Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

lived in the city as a simple resident. The scribe’s rewording may well indi-

cate that a legal dispute lay behind the issue.

A generation later, Philo observes that the Jews were “anxious to ob-

tain equal rights with the burgesses and are near to being citizens because

they differ little from the original inhabitants” (Mos.1.34-35)—aclaim

strongly rejected by the Greeks. From a Greek papyrus we learn that

Isidorus, one of the fiercest Alexandrian leaders in the time of Caligula, ac-

cused the Alexandrian Jews of being of the same character as Egyptians be-

cause both nations had to pay the poll tax (CPJ2:156c). Scholars have de-

bated whether these rights had to do only with membership in the Greek

polisor included additional rights for the Jewish community. The scarcity

of the sources, their fragmentary state, and their obvious bias make it ex-

tremely difficult to reach a definitive conclusion. Yet one thing clearly

emerges from all the sources: Jewish claims were strongly contested by

their Greek neighbors.

The reasons for these objections may have to do with Jewish religious

separatism. Josephus puts an important question in the mouth of Apion, a

grammarian and Homeric scholar of Egyptian origin who played a promi-

nent part in the cultural and political life of the first centuryc.e.:“Why,

then, if they are citizens do they not worship the same gods as the

Alexandrians?” (Ag. Ap.2.65). This may be a rhetorical question intended

to conceal more practical concerns. Recent scholarship emphasizes that it

may represent a maneuver to limit other Jewish rights. By focusing on reli-

gious issues, the Greeks would have pushed the Jews on the most sensitive

matters. If the Jews insisted on maintaining their practices, as of course

they would, the municipal governments could regard this as their opting

out of civic responsibilities and debar Jews from the services and benefits

of the community.

In any case, Jewish refusal to participate in the cult to the gods of the

city may have been difficult for Greeks to understand in a syncretistic

world where cults and mythologies freely intermingled. Moreover, this re-

fusal was made in the name of the Jewish god, who could not be seen or

represented in the form of a statue or image. This aniconism made the

Jewish god a nonentity in Greek eyes — hence the accusation of atheism

found in Apollonius’s work (De Iudaeisin Josephus,Ag. Ap.2.148). A cult

in a temple that had no image in its inner sanctum was also difficult for

Greeks to understand. Apion claimed that the Jews worshiped the head of

an ass in their temple. In this accusation he was relying on a supposed rela-

tion of the Jews with Seth, the god of evil, chaos, and confusion who was

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Jews among Greeks and Romans

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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