the face of pagan criticisms of Judaism as a godless, antisocial religion, Philo
offered a threefold defense. He argued that Jews rejected heathen deities, but
were not atheists; that Jewish law was particular, but not inhospitable; and
that Jewish religious practices were different than pagan practices, but were
not superstitious. To Jews whose allegorical reading of the Torah led them to
conclude that Judaism was no longer necessary in light of Greek philosophy,
Philo elevated the laws of the Torah over philosophy, arguing that philosophy
is a tool with which to understand more fully the divine revelation of the
Torah’s laws. Philo was not alone in this respect. Josephus Flavius also
defended Judaism against its critics, notably from the criticisms of an
Egyptian priest named Apion.
Philo also provided one of the few extant descriptions of Jewish spiritual
life in the late Hellenistic diaspora. In On the Contemplative Life, he described a
monastic Jewish community outside of Alexandria along Lake Mareotis,
known as the Therapeutic Society. The members of this enclave included men
and women who devoted their entire lives to philosophic contemplation – a
Hellenized parallel to the Essenes. They prayed at dusk and dawn and studied
the Bible allegorically the rest of the day. Like the Essenes, they lived simple
and chaste lives.
For Therapeutic women in particular, participating in this society meant
abandoning what was conventionally the primary function and responsibility
of Jewish women in the ancient world: bearing and rearing children. Instead,
these women, many of whom had means and a Hellenistic education, opted
for a life of learning and contemplation even at the cost of being childless. In
this regard, Therapeutic women, though atypical of Jewish women generally,
underscore the availability of alternatives for Jewish women to the highly
subservient role defined by biblical and, later, rabbinic law (as will be dis-
cussed in the next chapter).
If Philo and the Jews of Alexandria defined the cultural possibilities for dias-
pora Jews, the situation of the Jews of Rome defined the political parameters of
diaspora Jewish life. Soon after the emergence of a small Jewish community in
Rome, Jews were faced with a key decision around 60 B.C.E. during a contest for
the imperial crown between two powerful generals: Pompey, who had recently
conquered Judea, and the soon to be Julius Caesar. The Jews sided with Julius
Caesar, who in return granted them a series of rights. He exempted Jews from
military service, and excused them from having to attend court on the Sabbath.
He also allowed Jews to send annual contributions to the Temple in Jerusalem.
These privileges would define the parameters of Jewish communal autonomy
for the next 1,700 years, surviving the abrupt shift in Roman policy toward
Jews during the fourth century, as Rome was transformed from a pagan to a
Christian empire. The Roman Empire would be the first major arena where
Judaism and Christianity would confront one another, and where Jews would
first be subjugated to Christian rule.
The challenge of Hellenism 43