenticity of which little doubt can be
entertained, must be distinguished from the books attributed to
Hecataeus about the Jews and Abraham. Josephus uses both in his
“Defense” against Apion (i. 22 seq.), but their authenticity was
questioned even in ancient times (cf. Herennius Philo, cited by
Origenes, C. Cels. i. 15; Reinach, Textes, p. 157). They are almost
certainly Jewish works of the first century B.C.E.
The text of the real Hecataeus (Reinach, Textes, p. 14 seq.) is
anything but certain. We have it only in a long citation by Diodorus,
xl. 3. This book of Diodorus, however, has disappeared, and is found
only in the _Bibliotheca_ made by the Byzantine patriarch Photius in
the ninth century C.E. (cod. 244).
Footnote 95:
There were in Egypt a number of colonies of military settlers. They
are distinguished by certain privileges, and, in legal terminology, by
the term τῆς ἐπιγονῆς, placed after the words of
nationality. Just as there are Πέρσαι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς, so
there are Ἰουδαῖοι τῆς ἐπιγονῆς. In the Hibeh Papyri, i.
96, of 259 B.C.E., we read an agreement between the Jew Alexander, son
of Andronicus, decurion in the troop of Zoilus, and Andronicus, a Jew
τῆς ἐπιγονῆς The groom Daniel (?) in a papyrus of the
second century B.C.E. (Grenfell, An Alexandrian Erotic Fragment and
Other Papyri, no. 43.) and the farm laborer Teuphilus (Grenfell-Hunt,
Fayûm Towns and their Papyri, no. 123) are also humble men, and
probably in the same stage of cultivation as other men of their
calling.
Footnote 96:
Elephantine Pap. (ed. Sachau), no. 6.
Footnote 97:
Osiris appears as a theophoric element, not only in Egyptian names and
in those of Grecized Egyptians, but also in purely Phoenician names,
and joined to Semitic elements. So Osirshamar, from Malta, and
Osiribdil, from Larnaca (Notice des Mon. Phén du Louvre, nos. 133,
162).
Footnote 98:
Reinach, Textes, pp. 20 seq. Müller, Frag. ii. 511-616.
Footnote 99:
Tac. Hist. V. ii.
Footnote 100:
Reinach, Textes, p. 362. Photius Bibl. no. 279.
CHAPTER VIII
JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT
Footnote 101:
Naucratis was founded, on the Canopic mouth of the Nile, about 550
B.C.E.
Footnote 102:
However completely oligarchical in practice the government became, the
sovereignty of the dēmos was recognized in theory. In the ancient doom
ascribed to Lycurgus (Plutarch, Lyc. 6), which may be said to form the
constitution of Sparta, occur the words δάμῳ δὲ κὰν κυρίαν ἦμεν
καὶ κράτος.
Footnote 103:
Fränkel, Inschriften, v. Perg. no. 5, 18 _et passim_.
Footnote 104:
Mitteis und Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, I.
v. i, pp. 14 seq.
Footnote 105:
Mitteis-Wilcken, _op. cit._ p. 15.
Footnote 106:
Xenophon, De Reditibus, ii. 4-7.
Footnote 107:
Josephus often refers to the Jews of Alexandria as oἱ ἐν
Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ Ἰουδαῖοι (Ant. XIII. iii. 4) or oἱ ἐν
Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ κατοικούντες Ἰουδαῖοι (Ant. XIV. vii. 2), but he
refers similarly to the Greeks there (Ant. XVIII. viii. i), and
plainly understands κατοικεῖν simply as “inhabit.” The
question is fully discussed in Contra Ap. ii. 5, where the general
statement is made that Jews might and did become Alexandrian citizens,
but that Egyptians were at first excluded.
Footnote 108:
Jewish Μακεδόνες, Berliner Griechische Urkunden (B. G.
U.), iv. 1068 (62). In other classes of citizenship, B. G. U. iv.
1140; iv. 1151, 7. For humbler classes of Jews cf. ch. VII., n. 2. A
Jewish house-slave is manumitted in Oxyrhyncus Pap. ix. 1205.
Footnote 109:
The discussion is fully set forth by Brandis, s. v. Arabarches in the
Pauly-Wissowa Realenzyklopädie, ii. 342. The word “alabarch” or
“arabarch” impressed the Romans somewhat as “mogul” impresses the
English, and was used with the same jocular intent. Cic. ad Att. II.
xvii. 3. Juvenal, Satires, i. 130.
Footnote 110:
Apuleius, Met. xi. 30. Drexler in Roscher’s Lexikon Myth., s. v. Isis,
ii. 409 seq. gives a list of the cities through which the worship of
Isis spread.
Footnote 111:
Sarapis was not Osiris-Apis, but a deity of Sinope in Asia Minor, duly
“evoked” into Alexandria by Ptolemy. The matter is left an open
question by Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain,
p. 112, but the general consensus of opinion is in favor of the theory
just mentioned. The opposition referred to in the text was less an
aggressive one than it was an assertion of the distinction between
Greeks and Egyptians. It broke down with the fourth Ptolemy, and
Sarapis was more or less officially identified with Osiris.
Footnote 112:
Alexandronesus. Cf. Reinach, in Mélanges Nicolle, p. 451; Pap. of
Magdola, n. 35.
Footnote 113:
Greek Pap. of the Brit. Mus. iii. 183, the ἄρχοντες α Ἰουδαίων
προσευχῆς pay their water tax.
Footnote 114:
B. G. U. iv. n. 562.
Footnote 115:
The cartouches representing the Ptolemies contain all the royal titles
of the Pharaohs.
Footnote 116:
Mitteis-Wilcken, Grundzüge und Chrestomathie, I. p. 42.
CHAPTER IX
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST GREEK CULTURE IN PALESTINE
Footnote 117:
Ecclesiasticus xxxi. 12-30; vi. 2-4.
Footnote 118:
Cf. ch. III., n. 14.
Footnote 119:
A full bibliography is given in Schürer, Geschichte der Juden 4th ed.,
iii. 472 seq.
Footnote 120:
Flinders Petrie Pap. iii. 31, g, 13.
Footnote 121:
By Mishnic tradition Antigonus was a pupil of Simon the Just (Abot i.
3). A later legend makes him the founder of the Sadducees (Abot R. N.
v.). The saying of Antigonus is: “Be not like servants who minister to
their master for the sake of a reward, but be like servants who
minister to their master without the expectation of reward, and let
the fear of Heaven be upon you.”
Footnote 122:
Andronicus (Hibeh Pap. i. 96), Helenus and Trypho (B. G. U. iv. 1140),
Dionysius (Dittenberger, Syll. no. 73).
Footnote 123:
Cf. Oesterley’s edition of Ecclesiasticus, pp. xxiv-xxv.
Footnote 124:
Josephus, Ant. XII. iv.
Footnote 125:
Abot i. 4; Shab. 46 a; Eduy. viii. 4; Pes. 15 a.
CHAPTER X
ANTIOCHUS THE MANIFEST GOD
Footnote 126:
Polybius, XXVI. i. 1: Ἀντίοχος ὁ ν Ἐπιφανὴς μὲν κληθεὶς Επιμανὴς
δ’ ἐκ τῶν πράξεων ὀνομασθείς. Cf. also Athenaeus, v. 5 (193),
and x. 10 (439).
Footnote 127:
Ptolemy Euergetes II (Athenaeus, x. 10, 438 D).
Footnote 128:
It is usual to speak of the Seleucid kingdom as Syria. That, however,
conveys a wholly wrong impression of either the pretensions of the
house or the actual extent of its dominion. Seleucus himself actually
maintained his authority within what is now Hindustan and was styled
“king of Asia,” where he was not called simply “the king” as Alexander
and the Persians had been before him. Even when Antiochus the Great
gave up all his Asiatic possessions north of the Taurus, he did not
renounce his claim to the Persian and Oriental patrimony of Alexander.
Footnote 129:
Zeitschr. d. deut. morg. Gesell. xxiii. 371; Nöldeke, Die sem. Spr. 41
f.; Zeitschr. f. Assyr. vi. 26. Cf. also Gardner, Greek and Scythic
Kings of Bactria and India.
Footnote 130:
The full title is Θεὸς Επιφανής, as it appears upon
coins.
Footnote 131:
The στρατηγός ἐπὶ τὰ ὅ πλα _i.e._ “general of infantry,”
was at that time practically equivalent to the chief magistracy.
Athenian coins of the year 175 B.C.E. bear his name and the elephant
which was the heraldic emblem of his house. Reinach, Rev. d. et. gr.
1888, 163 f.
Footnote 132:
Josephus, Ant. XII. v.
Footnote 133:
The titles ἀγοράνομος and δήμαρχος are
translations of “aedilis” and “tribunus,” which Antiochus sought to
transfer to his capital. Polyb. XXVI. i. 5-6. Livy XLI. xx.
Footnote 134:
Livy (_loc. cit._), Polyb. (_loc. cit._), Athenaeus, x. 438 D and E.
Footnote 135:
Hybristas is mentioned in Livy XXXVII. xiii. 12.
Footnote 136:
Polyb. XXXI. xi. 3; Josephus, Ant. XI. ix.
Footnote 137:
I Macc. i.
Footnote 138:
Cf. ch. I., n. 22.
Footnote 139:
Cf. the article Druidae, Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzykl.
Footnote 140:
Isocrates Nicocles (III), 54. King Nicocles of Salamis in Cyprus, the
type and exemplar of a benevolent despot, states to his subjects:
ἑταιρείας μὴ ποιεῖσθε μήτε συνόδους ἄνευ τῆς ἐμῆς γνώμης αἱ γὰρ
τοιαῦται συστάσεις ἐν μἐν ταῖς ἄλλαις πολιτείαις πλεονεκτοῦσιν, ἐν δὲ
ταῖς μοναρχίαις κινδυνεύουσιν.
Footnote 141:
Jerome in Dan. xi. 21 f.
Footnote 142:
So the Spartans actively assisted the oligarchical party in Megara,
Argos, Sicyon, and Achaea (Thuc. iv. 74; v. 81; v. 82).
CHAPTER XI
THE JEWISH PROPAGANDA
Footnote 143:
Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, gives the
best and clearest account of the spread of these foreign cults. The
Cabiri came from Samothrace. They were generally referred to as
Θεοὶ μεγάλοι, and are found in many parts of the empire.
Footnote 144:
Athenian criminal statutes often contain in the penalty clause
καὶ τὸ γένος αὐτοῦ. Cf. Glotz, La solidarité de la
famille dans le droit Ath. Cf. for Teos C. I. G. 3044.
Footnote 145:
Homer, Odys. xi. 489-491.
Footnote 146:
Frequently pictured relief (Gardner, Greek Sculpt. p. 136) formerly in
the Sabouroff Coll. Pl. i., Ath. Mitth. 1877. Taf. xx-xxiv.
Footnote 147:
Il. iii. 243-244; v. 638-651; xviii. 117-119.
Footnote 148:
Cf. the translation of Menelaus, ch. I, notes 28, 29.
Footnote 149:
Hymn in Dem. 480-482.
Footnote 150:
Ben Sira knows of no life after death except Sheol. Perhaps it is
better to say that he refuses to acknowledge any. His repeated
affirmations have the air of consciously repudiating a doctrine
advanced by others. The author of Wisdom (iii. 4) is sure of an
immortality of the elect. It is in the apocryphal literature
generally, in Enoch, the Testaments of the Patriarchs—most of them
written in the first century B.C.E.—that the scattered and
contradictory references to a future life are to be found.
Footnote 151:
Josephus, Wars, II. viii. 14. His words are (οἱ
Σαδδουκαῖοι) ψυχῆς τε τὴν διαμονὴν καὶ τὰς καθ’ Ἄδου
τιμωρίας καὶ τιμὰς ἀναιροῦσι. The passages in Josephus are our
only contemporary authority for the sects and their differences; and
Josephus was a Pharisee. The word αναιροῦσι would in this
context naturally have the meaning “deny,” but it might also simply
indicate that the Sadducean belief on the subject was, in his opinion,
so vague or so qualified as to render their whole transcendental
scheme ineffectual. It is, however, more natural to give the word its
dialectic sense (Cf. Plato, Rep. 533 c).
Footnote 152:
Joseph. Ant. XIII. x. 10. Kid. 43 a.
Footnote 153:
The vision of a Messianic age in Isaiah ii. 4, and Micah iv. 1,
expressly includes the gentiles. This is the more important as it is
highly likely that both Micah and Isaiah are here quoting an ancient
and widely-accepted prophecy.
Footnote 154:
There is no direct evidence about the extent of proselytizing in
pre-Maccabean times. But there are two forms of proselytizing which
always seemed natural and even inevitable to a man of ancient times.
The slave, and the stranger actually resident under the roof of a head
of a household, were, however foreign in blood, practically members of
that household, and it was a small step when they were brought
formally into it by appropriate ceremonies. So the first Biblical
reference to circumcision especially notes that not merely Abraham but
all his household, the slaves born there and those bought of
strangers, were circumcised (Gen. xvii. 23, 27).
The גר, μέτοικος, the sojourning stranger,
is expressly held to the observance of the religious prohibitions. Ex.
xii. 43; Lev. xvii. 12. And the relative frequency with which such a
stranger became a full proselyte is indicated by Ex. xii. 48, and Num.
ix. 14. It is true that the נכר or “stranger in blood” is
treated with extreme rigor by Nehemiah, xiii. 30, but it is this same
נכר who is referred to as a proselyte in Deutero-Isaiah
(Is. lvi. 3, 6).
Footnote 155:
Ab. R. Nat. ii. 1.
Footnote 156:
Josephus, Ant. XV. viii.
Footnote 157:
Josephus, Wars IV. iv.; VII. viii.
Footnote 158:
Cf. Catullus, LXIII. The archigallus was not permitted to be chosen
from Roman citizens till the time of Claudius.
Footnote 159:
This genre seems to have first taken literary form at the hands of
Bion of Borysthenes, a pupil of Crates, who was himself a pupil of
Diogenes.
Footnote 160:
Wisdom of Solomon xiv. 12-14. Cf. also the entire thirteenth and
fourteenth chapters of Wisdom.
Footnote 161:
In Dan. x. 13-20 angels, or “princes,” are the patrons of the various
nations, as also in the Testaments of the Patr. (Test. Naph. 9). That
fact of itself indicates a belief in the reality of the divine
protectors of the heathen nations. And the “devils,” שדים
(Deut. xxxii. 17), and שעירים (Lev. xvii. 7), are very
likely the local gods.
Footnote 162:
Philo, De Specialibus Legibus, ch. 7.
Footnote 163:
We have already noted the ancient prophecy cited in Is. ii. 4 and
Micah iv. 1. The fullest statement of this universalist aspiration is
in Malachi i. 11, and i. 14.
CHAPTER XII
THE OPPOSITION
Footnote 164:
The Messenians also expelled the Epicureans (Athen. xii. 547), and
Antiochus (VI) Dionysius, or rather Tryphon in his name, expelled all
philosophers from Antioch and all Syria (Athen. _ibid._). The latter
document has been questioned by Radermacher, Rh. Mus. N. F. lvi.
(1901), 202, but on insufficient grounds. It is probably genuine, but
the king referred to is uncertain. It will be remembered that the
Epicurean Philonides claimed to have converted Epiphanes and to have
been a favorite of Demetrius (Crönert, Stzb. Berl. (1900), 943, and
Usener Rh. Mus. N. F. lvi. (1901), 145 seq.) Alexander Balas professed
Stoicism.
Footnote 165:
Josephus, Ant. XVIII. ix.
Footnote 166:
Dio Cassius, lviii. 32; Ens. Chron. ii. 164. The account in its
details is not free from doubt.
Footnote 167:
Josephus, Ant. XIV. x.
Footnote 168:
Senatusconsultum de Bacch. C. I. L. i. 43, n. 196. Bruns Fontes, n.
35, ll. 14-16.
Footnote 169:
Cf. the instances cited in Cumont, Les rel. or. dans le pag. rom., p.
122, and the articles on Isis in the Pauly-Wissowa Realenzykl, the
Dar.-Saglio Dict., and Roscher’s Lexikon.
Footnote 170:
In Greek διαβολή. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric, II. iii. 30;
Syrianus, In Hermogenem, ii. (134, 3). Of this διαβολή, a
favorite form was ἐπηρεασμός, “mockery” (Arist. _op.
cit._ II. ii. 3), and “Commonplaces,” κοινοὶ τόποι, on
the subject are cited in Aristotle (_op. cit._ III. xv. 1).
Footnote 171:
Reinach, Textes, p. 49.
Footnote 172:
Eratosthenes was head of the Alexandrian Academy.
Footnote 173:
Apollo is the god named and ascribed to Dora, which, as Josephus
remarks, is not in Idumaea at all. Nor does Apollo appear as the god
of Dora on the coins of that city. According to Josephus (Ant. XV.
vii. 9) the Idumean god was named Koze, who might of course have been
identified with the Seleucid patron Apollo. It may be a title
connected with קצין (Josh. x. 24, Micah iii. 1, 9).
Footnote 174:
An inscription forbidding the approach of gentiles has been found at
Jerusalem, and is now in Constantinople: μηθένα ἀλλογενῆ
εἰσπορεύεσθαι ἐντὸς τοῦ περὶ τὸ ιερὸν τρυφάκτου καί περιβόλου · ὅς δ’
ἂν ληφθῇ ἑαυτῷ αἴτιος ἔσται διὰ τὸ ἐξακολουθεῖν θάνατον.
Footnote 175:
Reinach, Textes, p. 56. For an estimate of the importance of
Posidonius for his time, cf. Wendland, Hellenist. Kult. p. 60 seq. and
134 seq.
Footnote 176:
Molo in Reinach, Textes, p. 60 seq. Damocritus, _ibid._ p. 121.
Footnote 177:
Reinach, Textes, p. 131.
Footnote 178:
Plutarch, Moralia, ii. 813; Reinach, Textes, p. 139.
Footnote 179:
Pseud-Opp. Cyn. iv. 256. Lact. Inst. i. 21-27.
Footnote 180:
Cf. also Aelian Var. Hist. xii. 34. Strabo, xv. 1057.
Footnote 181:
Pseudo-Plut. Sept. Sap. Con. 5. Apul. Met. xi. 6. Ael. Hist. An. x.
28.
Footnote 182:
Juvenal, Sat. xv. 1-3. _Quis nescit Volusi Bithynice qualia demens
Aegyptos portenta colat? crocodilon adorat pars haec, illa pavet
saturam serpentibus ibïn_; cf. also _latrator Anubis_ (Verg. Aen.
viii. 698, Prop. iv. 11, 41).
Footnote 183:
It is not to be inferred that ancient historians as such were
unreliable. In those times, as in ours, the value of an historical
narrative must be judged by estimating the character and capacity of
the writer and the means at his disposal. Many modern historians have
been special pleaders, some consciously, like Froude and von
Treitschke, and most have been impelled by personal sympathies and
antipathies of many kinds.
It is, however, a fact that the writers of antiquity consciously used
falsehoods in what they believed to be details, if they supposed that
they could thereby more forcibly present the essential character of a
transaction, or better enforce a moral lesson. The extreme danger of
such a practice need not be insisted on, nor did all writers engage in
it. But Panaetius and Cicero (Cic. De Orat. ii. 59; De Off. ii. 14),
Quintillian (ii. 26-39) and the Church Fathers, unhesitatingly defend
it (Eusebius, Praep. Evan., John Chrysost. De Sac. i. 6-8, Clemens
Alex. Strom, vii. 9).
Footnote 184:
Polybius shares the general estimate of Syrians (XVI. lx. 3), but that
does not prevent him from acknowledging the loyalty and devotion of
the people of Gaza, whom he classes as Syrians.
CHAPTER XIII
THE OPPOSITION IN ITS SOCIAL ASPECT
Footnote 185:
Horace, Sat. I. v. 100.
Footnote 186:
Apuleius, Florida, i. 6.
Footnote 187:
Anthol. Pal. v. 160. Reinach, Textes, p. 55.
Footnote 188:
Fg. hist. gr. iii. 196; Reinach, Textes, p. 42.
Footnote 189:
Journ. Hell. Stud. xii. 233 seq.
Footnote 190:
Pausanius, X. xii. 9; Suidas, s. v. Σαμβήθη; Sibyllina,
iii. 818.
Footnote 191:
Valerius Maximus, I. iii. 3.
Footnote 192:
Shab. vi. 2, 4, but cf. Demai iii. 11, and Erub. i. 10.
Footnote 193:
Cf. above, ch. VII., n. 2.
The letter of Dolabella to the Ephesians, cited in Josephus, Ant. XIV.
x. 12, makes it perfectly clear that if the Sabbath restriction had
actually been enforced in the sense indicated, Jews would have been
wholly useless for the army. But we have seen that they not merely
fought their own battles, but engaged freely as mercenaries. We can
therefore understand the passage in Josephus only in the sense of an
attempt to escape conscription with the other Ephesians, by alleging
an extreme application of the Sabbath principle.
The other passage in Josephus (XVIII. iii.) is in direct contradiction
with other sources, and will be discussed later.
Footnote 194:
Saguntum, Livy, XXI. xiv. Abydus, Livy, XXXI. xvii. Cf. also Livy
XXVIII. xxiii.
Footnote 195:
Cic. De Nat. Deor. ii. 28, 71, his _fabulis spretis ac repudiatis_....
Footnote 196:
Reinach, Textes, p. 17. Cf. above, p. 93.
Footnote 197:
The word itself does not occur in Homer. However, Od. ix. 478, the
taunt is flung by Odysseus, the blind monster,
σχέτλι’, ἐπει ξείνους οὐχ ἄζεο σῷ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ
ἐσθέμεναι τῷ σε Ζεὺς τίσατο καὶ θεοὶ οἄλλοι..
Footnote 198:
Arrian, Anab. I. ix. 9-10.
Footnote 199:
Il. iii. 207; Od. iii. 355; vii. 190.
Footnote 200:
Plutarch, Lycurgus, xxvii.; Ael. V. Hist. xiii. 16; Thuc. i. 144.
Footnote 201:
Juvenal, Sat. xv. 93-131.
Footnote 202:
Cf. the undoubted instances of the Gallus-Galla, Graecus-Graeca
sacrifices at Rome. See article, Gallus et Galla, in Pauly-Wissowa
Realenzykl, especially the unwilling testimony of Livy, XXII. lvii. 6.
Footnote 203:
The Tauric Artemis was considered a barbarian goddess, but received
the veneration of Greeks, and of her we read, Eur. Iph. Taur. 384,
αὕτη δὲ θυσίαις ἥδεται βροτοκτόνοις. The sacrifices of
the Trojan captives at the funeral of Patroclus, the sacrifice of
Polyxena, Astyanax, and Iphigenia are sufficient evidences of the
familiarity of the practice to Greeks. An historical instance is the
atonement-sacrifice of Epimenides at Athens. Diog. Laert. i. 111, 112;
Athen. xiii. 602 C.
Footnote 204:
For the Gauls, cf. Strabo, iv. 198; the Thracians, vii. 300; the
Carthaginians, Verg. Aen. i. 525.
Footnote 205:
The question of the Molech sacrifices in Palestine is too uncertain
and complicated to be treated here in full. Doubtless some Jews at
various times sacrificed to Molech; but some Jews in Greek times
sacrificed to heathen gods, or, at any rate, adored them while still
professing Judaism, and throughout the Middle Ages individual Jews
indulged in superstitious practices severely reprobated by the rabbis.
The passage in Jeremiah (xxxii. 35) does not necessarily imply that
those who took part in these rites deemed themselves to be worshiping
Jehovah.
Footnote 206:
Reinach, Textes, p. 121.
Footnote 207:
Sat. xv. 78-81 and 93 seq.
Footnote 208:
Sat. xiv. 103.
Footnote 209:
It is a curious and instructive fact that Chinese have charged
Christian missionaries with precisely this same crime, _i.e._ of
kidnapping and killing children as part of their religious ceremonies.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PHILOSOPHIC OPPOSITION
Footnote 210:
Cf. the whole Lucianic dialogue on Images, 459-484, and Zeus
Tragoedus, 654 seq.
Footnote 211:
Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, i. 23, 63. Athenag. Supp. xii.
Footnote 212:
Josephus, Contra Ap. ii. 37.
Footnote 213:
Euthyphro, viii. 3 (7A).
Footnote 214:
Sophocles, Oed. Rex, 661.
Footnote 215:
Cf. ch. XI., n. 19. Also II. Chron. xi. 15. The שדים are
mentioned in Psalms cvi. 37 as deities to whom human sacrifices are
made.
Footnote 216:
Isocr. Pan. 155-156; Lycurgus, In Leocr. 80-81.
Footnote 217:
For the Boeotians cf. the common ὗς Βοιωτία; Pind. Ol.
vi. 153; _id._ Fr. iv. 9, and Hor. Epp. II. i. 244; for Egyptian
_perfidia_, Val. Max. v. 1, 10; for Abdera, Juv. Sat. x. 50; Mart. x.
25, 4; for the Cretans, the famous Κρῆτες ἀεὶ ψευσταί,
Call. Hymn in Jov. v. 8., a proverb also quoted from Epimenides by
Paul, Ep. ad Tit. i. 13. One may also note in this connection the
Greek proverb, τρία κάππα κάκιστα · Καππαδοκία καὶ Κρήτη καὶ
Κιλικία.
Footnote 218:
Livy, XXXIV. xxiv. 4.
Footnote 219:
Plautus, Rud. v. 50, _scelestus, Agrigentinus, urbis proditor_.
Footnote 220:
Cicero, Pro Fonteio, 14, 30.
Footnote 221:
Cicero, Pro Scauro, 17, 38.
Footnote 222:
Pliny, Hist. Nat. Praef. 25.
Footnote 223:
Africanus, ap. Eus. Praep. Ev. x. 10, 490 B, Clemens Alex Strom. i.
22.
Footnote 224:
Reinach, Textes, p. 122.
Footnote 225:
Cf. ch. VIII., n. 14.
Footnote 226:
Cf. ch. XII., n. 12.
Footnote 227:
Strabo, i. 66; Cic. De Rep. i. 58.
Footnote 228:
Cicero, Paradoxon, iii.: ὁτι ἴσα τὰ ἁμαρτήματα. _Parva,
inquit, est res. At magna culpa; nec enim peccata rerum eventis, sed
vitiis hominum metienda sunt._
Footnote 229:
Cumont, Les rel. orient. pp. 157 seq.
CHAPTER XV
THE ROMANS
Footnote 230:
The first Greek historians to deal with Roman history are Hieronymus
of Cardia and Timaeus, both of the fourth century B.C.E.
Footnote 231:
Pliny, Nat. Hist. III. lvii.
Footnote 232:
Psalms of Solomon, ii.
Footnote 233:
Livy, XLIX. v.: _Syros omnis esse, haud paulo mancipiorum melius
propter servilia ingenia quam militum genus_.
Footnote 234:
Cf. ch. III., n. 9.
Footnote 235:
Servile origin has been ascribed to such a family as the Sempronian,
and is assumed for the praenomen Servius, as for the nomen Servilius.
Footnote 236:
Macrob. Saturn. II. i. 13.
Footnote 237:
The reading of the last phrase in the mss. is _quod servata_, which is
scarcely consistent with the rest of the passage. Bernays, Rh. Mus.
1857, p. 464 seq., conjectured that it was a Jewish or Christian
marginal gloss which found its way into the text, a supposition by no
means to be dismissed as cavalierly as Reinach does (Textes, p. 241,
n. 1). A Christian scribe might easily have been moved by the taunt
_quam dis cara_, to retort with the triumphant _quod servata!_ It will
be remembered that the Christians accepted as part of their own all
the history and literature of the Jews till the birth of Christ, and
resented as attacks upon themselves any slur against the Jews of
pre-Christian times. Cf. the very interesting passage in Lactantius,
Div. inst. iv. 2.
Footnote 238:
Cic. In Vat. 5, 12.
Footnote 239: