Jews and Others
involved, while the bishop was to be responsible for re-building the syna-
gogue. Ambrose protests violently, just as Symeon Stylites is alleged to have
done in similar circumstances (text to n. below). Moreover, he recalls
instances of Jewish violence against Christians, unleashed in the reign of
Julian the Apostate (, , ), as well as Julian’s plan to re-build the Temple
(, , ).
Paulinus’Life of Ambrose(, ) adds some clarification. The Christian as-
sault, which was also directed against a meeting place of the heretical group
known as Valentinians, was occasioned by abuse of some monks by either
the Jews or the Valentinians. Moreover, Ambrose’s protest was backed up by
his refusal to admit the Emperor to communion until the orders given had
been reversed.
This notorious episode has inevitably been discussed many times, and we
need do no more here than note that it adds another small city in the Near
East where there was a Jewish community and a synagogue, and acutely hos-
tile relations between different religious groups living side-by-side; it also
shows that the imperial state attempted at least to deal justly between them.
A similar impression of communal religious rivalry at Antioch is provided
by Theodoret, who had been born there in and was bishop of Cyrrhus
from onwards. As regards both cities, he sees Christianity as functioning
within a hostile and contested environment, in which Jews play a significant
part. For instance, speaking of the successful tenure of the See of Antioch
by bishop Alexander (../), he says that the Arians and Jews were
crippled, and the remnants of the pagans groaned, ‘‘seeing the other rivers
pouring into the sea of the Church’’ (HE, , ). In his conception of his
own tenure of the See of Cyrrhus, it too had been an endless battle against
heresy, Judaism, and paganism (Ep. , , written in ). A year later, writ-
ing to Pope Leo in Rome, he speaks more generally of the contests (agōnes)
in the cities of the secular diocese of Oriens, against pagans, Jews, and here-
tics,aswellasthePersianmagi(Ep. , ). It was probably about this time,
when deposed from his See by the second Council of Ephesus of , that
he wrote in another letter that while pagans, Jews, and heretics of all sorts
were at peace, the church was buffeted by storms (Ep. , ). Even before
that, when he had merely been ordered, by imperial command, not to leave
his own city, he had written to theMagister Militum, Anatolius, that he could
not refrain from weeping on seeing the Jews ‘‘raising their horn on high,’’ at
the sight of dissension in the church (Ep. , ). We shall encounter again
this sense of the Jews as an ever-present hostile chorus, despairing at Chris-
tian success and rejoicing at difficulties. And beyond that we need to recall