rator 46–48 CE, second-in-command to Titus at the end of the Jewish War),
and, perhaps, the prefecture of the Praetorian Guard (Turner 1954, 61–64).
Once launched, his military career, and any ambitions he harboured,
depended on absorption into the military ethos. Part of his routine military
and political duties would presumably have involved participation in civic
cults (when he was prefect of Egypt, for example), and there is evidence of
him dedicating a relief to the emperor and pagan deities (Turner 1954,
56–57). That is, he not only left behind Jewish traditions, but also took on
those of the typical Roman aristocrat.
We can speculate about the factors that led Tiberius Alexander to drift
away from his Jewish roots. Education in a Greek gymnasium, a common
training for military officers and, in some periods, a favoured route to
advancement for wealthy Alexandrian Jews, was probably one. Wolfson
(1947, 1:79) thought that Jews did not attend the gymnasia, but the evi-
dence points in the other direction. There is no convincing evidence for
specifically Jewish gymnasia in Alexandria. Louis H. Feldman (1960,
222–26) gives a useful summary and notes the serious compromises that
a gymnasium education involved for Jews (see also Sandelin 1991, 112–13,
138–42). Philo condemns those who used education for social advance-
ment (Leg.3.164–165) or socio-economic mobility (Spec.2.18f). Of course,
attending a gymnasium or otherwise taking part in Hellenistic cultural
events did not inevitably lead to apostasy, as the case of Philo himself
clearly shows (see, further, Kerkeslager 1997, for the case of a Hellenized
Jew who participates in a theatrical mime, but in a way that only accen-
tuates his Jewish identity).
Philo tells us (in De providentiaand elsewhere) that he had discussed the
problem of divine providence and theodicy with a man called Alexander,
whom many identify with Philo’s nephew (paceHadas-Lebel 1973, 23, 46).
If this identification is correct, we may suppose that the nephew had some
philosophical problems with Judaism. Moreover, Alexander probably began
his official career at the time his father—a well-connected and influential
Alexandrian Jew—was freed, when Claudius took the place of Gaius as
emperor (Turner 1954, 58). Alexander’s drift away from Judaism was thus
probably caused by a combination of Greek education, philosophical doubt,
worldly ambition, and family gratitude.
Was Tiberius Alexander an apostate? Josephus doesn’t precisely say
this, but he would have had reason to tread lightly in his description of an
ally of Vespasian. Note as well the similarity between Tiberius “not remain-
ing in (diemeinen) the customs” and the proselytes who do “remain”
(emeinan) as distinct from those who “leave” (apestêsan), in Josephus, Con-
nora
(Nora)
#1