PREFACE*<\/p>\n
In order to clarify my basic hypothesis, it is necessary first of all to distinguish between \u201cpolemic\u201d and \u201cdispute\u201d or \u201cdebate,\u201d terms interchanged casually nowadays. \u201cPolemic,\u201d because of its original Greek meaning, war (polemos), is used to indicate a campaign or conflict haveing the aim of changing an opponent\u2019s views or his religion. A religious polemic can be conducted independently or in conjunction with other coercive means, police or political. The essential and decisive criterion is the interest it arouses in the participants in the polemic. It goes without saying that a polemic is at the same time also apologetics, that is, a justifying of oneself in the face of an opponent\u2019s attack.
\nA \u201cdispute\u201d or \u201cdebate\u201d on the other hand is an interchange of words aiming at the clarification of various matters. It may be accompanied by empty bickering, and the disputants participate while fully aware that the outcome will not entail any crucial change in their future attitudes, behaviour or fate.
\nThis distinction is needed to establish the status of the Jews in the interreligious conflict in the Roman Empire; we need to know whether they are to be regarded as a party of equal standing with the pagans and Christians, or rather as being no more than a group of lesser figures caught up in the maelstrom, although of crucial importance for the other parties to the polemic. Careful reading of the pagan, Christian and Jewish sources relating to the polemic led me to the conclusion that the Jews were no party to it. However, without the Jews\u2019 existence and independent attitude towards Christians and pagans alike, and without their holy scriptures and the writings of Hellenistic Jewry, the pagan-Christian polemic could not have taken the course and shape it did. Both Christians and pagans made extensive use of all facets of Judaism, and were conscious of the fact that arguments based upon Judaism were more telling because of their ostensibly impartial nature: the Jews were not suspect as favouring either the Christians or the pagans, and therefore their evidence and arguments pertaining to them were seen as reliable and unbiased by the polemicists.
\nIn keeping with the distinctions made above, I suggest that the antagonism between the pagans and Christians falls into the category of polemic, whereas the Jewish-Christian and the Jewish-pagan confrontation was no more than a dispute. This is of course valid only for the period under discussion, that is, the second to the fifth century C. E.
\nOur main difficulty lies in attaining a correct understanding and a non-biased explication of the various relevant writings and fragments. In order to place each source in its proper place and context, one should view it as part of the general polemic that began during the Hellenistic period and ended in the late Roman Empire. Knowledge of the character and inclinations of the writers who set the tone of the polemic, which we will now explore, may contribute to a better and more balanced understanding of the texts and their contexts.<\/p>\n
INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n
In this introduction, I propose to differentiate among those involved in the polemic on the basis of their explicit statements concerning the state and religion, as well as their treatment of sacrifices and the daemons. I will show that the pagans\u2019 religiosity was centered upon their political-social needs, whereas that of the Christians gave preference to the demands of their creed. In addition, I will point out mutual influences which can be traced in unexpected declarations borrowed from an opponent for tactical reasons. These extraordinary expressions emphasize all the more the lines of thought which were customary for the polemicists.
\nThe number of persons who took part in the polemic was quite large. This was especially true of the Christian apologists, whose number reached a few dozen. I do not intend to deal with all of them, but rather to concentrate on the traits of some of them, traits interwined with the themes of the polemic. Furthermore, I propose to delineate the chronological and actual connections between the men of both parties, and to assess the effect on the basic character of each of their being implicated in a polemic.
\nAs for the pagans, on the whole, they were politically minded, while the Christians, primarily men of devotion and belief, were religiously minded. But if at this point there was a basic, sharp antagonism between them, when we enter the field of theological and philosophical opinions it nonetheless becomes clear that the differences were fading away. The reason is to be sought in their common intellectual tradition. Almost all the pagans were adherents of Plato, and his teachings formed the basis of their contemporary outlook. The Christians too, had absorbed his doctrines, whether during a pagan youth or as part of the Hellenistic-Jewish tradition which was presented to them along with systems of interpretation of the Bible. Furthermore, there existed the phenomenon of \u201cphilosophical syncretism\u201d or a Zeitgeist, working recognizably among pagans and Christians alike in the fourth century and, to a certain degree, in the third. These questions will be dealt with in the coming chapters. Here I propose to discuss in a general way the problem of state and religion as it appears in the work of our writers.
\nLet us open our discussion with A.D. Nock\u2019s description of the spiritual-religious climate in the Roman Empire: \u201cFrom the fifth century B.C. to the end of the first century A.D. Greek and Roman thinkers had for the most part maintained a cool respect towards religious tradition, regarding it as something which was to be retained but was in need of interpretation, sometimes drastic interpretation.\u2026 This now changed, not of course abruptly or completely, but yet visibly.\u201d As causes of the change Nock suggests: despair concerning the ability of reason to solve the problem of the world and its nature; and the rise of Rome, which put emphasis on practical talents and on the administration of things as they exist, without inquiring into their meaning and significance. He also noted. \u201cAs the scope of philosophy narrowed till it became almost entirely ethical, it naturally tended to use religious sanctions and, though the range of its influence increased, it became less and less purely intellectual and more and more often shallow.\u201d But Nock omitted something important: in his efforts to identify the factors that favoured the emergence of the power of religion and cult in place of pure philosophical speculations, he ignored the influence of Christianity, which was in a state of constant growth from the end of the first century onwards. And indeed when Tertullian, after mentioning the day of judgement and the resurrection of the dead, declared \u201cwe too in our day laughed as this. We are from among yourselves. Christians are made, not born!\u201d (Apologeticum, 18:4), he gave us grounds to conclude that the missionary activity of the Christians was still very considerable; such activity naturally implies strong religious propaganda. This propaganda, in both its popular and its philosophic aspects (as, for example in Origen), emphasized belief, illumination from above embodying the truth, as contrasted with the poverty, and lack of understanding, of the human mind. Because of this the Christians were belittled (see chapter one below), and from this came the derogatory title pistoi (= credulous) which was flung at them.
\nLet us begin our chronological-biographical sketches with Justin Martyr. He was among the first Christian apologists (mid-second century C.E.) to contend with the pagans, and one of the last anti-Jewish polemicists. In his Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo Justin tells of his desire to know god, a desire which led him through various schools of philosophy; however, he found peace of mind only in Christianity. In his Apologia II, 42 he explains that Platonic philosophy, his last way-station before adopting Christianity, brought him much delight, but when he witnessed the fearless stand of the Christian martyrs in the face of death and of other frightening things, he concluded that such men could not become corrupt or be voluptuaries. Justin, like Aristides and Athenagoras, wished to refute the imputations of immoral behaviour attributed to the Christians by the masses as well as by the authorities. Justin\u2019s standpoint was religious; relying on it, he rejected pagan libels of Christianity as impossible and unreasonable. He emphasized that the Christians made every effort to pay their taxes to the state as required and that this they did in accordance with Jesus\u2019s teaching (Matt., 22:21), \u201cRender unto Caesar the things which are Caesar\u2019s.\u201d
\nA little later in the second century C.E., we reach Tatian. Like Justin, he had once been a pagan and had had an average education. Tatian\u2019s sharp phrases were most inconsiderate of the needs of the state: \u201cI do not wish to be a king; I am not anxious to be rich; I decline military command; \u2026 I am not impelled by an insatiated love of gain to go to sea; I do not contend for chaplets.\u2026\u201d Further on, Tatian adds a sentence stressing that the Christians, although they are not enthusiastic about the offices, activities and honours of political, economic and social life, are not a subversive element either, and offer no danger to the socio-political fabric; \u201cAm I a slave, I endure servitude. Am I free, I do not make a vaunt of my good birth.\u201d
\nI will anticipate the more detailed discussions below by quoting the passage from Tatian\u2019s apology which embodies two polemical motifs used against the Christians (and formerly used against the Jews): first that they are innovators, i.e. revolutionaries, and second, that they adopted barbarian doctrines. Tatian and most other Christian apologists try to defend Christianity against false charges. The pagan phrases cited defiantly by Tatian are these: \u201cTatian aspiring to be above the Greeks, above the infinite number of philosophic inquirers, has struck out a new path [kainotomei], and embraced the doctrines of Barbarians.\u201d (Oratio ad Graecos, 35, 138.)
\nThe pagan polemicist Celsus, who flourished at the end of Marcus Aurelius\u2019s reign, revealed his interest explicitly. His call to the Christians to participate in affairs of state and state problems was perhaps a reaction to such anti-political pronouncements as that of Tatian quoted above, which were common in Christian circles. Even the wording of the address reminds one of Tatian\u2019s words: \u201cThen Celsus exhorts us to help the emperor with all our power, and cooperate with him in what is right, and fight for him, and be fellow-soldiers if he presses for this, and fellow-generals with him.\u201d (Origen, Contra Celsum, 8:7.) A little earlier, Origen had noted another of Celsus\u2019s sayings, apparently in fragmentary form and therefore not absolutely clear; it still testified to the political character of Celsus\u2019s essential concerns. \u201cAfter this he [scil. Celsus] utters a sort of wish: Would that it were possible to unite under on law the inhabitants of Asia, Europe, and Libya, both Greeks and barbarians even at the furthest limits.\u201d
\nWe are able to deduce Celsus\u2019s attitude towards worship from another passage. The pagan religion was, from its beginnings, closely connected with the state. This is why, although pagan religion was losing its vitality in the course of time, its ritual remained intact. During the Empire it even attained special importance as it turned into a symbol of political loyalty, especially because of its emperor worship.
\nA good early example of such political loyalty is the Stoic Cornutus, a freedman of the Seneca family. In his Theologiae Graecae Compendium, he offers etymological-allegorical interpretations of the names of the gods and of the myth connected with them in manner reminiscent of that of the Talmudic Midrashim. Nock says of him (p. 120): \u201cFew books are more unemotional than the Summary of Greek Theology by Cornutus: for him the gods are simply natural forces, and their qualities and attributes explicable either thence or as a disease of language. Yet Cornutus states his purpose thus (chap. 35): \u2018Concerning these things and the service of the gods and all that is fitly done in their honour in accordance with ancestral custom you will receive the perfect explanation. It is only so that the young are led to piety [eusebein] and not to superstition and are taught to sacrifice and pray and swear correctly at the right times and in the suitable order.\u2019 \u201d (My italics.) This combination of sacrifices, piety and the state appears clearly in Legatio ad Graecos of Athenagoras: \u201cBut, as most of those who charge us with atheism, and that because they have not even the dreamiest conception of what God is \u2026, and such as measure piety [eusebeia] by the rule of sacrifices, charge us with not acknowledging the same gods as the cities.\u201d
\nThe reply of Athenagoras is thus: \u201cBe pleased to attend to the following considerations, O emperors, on both points. And first, as to our not sacrificing: the Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odour of burnt-offerings, \u2026 etc.\u201d (My italics.) This answer explains why the god does not need sacrifices, but it does not clarify why it is forbidden to participate in sacrificial ceremonies. The Christians answer this with their assumption that the wicked and corrupted daemons are in need of these sacrifices and that the daemons therefore instigate people to offer them sacrifices.
\nNock discusses Celsus, once in connection with Lucian and once with Porphyry; his characterization is perhaps not quite exact enough. Here are Nock\u2019s words: \u201cThe mood of the time is represented by the two works of Aelian mentioned above \u2026: belief in the gods is in them demonstrated by miracles and not least by malignant defamation of Epicurus and Epicureans and by legends relating how heaven\u2019s hand had fallen heavily on them. Lucian and Celsus raised their voices on the other side, and uttered their contempt of mythology and foreign gods and rite and miracle, but there is in their works a very clear note of loneliness. The majority, even of philosophers, had chosen to walk by the light of unreason.\u201d (pp. 127\u2013128). Nock notes further: \u201cCelsus thus far puts Christianity on a level with popular mysteries and immigrant Oriental cults in general. He is not a rationalist and his theism is not purely theoretical. But like most serious thinkers of antiquity he objects to what he regards as the piety of the ignorant and gullible, and he has a genuine moral indignation against ideas which seem incompatible with his high concept of the supernatural.
\n\u201cYet to Celsus there is a vital distinction between Christianity and these parallel phenomena. To him and his like Christianity is primarily a mass movement of falling away from tradition.\u2026\u201d (pp. 206\u2013207; compare pp. 204\u2013205). A little later he adds: \u201cBoth the Christians and their opponents came to think of themselves as a new people: and it is clear in the work of Celsus that his real aim was to persuade Christians not to forget loyalty to the State in their devotion to this new state within the State. Other Oriental incomers were to Celsus mildly contemptible: this was a social phenomenon fraught with danger.\u201d (p. 207). \u201cCelsus, Porphyry, and other writers tell us that daimones induce us to believe that bloody sacrifices and incense offerings are necessary, their motive being a selfish desire to feed on them.\u2026 For all these men the ideal is the sacrifice by reason.\u2026 One and all if challenged by a magistrate would have performed the ordinary sacrifices as a thing without inherent value but to them indifferent.\u201d (p. 224.)
\nI will discuss below the extraordinary attitude of Porphyry concerning sacrifices and daemons. But from Celsus\u2019s importuning language about sacrifices, language very similar to that of Julian, it is clear that a sharp distinction is to be made between him and Porphyry on this point. Here are Celsus\u2019s words: \u201cGod is surely common to all men. He is both good and in need of nothing, and without envy. What, then, prevents people particularly devoted to them from partaking of the public feasts?\u201d and: \u201cIf these idols are nothing, why is it terrible to take part in the high festival? And if they are daemons of some sort, obviously these too belong to God, and we ought to believe them and sacrifice to them according to the laws, and pray to them that they may be kindly disposed.\u201d
\nA comparison of Celsus and Lucian is of value, but one difference must be kept in mind: Lucian\u2019s point of departure in his criticism of the various religious phenomena is religious scepticism, whereas that of Celsus is political \u201cutilitarianism.\u201d
\nCelsus\u2019s ends caused him to pay attention to the religious enthusiasms of Christian circles; in order to win their confidence he had, he thinks, to prove his devotion to god, and he did so in a literary style so widespread among them that it is difficult to distinguish between it and that used by his antagonist, Origen. If we do not posit the existence of the opposition\u2019s influence here, it will be difficult for us to explain Celsus\u2019s outburst which is in contrast to his usual polemical method of stressing the logic (logos) inherent in his approach: \u201cBut we ought never to forsake God at all, neither by day nor by night, neither in public nor in private. In every word and deed, and in fact, both with them and without them [i.e. the daemons], let the soul be continually directed towards God.\u201d (Al\u00eath\u00eas Logos, 8:63).
\nThis is perhaps the occasion to clarify one thing that emerges in the polemic between Origen and Celsus. In book 4:75, Origen claims that Celsus\u2019s words are evidence that he is an adherent of Epicurus. Modern scholars, especially Keim and Harnack, have found it difficult to explain this accusation, and some of them have accepted it literally, believing that Origen really thought that Celsus was Epicurean in his views. This assumption is not borne out by the paragraph we have just quoted, and it is very probable that Origen viewed Celsus as an adherent of Plato. \u201cFor in many points he [scil. Celsus] likes to follow Plato \u2026\u201d (ibid. 4:83), and of course Plato\u2019s teaching was not suspect of impiety. Probably the difference between Origen and Celsus was similar to the difference between the Biblical concept of man, which viewed him as the chosen one of creation, and the Platonic concept which saw him, at most, as the crown of creation. In book four, Celsus argues that man is part of creation, of the cosmos, of the whole, and that all other creatures were not created because of him and for him. In book 4:99, Celsus says: \u201cAnd God takes care of the universe, and providence never abandons it \u2026\u201d (Compare 4:23.)
\nIn book 4:76\u201377 (and compare 4:86) Origen answers Celsus\u2019s claim that the world and all in it were not created for the benefit of man alone, but for that of all creatures\u2014for insects and reptiles that benefit from the sun, for the trees and the grass\u2014by saying that all this was created for man, and that only because of him do the other irrational creatures enjoy the gifts of nature. This means that god\u2019s providence is directed first and foremost to man. Origen also adds, in relation to the examples brought by Celsus from the life of insects (see 4:74 ff.), that even when animals act as if they were human beings it is not the same, since irrational animals act instinctively (physei), whereas man acts with reason (meta logismou). (See 4:74.) It emerges clearly from the above that Origen, who knew Celsus well, could not have believed that he was an Epicurean. Only one explanation seems possible: since pious Christians and pagans both waged war against Epicureanism, it was a skillful stratagem on the part of Origen to defame Celsus by branding him an Epicurean, thereby creating a prejudice against him in the hearts of his readers.
\nOrigen\u2019s Contra Celsum was written in about the middle of the third century C.E., some seventy years ofter Celsus had issued his pamphlet. Celsus and Origen were wholly different in character: the one a politically-minded man, sober and scholarly, whereas the other doubted not for a moment the superiority of belief over reason, and had manifest inclinations towards mysticism. Origen was not very concerned about the social and political forms embodied in the state, about whose preservation Celsus was very troubled. In Origen\u2019s opinion, it was the Christian church, the fatherland-polity [systema patridos], to which every Christian must devote himself and his energies. This is why it sometimes happens that Origen\u2019s polemic is not on the same level as his opponent\u2019s, even as far as understanding is concerned. This can be seen with regard to the term stasis, which is used repeatedly by Celsus, and concerning which Origen\u2019s answer is not always relevant. Celsus\u2019s demand of the Christians that they enter the service of the state, in the army and administration (see above, p. 14), elicited a response typical of Origen and of the Christians in general: the Christians were prepared to pray for the peace, success and prosperity of the Empire, and believed their prayers to be of great help.
\nLet us turn to some Latin apologists. Minucius Felix, a Christian of the first half of the third century C.E., wrote a work, Octavius, whose title is the name of his Christian hero. In this work, the pagan polemicist Caecilius is depicted as the Christian\u2019s friend, and the words attributed to him probably reflect the image of the Christian in the eyes of the pagan of average aducation. The polemical motifs dealt with in Caecilius\u2019s and Octavius\u2019s arguments will be discussed below. Let us examine the character of Caecilius to decide whether he was a man of the state or one concerned more with religion. We can do this by comparing his words with those of Cotta, one of the disputants in Cicero\u2019s De natura deorum. Caecilius and Cotta are sceptics; they do not believe that they can know the truth about the godhead, nor can they find convincing logical proofs of the existence of a divine providence, whether private or universal. But in contrast to the Epicureans, who reached anti-theistic conclusions because of this, these men embraced the cult and national traditions, because only in these did they find a certain measure of security. Like Cicero, who emphasized the utilitarian and political nature of religion in his preface to the De natura deorum, Caecilius recommended the continuance of ancestral traditions and customs for political reasons, contrasting this with the association of the Christians which damages the power of the state. Caecilius says \u201c \u2018Seeing then that either chance is certain, or nature uncertain, how much more reverent and better it is to accept the teaching of our elders as the priest of truth; to maintain the religions handed down to us; to adore the gods, whom from the cradle you were taught to fear rather than to know familiarly; not to dogmatize about divinities, but to believe our forefathers.\u2026 Thus it is that their power [i.e. the Romans\u2019] and authority has embraced the circuit of the whole world, and has advanced the bounds of empire beyond the paths of the sun, and the confines of ocean; while they practice in the field god-fearing valour, make strong their city with awe of sacred rites, with chaste virgins, with many a priestly dignity and title; \u2026 Thus it is that they adopt the sacred rites of all nations, and withal have earned dominion.\u2019 \u201d
\nIn his debate with Balbus the Stoic, Cotta expressed quite similar views: \u201c\u2026 I am considerably influenced by your authority, Balbus, and by the plea that you put forward at the conclusion of your discourse, when you exhorted me to remember that I am both a Cotta and a pontiff. This no doubt means that I ought to uphold the beliefs about the immortal gods which have come down to us from our ancestors, and the rites and ceremonies and duties of religion. For my part I always shall uphold them and always have done so.\u2026 The religion of the Roman people comprises ritual, auspices.\u2026 I have always thought that none of these departments of religion was to be despised, and I have held the conviction that Romulus by his auspices and Numa by his establishment of our ritual laid the foundations of our state, which assuredly could never have been as great as it is had not the fullest measure of divine favour been obtained for it. There, Balbus, is the opinion of a Cotta and a pontiff.\u2026 You are a philosopher, and I ought to receive from you a proof of your religion, whereas I must believe the word of our ancestors even without proof.\u2019 \u201d (De natura deorum, 3,2:5\u20136).
\nThereafter, Cotta expressed his doubts about the existence of providence in the world, mentioning names of \u201cgood\u201d men such as the Scipiones, Marcellus, Aemilius Paulus, and Socrates who, in his opinion, fell at the hands of \u201cwicked\u201d men (3, 33:82) and, on the other hand, wicked men such as Marius, Cinna and Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, who flourished (ibid., 3, 32:79\u201380). As Cotta put it: \u201cThe day would be too short if I desired to recount the good men visited by misfortune; and equally so were I to mention the wicked who have prospered exceedingly \u2026\u201d (ibid., 3, 32:81). Compare with these the words of Caecilius: \u201cBut if the world were governed by divine providence and the authority of some deity, Phalaris and Dionysius would never have deserved a throne, Rutilius and Camillus exile, or Socrates the hemlock.\u201d (Octavius, 5:12.)
\nAt about the same time that Minucius Felix, Octavius, and Caecilius lived in Rome, the Church Father Tertullian flourished in the province of Africa. On the basis of his Apologeticum, scholars have reached the conclusion that he was a lawyer or at least was acquainted with matters of law and justice. Tertullian is also well known for the sharpness of his style and the harshness of his demands of Christians and Christian converts concerning anything that smacked of idolatry. This is why his ambivalent attitude towards the state and its needs is astonishing. In his Apologeticum, in answer to a pagan complaint: \u201cBut there is another charge of wrong-doing upon the sheet against us. We are said to be unprofitable in business.\u201d Tertullian says: \u201cWe sail ships, we as well as you, and along with you; we go to the wars, to the country, to market with you. Our arts and yours work together; our labour is openly at your service. How we can seem unprofitable to your business, when we live with you and our living depends on you, I do not know.\u201d
\nIn contrast with the soft, appeasing tone here, Tertullian strongly opposed, in a pamphlet intended for the Christian public, the employment of Christians as teachers, and also forbade them to work for the government or to serve in the army. Tertullian was similar to Tatian both in his audacity and in his unbridled tongue with regard to the pagans. However, Tertullian was impressed by the pagan\u2019s reiterated patriotic appeals, and it was this, apparently, which led him to make contradictory statements on these matters.
\nSimilar ambivalences are found in the Acta Martyrum. Even if we accept the most extreme view, which claims that there is nothing authentic in the Acta, and that the Acta are mere compilations by ecclesiastical writers designed to encourage the Christians, still they are valuable indications of contemporary views.
\nSome quotations of the period we are studying may add to our understanding of Christianity\u2019s views on the pagan state and its institutions, and illustrate the realistic background of pagan-Christian relations and of their mutual polemic. For example, how should a Christian, required to take part in the emperor-cult, answer the request? \u201cSaturninus the proconsul said: \u2018We too are a religious people, and our religion is a simple one: we swear by the genius of our lord the emperor and we offer prayers for his health\u2014as you also ought to do.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe model Christian responds: \u201cSperatus: \u2018I do not recognize the empire of this world. Rather, I serve that God whom no man has seen, nor can see, with these eyes.\u2019
\nIn the Acta Cypriani, (of the late fifties of the third century C.E.), the proconsul notified Cyprian that the emperors Valerian and Gallienus \u201corder all those who do not practice Roman beliefs [religio] to acknowledge the Roman rites.\u2026\u201d
\nCyprian, in rejecting the demand, noted that Christians prayed for the welfare of the emperors. He added: \u201c \u2018I am a Christian, and a bishop. I recognize no other gods but the one true God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them. This is the God to whom we Christians pay homage; night and day we supplicate him for you and for all mankind, as well as for the health of the emperors.\u2019 \u201d
\nIn the Acta Marcelli (late third century C.E.) we have an example of a Christian centurian who, at the time of the festivities in honour of the emperor\u2019s birthday, threw away his weapon and declared: \u201c \u2018I am a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal king. From now I cease to serve your emperors and I despise the worship of your gods of wood and stone, for they are deaf and dumb images.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe most instructive of our sources is the Acta Maximiliani of the end of the third century C.E. The Acta indicate that the attitude of the Christians towards military service was not an absolute and decisive but rather a vacillating one. This indeed is the ambivalence we encountered in Tertullian\u2019s work. Here is a dialogue between a young Christian recruit and the proconsul: \u201cThe proconsul Dion said: \u2018What is your name?\u2019 Maximilian replied: \u2018But why do you wish to know my name? I cannot serve [militare] because I am a Christian.\u2019 The proconsul Dion said: \u2018Get him ready.\u2019 While he was being made ready, Maximilian replied: \u2018I cannot serve. I cannot commit a sin. I am a Christian\u2019.\u2026 \u2018Serve or you will die\u2019, said Dion. \u2018I shall not serve\u2019, said Maximilian. \u2018You may cut off my head, I will not serve this world, but only my God.\u2026\u2019 The proconsul Dion said: \u2018In the sacred bodyguard of our lords Diocletian and Maximian, Constantius and Maximus, there are soldiers who are Christian, and they serve\u2019. Maximilian replied: \u2018They know what is best for them. But I am a Christian and I cannot do wrong.\u2019 \u201d
\nArnobius, who lived about a hundred years after Tertullian, resembled him in being a native of Africa, a former pagan and a teacher of rhetoric. His work Adversus nationes cites lengthy public complaints by educated pagans against the Christians. Arnobius is unusual, since he makes no mention of Jewish holy writings; further, he does not deal with pagan motifs referring explicitly to Jews. As far as the other motifs are concerned, his omission of all that is connected with Jews impoverishes his whole work, as we shall see hereafter.
\nIn the last two books (six and seven) of his treatise, Arnobius rejects pagan complaints that the Christians do not erect temples, altars and statues, and that they do not participate in ritual ceremonies and worship of the gods. This was thought by the pagans to be a crime of impiety on the part of the Christians (ibid.\u201a 6:1), and because of it the Christians were called atheists (6:27). Arnobius\u2019s seventh book is devoted wholly to the question of sacrifices. It cites (7:1) the words of Varro to the effect that true gods neither want nor demand sacrifices. Arnobius uses such arguments to counter the pagan view that sacrifices propitiate the gods and attract their favour in return (7:10); or that the aim of sacrifices is to honour and exalt the gods (7:13, 27, 30); or even to influence evil gods to abstain from causing harm to mankind (7:23). Arnobius does not state specifically that the persecution of the Christians results from their refusal to participate in emperor worship. However, it is clear from his work that the pagans believe that the Christians undermine by their apostasy the welfare of the state, which is bound up with the worship of the gods.
\nArnobius defends himself against the pagan charge (similarly noted by Tertullian and Augustine) that the Christians are to be blamed for the evils that befall the world, such evils emanating from the gods\u2019 anger at the existence of this loathed sect which undermines their cult (ibid, 1:1\u201313). Apart from his attempt to refute this charge by analogies and logical demonstrations, Arnobius presents a motif reflecting pagan emphasis on the importance of the state. He argues that Jesus brought much benefit to the world in that wars, and their accompanying destruction, became fewer in number after his appearance (1:6). This motif was stressed before Arnobius\u2019s time by Origen and after it by Eusebius. Eusebius pointed out that Jesus\u2019s appearance on earth coincided with Augustus\u2019s unification and stabilization of Roman rule, and with the establishment of the Pax Romana. The Christians saw the hand of God in the expansion of the Empire, because it meant the expansion of the oikoumen\u00ea, that is the settled or civilized world within which they were active, and where they had good conditions for their missionary activities.
\nIn the second half of the fourth century C.E. we find the polemic concerning the altar of the goddess of Victory. This and the following comments appear here in order to complete our survey of the polemicists active before the polemic lost its vitality. I have limited myself to the principal themes of the polemic: attitudes towards religion and the state, since they are the key to our subject. A. H. M. Jones, in his article \u201cThe Social Background of the Struggle between Paganism and Christianity,\u201d clarified the forces which led the senators to oppose Christianity, and which turned the Roman Senate into the last fortress of paganism. He also delineated (as did H. Bloch, in his article \u201cThe Pagan Revival in the West at the End of the Fourth Century\u201d) the real, political character of the senatorial struggle. Symmachus, in his Relatio, is not interested in debating the validity of polytheism or Christianity, but confines himself to the assertion that \u201cit is impossible to arrive at such a great secret in one way only.\u201d (ibid., 10). Instead Rome is presented as imploring that she be allowed to preserve her rites and traditions, thanks to which she has attained her present position.
\nThe Church Father Ambrose rejected, of course, the argument based upon Rome\u2019s successes, and preferred to enumerate Rome\u2019s defeats. If the gods were responsible for Rome\u2019s victories, then they were also responsible for its reverses. The exchange recalls Cotta\u2019s arguments against a belief in providence, especially that attributed to Diagoras.
\nIn the beginning of the fifth century C.E., Orosius compiled his Historia contra paganos, at the order of Augustine of Hippo. In this work, Orosius presented all the stories about misfortunes and disasters that had befallen Rome from its early days onwards, as a rebuttal of the pagans\u2019 assertion that the Christians were to be blamed for Rome\u2019s falling into barbarian hands. In his treatise De civitate dei, Augustine re-examined (in an account similar to Eusebius\u2019s Praeparatio Evangelica) all the beliefs and opinions, customs and rites of polytheism. In his De civitate dei, Augustine also offered Biblical allegorical interpretation, and dealt with a literary-political problem: Cicero\u2019s definition of a commonwealth (res publica) in his De re publica, which Augustine tried to undermine in the nineteenth book of his De civitate dei by a reductio ad absurdum.
\nLet us retrace our steps to a Greek trio: Porphyry, Eusebius and Julian. The three not only form a chronological continuum\u2014Porphyry lived in the second half of the third century C.E., Eusebius in the first half and Julian in the second half of the fourth\u2014but there is also a relationship among them in the substantial content of their work. Some of the extant portions of Porphyry\u2019s treatise, Contra Christianos, consist of the fragments quoted by Eusebius from him in order to argue against his views. A rise in the level of the polemic and the addition of new subjects for it were the outcome of Porphyry\u2019s broad critical approach. Eusebius broadened the field even more by quoting many writers and historians, and by adding a comprehensive discussion of Plato\u2019s teachings (he considered him the most important representative of philosophy), comparing them with Jewish and Christian sacred writings.
\nJulian\u2019s treatise, Contra Galilaeos, is an amalgam of the views of Celsus and Porphyry. Eusebius is one of the few contemporaries whom Julian mentioned by name (he called him a scoundrel\u2014mochtheros). The fact that Julian\u2019s two main subjects in Contra Galilaeos were the problem of human civilization, and a comparison of Plato and Moses, proves that it was essentially Eusebius with whom he contended in his polemical work (a detailed discussion of which appears below).
\nPorphyry is an example of a polemicist whose interest lay not in politics but in philosophy, religion and ethics. J. Bidez, Porphyry\u2019s biographer, noted the similarities in the work of Porphyry and of his great teacher, Plotinus. According to Bidez, Plotinus was not interested in politics, diverting the attention of his pupils from everyday life; the idea of doing service to the deteriorating state and world situation was alien to him. Similarly we may not, in Bidez\u2019s opinion (ibid. pp. 67\u201368), assume that the publication of Porphyry\u2019s treatise Contra Christianos had anything whatever to do with contemporary actions of the authorities against the Christians. Bidez concludes: \u201cHe [scil. Porphyry] does not profess a political ideal. He is a theoretician moved by his profoundly religious nature to occupy himself above all with what concerns the soul and God.\u201d And again Bidez stresses (ibid., p. 78): \u201cHe [scil. Porphyry] speaks as a man profoundly religious.\u201d (My italics.)
\nSince this was Porphyry\u2019s true nature, we must not allow ourselves to be misled by certain of his expressions and polemical motifs, which have a political character, into thinking that these may serve to delineate his character. It is much more probable that, in these cases, we are dealing with his borrowings from the treasury of polemical motifs. An example of this may be found in the following formulation of Porphyry: \u201cAmmonius [the teacher of Plotinus] was a Christian, brought up in Christian doctrine by his parents; yet when he began to think and study philosophy, he immediately adapted his way of life to the polity which conforms to the laws.\u201d
\nBidez errs when he fails to distinguish between the words of Celsus, about Christian apostasy and Christian seditiousness towards the state and the ancestral tradition, pagan and Jewish alike, and these rebukes as adopted by Porphyry. Bidez says: \u201cLike Celsus his forerunner, Porphyry is especially shocked to see revolutionaries among the Christians who do away with all that came to them from their forefathers, even with the prescriptions of the Old Testament, and who menace the established order; he regards them as \u2018barbarians.\u2019 \u201d (Ibid., p. 76.) On the other hand, Bidez is right when he adds further on, although too cautiously: \u201cHe seems nevertheless less occupied than Celsus with defending the Roman State.\u201d (Ibid., p. 77.)
\nI believe that the key to understanding Porphyry is his position on the question of sacrifices and daemons. In his Praeparatio Evangelica, 4:18, Eusebius cites the following from Porphyry\u2019s De abstinentia (2:43): \u201cWherefore a wise and prudent man will guard against using sacrifices such as these, whereby he will draw down daemons of this kind [that is, evil daemons] to himself, but will be careful to purify his soul in every way; for they never attack a pure soul, because of its being unlike themselves. But if it is necessary for States to propitiate these daemons also, that is nothing to us, for States regard wealth and externals and things for the body as good, and the contrary as ill; but there are in them very few who care for the soul.\u201d
\nIt is clear from his words that political necessity for worship does not interest him. In his treatise De regressu animae. Porphyry asserts that the value of sacrifice is in connection with the world to come, that is, to ensure the rise of the soul to divine spheres after its deliverance from the body. In accordance with this concept, the daemons have no worldly power or influence. Therefore, there is no need to propitiate them or seek their favour. Celsus and Julian, on the other hand, think that the daemons directly affect the lives of men and their destinies, and even the Church Fathers speak frequently of the daemons\u2019 power to cause trouble in this world. From this point of view, Porphyry was more remote from the affairs of this world than those who placed religion at the centre of their lives.
\nEunapius in his Vitae philosophorum et sophistarum said of Porphyry: \u201cIt seems that he attained a very advanced age. At any rate, he left behind him many speculations that conflicted with the works that he had published previously; with regard to which we can only suppose that he changed his opinions as he grew older.\u201d Modern scholars too have made a distinction between the works of Porphyry\u2019s youth and those of his old age in order to explain his having made favourable statements about Christianity (especially about Jesus; on the other hand, he was strongly inimical to Paul).
\nIn the light of our assumption that Porphyry was and remained essentially religious, it is understandable that he was not afraid to provide his opponents with words of praise that might be used tellingly by them\u2014something unimaginable in a political polemicist. Porphyry also objected to the whole practice of sacrifice, upon which pagan polytheism rests, though he could imagine that the Christians would seize upon his words as a great prize (as indeed did Eusebius, Augustine and Cyril). Assuming that there was indeed a strong spiritual affinity between Porphyry and his opponents (see his letter-treatise to his wife, Marcella), we can understand why the Christians treated him with special gravity, and why he is the only one mentioned by name among those whose writings were to be burned in keeping with the law.
\nEusebius took up Porphyry\u2019s challenge and dealt with it very thoroughly. In his Historia Ecclesiastica as in his two polemical writings, the Praeparatio Evangelica and the Demonstratio Evangelica, Eusebius presented himself as a kind guide and interpreter of the numerous quotations he cited. Characteristically, he explained them and drew conclusions suiting his taste and needs. Arnaldo Momigliano has discussed the essential features of his documentary history. One should stress, however, Eusebius\u2019s similarity to and, most probably, dependence upon, Josephus in this field. Since Eusebius makes ample use of the Contra Apionem, as well as of Josephus\u2019s other works, and since the same pagan arguments that had been directed against the Jews now confronted him, it seems not unreasonable to suppose that Josephus served Eusebius as a most successful and impressive model, imitated both in his method of writing history and in his polemical or apologetic writings.
\nThe conversion of Constantine the Great, and the changes and hopefulness that followed in the Christian world, are well attested in the confident language of Eusebius and in his belief in the future of the Church. Although he was close to the imperial court and was prepared to forgive the Emperor\u2019s crimes because of his support for Christianity, Eusebius\u2019s style was no less fervently religious than that of the earlier Church Fathers, who had no contact with the secular government. This is perhaps due to the establishment of a special style, and its adoption by various church writers; their writings are replete with verses from Scripture, as a matter of fashion and of habit.
\nIn his treatise, Demonstratio Evangelica, Eusebius dealt with the question of why the Christians refrained from sacrificing animals, although this was done by the men of old (from Abel onward) and specifically by the Hebrew nation which was their model. Eusebius explains that there was a difference between the attitude of the pagans in early days and that of the Hebrews (ibid., 1,10:1\u20132). The former did not at the beginning sacrifice animals, but only the fruit of the earth, and it was only later that the pagans turned to animal sacrifice, while, according to the Pentateuch, even the earliest men had honoured their god with animals as is told of Abel (ibid., 1.10:3\u20134). The reason Eusebius offers for this is not dissimilar to that offered by Julian, in his Contra Galilaeos, as we shall see presently. Eusebius says with regard to Cain and Abel: \u201cHere you will understand that he who sacrificed an animal is said to have been accepted by God more than he who brought an offering of the fruits of the earth.\u201d Why did the forefathers prefer such sacrifices? \u201cFor when they saw, since they were holy \u2026 that there was need of great stress on the cleansing of the sins of men, they thought that a ransom was due to the source of life and soul in return for their own salvation.\u2026\u201d (ibid., 1,10:6) And further: \u201cAnd then as they had nothing better or more valuable than their own life to sacrifice, they brought a sacrifice in place of it by means of the unreasoning beasts, providing another life instead of their own life.\u2026\u201d (ibid., 1,10:7).
\nIf this be so, why then do the Christians not offer up animal sacrifices? After we examine the background, the explanation is extremely simple. Since the animal is a kind of substitute for the human soul, the sacrifice of Jesus is more valid then the sacrificing of animals. As Isaiah said (53:7), \u201cAs a sheep he was led to slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before her shearers.\u201d The conclusion is therefore obvious: this (Jesus\u2019s) sacrifice absolved the Christians of the need to sacrifice animals as prescribed by the Law of Moses, and even prohibited them from sacrificing (ibid., 1,10:15\u201318).
\nWe end our survey with the emperor-polemicist, Julian. It is not easy to decide whether religion or the state was more important to Julian. He had received a Christian education in his childhood, but was converted to polytheism in his youth (this is why he is called \u201cthe Apostate\u201d by Christians); his life would have been in danger if the authorities had discovered his conversion, but this was no deterrent to him. His writings and letters reveal (notwithstanding the pompous rhetorical style of his times) the sincerity of his belief in the pagan gods, and his fervent devotion to them. On the other hand, Julian was an emperor for whom the interests and needs of the state were of supreme importance, and it is reasonable to assume that this factor influenced his attitude towards paganism and Christianity. Christian theology was abominable to him, not only because of its false doctrine and logically untenable opinions, but also because of its anti-political and anti-social aspects. This may be gathered from Julian\u2019s reaction to one of Jesus\u2019s sermons: \u201cListen to a fine statesmanlike piece of advice: \u2018Sell that ye have and give to the poor.\u2026\u2019 (Luke, 12:33). Can anyone quote a more statesmanlike ordinance than this? For if all men were to obey you who would there be to buy? Can anyone praise this teaching when, if it be carried out, no city, no nation, not a single family will hold together?\u201d
\nJulian, as is well known, sacrificed superabundantly to the gods and it was painful for him to realize that the worship of the gods was dwindling. As we have noted, such worship was also a symbol of the worshipper\u2019s political loyalty. It is for this reason that Julian importuned the Christians and attempted to persuade them that their stubbornness and rebelliousness in this sphere were mistaken. For he says: \u201cIf the reading of your own scriptures is sufficient for you, why do you nibble at the learning of the Hellenes? And yet it were better to keep them away from that learning than from the eating of sacrificial meat. For by that, as even Paul says (1 Corinthians 8:7\u201313), he who eats thereof is not harmed.\u2026 But this learning of ours has caused every noble being that nature has produced among you to abandon impiety (atheot\u00eas).\u2026 It were therefore better for you to keep men from learning rather than from sacrificial meats\u201d (Contra Galilaeos, 229 C\u2013D).
\nJulian also forestalls the Christians\u2019 possible objections on the ground that \u201c \u2018The Jews too do not sacrifice\u2019.\u201d
\nHe retorts: \u201cthat the Jews do sacrifice in their own houses, and even to this day everything that they eat is consecrated; and they pray before sacrificing, and give the right shoulder to the priests as the first fruits; but since they have been deprived of their temple, or, as they are accustomed to call it, their holy place, they are prevented from offering the first fruits of the sacrifice to God. But why do you not sacrifice, since you have invented your new kind of sacrifice and do not need Jerusalem at all?\u201d (ibid., 305D\u2013306A).
\nAnd, in another place: \u201cBut you, though you practise that which God from the first abhorred, as he showed through Moses and the prophets, have refused nevertheless to offer victims at the altar, and to sacrifice. \u2018Yes\u2019, say the Galilaeans, \u2018because fire will not descend to consume the sacrifices as in the case of Moses.\u2019 Only once, I answer, did this happen in the case of Moses (Leviticus, 9:24); and again after many years in the case of Elijah the Tishbite (1 Kings, 18:38). For I will prove in a few words that Moses himself thought that it was necessary to bring fire from outside for the sacrifice, and even before him, Abraham the patriarch as well \u2026\u201d. (ibid., 343 C\u2013D.)
\nAnd Julian comments concerning Jerusalem: \u201cHowever, for your indolence in this matter there remains for you one single excuse, namely, that you are not permitted to sacrifice if you are outside Jerusalem, though for that matter Elijah sacrificed on Mount Carmel, and not in the holy city.\u201d (1 Kings, 18:19; 351D, 324C,D.)
\nJulian was delighted to find detailed laws of sacrifices and a positive attitude towards them in Leviticus, and he made use of these against the Christians. After citing the words of the Torah about the two scapegoats, he added: \u201cAccordingly it is evident from what has been said, that Moses knew the various methods of sacrifice. And to show that he did not think them impure as you do, listen again to his own words. \u2018But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings that pertain unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people\u2019 (Leviticus, 7:20; 305B).\u201d Such a state of mind induced Julian to put forward an original interpretation for a difficult scriptural verse, to answer why God accepted the offering of Abel and rejected that of Cain. Julian suggested that \u201c \u2018since of things on the earth some have life and others are lifeless, and those that have life are more precious than those that are lifeless to the living God who is also the cause of life, inasmuch as they also have a share of life and have a soul more akin to his\u2014for this reason God was more graciously inclined to him who offered a perfect sacrifice.\u2019 \u201d (Ibid., 347C.)
\nIn the pre-Christian period, the views of the Epicureans constituted a problem for orthodox devotees of paganism, but they posed a \u201cfamily\u201d problem of no great importance and an intensive war against them did not ensue. This may be concluded from the attitude towards Epicurus and his doctrines expressed in Cicero\u2019s treatises, De natura deorum and De finibus bonorum et malorum. In the first book of De natura deorum, after Velleius the Epicurean had presented his views and had also attacked and rejected all other philosophical systems, Cotta the Sceptic-Academician attempted to undermine the scientific basis of Epicureanism (the atoms, space and so on) and questioned both the Epicurean description of the gods and the Epicureans\u2019 assumption of their existence (ibid., 1:21). Cotta recalled the mythological image of the gods and compared it with what was customary among the Egyptians (animal worship). He addressed Velleius in this fashion: \u201cWell then, if the gods do not possess the appearance of men, as I have proved, nor some such form as that of the heavenly bodies, as you are convinced, why do you hesitate to deny their existence? You do not dare to. Well, that is no doubt wise \u2026 although in this matter it is not the public that you fear, but the gods themselves: I personally am acquainted with Epicureans who worship every paltry image, albeit I am aware that according to some people\u2019s view Epicurus really abolished the gods, but nominally retained them in order not to offend the people of Athens.\u201d (Ibid., 1,30:85) Cotta made similar remarks about Epicurus in 1,34 and in 3,1:3. Cicero and his associates dealt with the Epicureans in a mocking but elegant way, and reproached them not for denying divine providence but rather for not being strong enough Epicureans, that is, for not denying wholly the existence of the gods. Cicero himself, although a politician and not a religious personality, revered the religious tradition and supported the cult, possibly because of its importance to the Republic. He therefore found it necessary to show a favourable attitude towards Balbus the Stoic, a defender of religion. However, his words may be simple lip-service, to compensate for the liberal, sometimes offensive, tone of other remarks about the gods in his treatise. He said: \u201cHere the conversation ended, and we parted, Velleius thinking Cotta\u2019s discourse to be truer, while I felt that that of Balbus approximated more nearly to a semblance of the truth.\u201d (3,40:95)
\nThe unrestrained liberal approach is even more obvious in the De finibus. The first book introduces the Epicurean doctrine about the Supreme Good (voluptas=h\u00eadon\u00ea), which Cicero refutes in the second book. The following paragraphs exemplify the atmosphere. Torquatus the Epicurean addresses Cicero: \u201c\u2026 I am resolved to hear the reason why you regard my master Epicurus, not indeed with hatred, as do most of those who do not share his views, but at all events with disapproval.
\nI myself consider him as the one person who has discerned the truth, and who has delivered men from the gravest errors.\u2026\u201d (Ibid., 1,5:14.)
\nFurther on in the discussion, Cicero says to Triarius: \u201cwhen one disagrees with a man, it is essential to say what it is that one objects to in his views. What should prevent me from being an Epicurean if I accepted the doctrines of Epicurus? Especially as the system is an exceedingly easy one to master. You must not find fault with members of opposing schools for criticizing each other\u2019s opinions; though I always feel that insult and abuse, or ill-tempered wrangling and bitter, obstinate controversy are beneath the dignity of philosophy.\u201d (Ibid., 1,8:27.) And finally, the attitude of Cicero to Epicurus as an individual is noted: \u201c\u2026 Who, pray, denies that Epicurus was a good man, and a kind and humane man? In these discussions it is his intellect and not his character that is in question.\u201d
\nWhen Cicero wrote these and similar things, he could not have imagined that they were destined to fall into the hands of deadly enemies of the pagans, who would exploit them in their war against the gods. But this use made these writings offensive to orthodox polytheists: Arnobius tells us that some pagans suggested passing a decree in the senate ordering that they be destroyed. Such a law was indeed enacted by the Christians against anti-Christian pagan writings. It is worth noting that Arnobius thought that a decree of this type would not be in the interest of the Christians; he argued that this was no fit way to silence an opponent, but that one must rather convince him of the justice and truth of one\u2019s opinion.
\nJulian too acted according to the spirit of the times when he condemned a large part of Greek literature and philosophy, which he believed to be offensive to the gods and to religious belief. As he explained it: \u201c\u2026 Let no one who has been consecrated a priest read either Archilochus or Hipponax or anyone else who writes such poems as theirs. And in Old Comedy let him avoid everything of that type\u2014for it is better so\u2014and indeed on all accounts philosophy alone will be appropriate for us priests; and of philosophers only those who chose the gods as guides of their mental discipline, like Pythagoras and Plato and Aristotle, and the school of Chrysippus and Zeno. For we ought not to give heed to them all nor to the doctrines of all, but only to those philosophers and those of their doctrines that make men god-fearing [or \u201cimplant piety\u201d\u2014eusebeia].\u2026\u201d (Fragmentum Epistulae, 300D\u2013301A.)
\nIn complete contrast to Cicero\u2019s polite and fair treatment of his sworn opponent, Julian used, as did the Christians, abusive language towards his opponents, especially towards the founders of Christianity. He termed Eusebius a \u201cwretch\u201d (Contra Gal., 222A); Paul, one \u201cwho surpassed all the magicians and charlatans of every place and every time\u201d (ibid., 100A); and John the Evangelist, \u201crascally and deceitful\u201d (ibid., 33C).
\nIt is worth mentioning that many more vituperative statements about Jesus and the Apostles were omitted by Cyril, who could not bring himself to copy them. Intolerance towards an opponent and his views was a salient feature of Julian\u2019s character. Although such behaviour was quite common in that period and reflected the interreligious conflicts, the Christians were largely responsible for cultivating this attitude; perhaps Julian\u2019s Christian education influenced the formation of this attitude of his. The beginning of his treatise, Ad Heracleium Cynicum reflects his views: \u201c\u2026 by invitation we [scil. Julian] attended the lecture of a Cynic whose barking [a jibe at the etymology of Cynic,=doglike] was neither distinct nor noble; but he was crooning myths as nurses do, and even these he did not compose in any profitable [or \u201chealthy\u201d] fashion. For a moment my impulse was to rise and break up the meeting.\u2026\u201d (204A.)
\nI have tried to show, in a few lines, the images of those prominent in the polemic of the second to the fifth centuries C.E., as well as to indicate their uncharacteristic statements in addition to the more usual comments and ways of thinking of each of these men; the most reasonable explanation of the exceptional comments might be to see them as the fruit of the influence and pressure exerted by their opponents.
\nJ. Geffcken attempted to establish criteria for the evaluation of the various personalities on the Christian side of the polemic. He regarded the works of Aristides, Justin and Tatian as unripe fruit of early Christian apologetic literature. All three, he said, have no talent for writing and do not know how to construct their thought systematically and logically. Aristides lacked education, whereas Justin and Tatian were only half-educated. According to Geffcken, their works show that they had read almost nothing of Greek mythology or philosophy themselves but had, instead, drawn their knowledge of them from various extant collections (as did Josephus, most probably), and these compilations served them in lieu of a thorough Greek education. Athenagoras, on the other hand, did a more thorough job. Geffcken noted (p. 308) that one of his principal aims was to demonstrate how an extraordinarily strong tradition reigns, and how Christians and pagans alike did not succumb to it. The Christians had a stronger will to win, and a personal force that was missing in the ranks of the pagans. The importance of the pagans was in the polemic, which they developed to the level of a science: Neo-Platonism and their profound and thorough Biblical criticism were the last glorious peaks of Hellenism. These pagans had become, in effect, professors of theology. Geffcken notes that history was never made from academic chairs, and indicates that the Christians could smile, with some justification, at the theological constructions of Porphyry and of Julian. Geffcken goes on to remark that Eusebius and Augustine did not bother to refute their enemies verse by verse, but nonetheless succeeded, in their highly individual works, in guiding Christian apologetics to victory.
\nGeffcken\u2019s observations are correct, on the whole, but incomplete. There is no doubt that the Christian apologists of the third to fifth centuries C.E. surpassed by far their colleagues of the second century in the breadth of their Greek education, now become the possession of all educated men, Christian and pagan alike. Yet the fact that Arnobius and Cyril had most probably read literature and philosophy for themselves did not endow them with the status of great apologists. On the other hand, the fact that Origen refuted Celsus\u2019s words verse by verse did not lower him to the category of the lesser apologists. It seems to me that, in order to differentiate between greater and lesser apologists and at the same time also evaluate the pagan polemicists, one must add another comment. The lesser apologists characteristically criticized fiercely, and made sharp attacks on, pagan mythology and concentrated on its manifestly weak points. Very frequently, their response to pagan arguments was to raise counter-arguments, as if to say \u201cyou raise questions and so do we; just as we cannot answer them, so are you unable to do so, and hence the honours are even!\u201d The greater apologists, on the other hand, were not satisfied as a rule with rejecting the arguments of their opponents or with supplying negative answers; they endeavoured to present a positive thesis of their own. This contending with fundamental questions, and the desire to attain an independent understanding of them that was not dictated solely by the needs of the polemic, were characteristic of the great personalities involved in the polemic.<\/p>\n
Chapter One<\/p>\n
THE JEWISH FACTOR IN THE POLEMIC<\/p>\n
Marcel Simon\u2019s admirable work, Verus Israel, abounds in comprehensive summaries of the literature relevant to this subject. Simon adheres to accepted concepts, endeavouring to confirm them. He regards the period from the Bar-Cochba revolt to the abolition of the Patriarchate of the Jews (135\u2013425 C.E.) as being characterized by the polemic between the Jews and Christians. In these centuries, argues Simon, Judaism was not yet the recluse of later years, and its proselytizing activity was as thorns in the eyes of Christianity (pp. 15\u201316). On the other hand, there was an obvious alteration in the pagan attitude towards the Jews caused by the disturbing strength and expansion of the Church. The tension and crises of the years 70\u2013135 C.E. were replaced gradually by a positive attitude and even by real favour nurtured by a common hatred of a common foe, as well as by the realization that Judaism and paganism were in the same conservative ideological front against innovating and revolutionary Christianity (pp. 61\u201362. Cf. p. 436). Simon mentions Celsus\u2019s use of a Jew in his work alongside his harsh criticism of the Jewish religion, in whose favour he notes only the antiquity of its tradition. Phrases in praise of Judaism appeared frequently in the work of Porphyry and, of course, in that of Julian. The Roman authorities recognized the Jewish nation, and tolerated its religion; the threat of subversive Christianity led, in Simon\u2019s view, to a state wherein a conversion to Judaism, even that of a pagan, seemed to the pagans to be a lesser evil than his conversion to Christianity, whereas the conversion of a Christian to Judaism was regarded as a positive gain. There are grounds to believe that, in the critical situation created by the intervention of Christianity, the pagans allowed the Jews to expand as much as they could, providing that their proselytic activities were carried out at the expense of Christianity. (Simon deduces this from the Jewish propaganda permitted among the Martyrs.) There is reason to believe, adds Simon, that in certain circumstances the Roman authorities used the Jews against the Church; this would explain the fact that an anti-Jewish treatise of the polemic could charge the Synagogue with being \u201csustained by the Roman sceptre and legions.\u201d What is a reasonable hypothesis concerning the third century C.E. becomes a reliable fact with regard to the emperor Julian. Concerning relations between Jews and Christians, Simon says that, if the Jews\u2019 existence were justified theoretically in various ways (e.g., the Jews are witnesses to the truthfulness of Christianity), their existence was still fraught with practical dangers. When pointing to the fall of Israel, the Church Fathers and the apologists were concerned no less with the Christians than with the pagans and Jews. They sought to counter the Jewish power of attraction and propaganda, and to prevent Christians from \u201cJudaizing\u201d (Ioudaizein, Iudaizare).
\nAs regards the quality of the Jewish-Christian debate, decisive importance attaches to the question of whether the Jews conducted active, proselytic propaganda. Simon exerts himself to show that this was indeed the case, but admits that the Jewish sources are not decisive on this point. The Christian sources, on the other hand, may be interpreted as representing an attempt to counter the attractiveness of Judaism, without necessarily implying any propaganda by the Jews: the eight stern sermons of John Chrysostom against the Jews would seem to suggest this. The excessive reliance of Simon on W.G. Braude\u2019s work, Jewish Proselytism in the First Five Centuries of the Common Era is undermined by Gedaliahu Alon, who noted inter alia, that \u201cThe controversy between Rabbi Yehoshua ben \u1e24anania and Rabbi Eliezer, about a proselyte (ger) who was circumcised, is not to be taken according to the version of the Babylonian Talmud, Yebamot, 47a. The tradition of The Jerusalem Talmud, of Kiddushin C.3, 64d and of the tractate Gerim, forces the rejection of the formulation in the Babylonian Talmud and the sustaining of the tradition of Eretz Israel, according to which Rabbi Yehoshua never said that (lack of) circumcision does not hinder\u201d [one\u2019s becoming a Jew]. Obviously, the relaxation of halachic regulations concerning the acceptance of proselytes would have served to testify much more about tendencies to proselytize than mere phrases in favour of such inclinations, when such phrases were counterbalanced by others censorious of such activities. But even at the end of the first century C.E. and the beginning of the second, when Jewish and pagan sources speak of proselytes such as Yehuda the Ammonite (BT Berachot, 28a), or Ketia Bar Shalom (BT Avodah Zarah, 10B), there was no readiness on the part of the Sages to relax any regulations in order to promote proselytism, and certainly no such readiness afterwards. The silence of the pagan sources for the period after 150 C.E. is telling.
\nSimon must have expected some palpable support for his thesis concerning the extent of proselytism from Jewish epigraphy (burial inscriptions), but did not find it among the Jewish inscriptions of the Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum edited by Frey, only nine of whose seven hundred inscriptions were those of proselytes and only four of \u201cgod-fearers\u201d (metuentes). That is why Simon had to present various reasons to explain away the uncomfortable fact that so much evidence contradicted his thesis: that in epigraphy not much weight is attributed to an argument based on the absence of evidence (argumentum e silentio); that the inscriptions found were random and that new discoveries might change the picture; that almost all the inscriptions known are from Rome, and the authorities there probably were active concerning the prohibited proselytizing activity; that it is also possible that the proselytes were not indicated as being such on their tombstones in order to avoid unpleasantness or hardship for their relatives, and so on. At the end of his explanations, Simon draws the surprising conclusion that, in the light of Juvenal\u2019s words, one should be careful in interpreting epigraphical evidence. It seems to me that the opposite approach is the correct one: a satire is not more reliable as historical evidence than unbiased inscriptions, and therefore the satire must be interpreted in their light.
\nFinally, Simon attempts to confirm his view that the Sages were active in converting the pagans by pointing out the sources dealing with their attitude towards \u201cGreek wisdom,\u201d such as the translation of the Torah into Greek, the art of the synagogues, and so on. Simon offers a some-what involved explanation: the liberal attitude of the Sages in accomodating pagan culture emanates from their concern for successful proselytism, and it aims at influencing the pagan world which must first be understood before it can be converted. It is much simpler and truer to say that the attitude of the Sages reflects their being aware of material needs, and their recognition that idolatrous influences did not constitute a real danger to the Jews any longer.
\nParkes, though he points out the paucity of the references to Christianity in the Talmudic literature of the second and third centuries C.E., a paucity which creates the impression that the Jews disregarded Christianity when it became the accepted religion of the nations, nonetheless stresses that the most weighty reason for the polemic between the two religions was rooted in the proselytic activity of the Jews, who vied with the Christians for the conversion of the pagan world.
\nJoseph Vogt, on the other hand, does not accept the conclusions drawn by Parkes from his study of the Acta martyrum. Vogt believes that Parkes\u2019s conclusions need critical examination, and argues that the Christian menace promoted the creation of a pagan-Jewish coalition; as he formulates it in his picturesque language, \u201cit was an alliance of unequal powers with a common feeling of impotence in the face of the creative force of Christianity; the joining together of the blind and the lame.\u201d
\nTwo scholars, A. Lukyn Williams and Bernhard Blumenkranz, contribute indirectly to our problem by surveying Christian literature attacking the Jews. Simon (p. 167) states that Williams believes that these writings reflect real conflicts faithfully. But it seems that both Blumenkranz and Williams are rather vacillating. Williams (Introduction, p. 17) says that the impression one gets from reading these pamphlets is one of \u201csameness,\u201d but that a second reading reveals something special in each of them. Further on (p. 43), he says that Tertullian was doubly motivated to compile his Adversus Iudaeos: he wished to defend the Christians from the Jews, who lived in great numbers in North Africa, and he wished, as did many Christians, to convert the Jews and believed that such a compilation might be of use to this end. The missionary goal that Williams ascribes to the above-mentioned and similar treatises is difficult to accept, since the language of these writings proves that their authors despaired of converting the Jews. On the contrary, they were afraid of the influence of the Jews, and sought to separate the Christians from the Jews and prevent them from imitating their Jewish neighbours\u2019 keeping of the Sabbath and holidays and their observing of other customs. Williams ascribes this very aim to Aphraates, and he asserts that \u201cChrysostom\u2019s sermons [i.e. Adversus Iudaeos] were intended almost entirely for his Christian listeners, and only exceptionally for Jews.\u201d
\nBlumenkranz posits at the outset that a great many of these pamphlets, especially those from the end of the third century C.E. onwards, were intended to fight other enemies of the Church, such as pagans, heretics and schismatics, as well as the Jews, and that they also served inner Christian catechetical needs. Since the hope of converting the Jews had disappeared, it was not this hope which formed the basis of these works, but rather the need of material for the Christians in their ongoing dispute with the Jews or in their campaign against the influence of the Jews over actual or prospective Christians. Blumenkranz notes that treatises whose sole end was to carry on the polemic with pagans and heretics even included an open apology for the Jews in the period that preceded Jesus: Augustine\u2019s statements about the temporary and relative validity of Jewish ceremonial law, on the other hand, were intended not only against the Jews but also against \u201cJudaizers.\u201d Blumenkranz asserts that, so long as there existed multitudes of pagans who were potential converts for the Jews and the Christians, these two religions had to contend in frequent disputes (p. 85). He notes that many Jewish and Christian literary testimonies to the existence of such disputes have been preserved. On the other hand, we are informed that, until the destruction of the Temple, there was Jewish missionary activity on a large scale, and that proselytes were embraced wholeheartedly; after the destruction, especially in the first centuries of Christianity, there was a certain contraction or withdrawal of Judaism into itself, which naturally made it more difficult for it to absorb new elements (p. 165). Blumenkranz does not discuss the causes of this phenomenon, but rather notes his impression that Judaism abandoned its missionary initiative and left the field of conscription to the Christians.
\nAdolf Harnack adopted a diametrically opposed position on this question. His argument is, in contrast to that of Williams, that these writings must not be considered as an actual answer to actual arguments formulated by the Jews. The Jewish adversary in the Dialogues and the anonymous adversary in the doctrinal treatises is, he suggests, a purely conventional figure. His horizons do not differ from those of his fellow-disputant; he is a Jew not as a Jew was in reality but as conceived by the imagination. Harnack states that what purports to be a polemic is nothing but apologetics for the internal use of the Church. It refutes the reservations of the Christians themselves, or such as might be mentioned by a pagan who was impressed by the Gospels but yet did not embrace Christianity. The aim of the demonstration was to establish, with the aid of proofs from Scripture, the truthfulness of Christianity for the pagans. The anti-Jewish address is a fictional device. One must not expect that these works will shed any light on the actual relations between the two religions.
\nTo these conclusions, reached through his analysis of the pertinent writings, Harnack adds an external argument, perhaps the most important of all. In his opinion, what might have constituted real Jewish argumentation was unknown to the Christians since, from the time of the Emperor Domitian, the ties between Hellenistic Christianity and Judaism had become negligible. Rabbinic literature does mention disputes in the second century but, apart from what refers to Eretz-Israel and Syria, these mentions are, to a large extent, out of the ordinary. Actually, Judaism did not worry the Christians; it was not interested in them and it did not interest them. The two religions disregarded each other, and did not confront each other in an active polemic.
\nAlthough I am prepared to agree in general with Harnack\u2019s presentation of the case, I think that perhaps he goes too far when he claims (pp. 77\u20138) that even Justin Martyr\u2019s Dialogus is wholly, or at least mainly, directed towards the Greek public and not towards the Jews. In my opinion this work should be regarded both chronologically and materially as the last work intended primarily for the Jews. This view is not necessarily incompatible with Harnack\u2019s correct observation that the Jew in the Dialogus is allowed to say only what is useful for Justin\u2019s line of thought and argumentation.
\nSome corroboration of Harnack\u2019s (and also my) hypothesis may be adduced from A.B. Hulen\u2019s article. Hulen divides the treatises against the Jews into three groups: \u201c1) expository, addressed in large measure to the seed of Abraham, aiming at their conversion, and designed to prove to them the truth of Christianity out of the Old Testament\u2014finished examples of this type being Cyprian\u2019s \u2018Three Books of Testimonies\u2019 and Eusebius\u2019 \u2018Demonstration of the Gospel;\u2019 2) argumentative, dealing largely with Jewish objections to the new religion, represented by Justin Martyr\u2019s \u2018Dialogue with Trypho the Jew;\u2019 and 3) denunciatory, based on the assumption that the Jews were a people abandoned of God, whose conversion was hopeless, works like Chrysostom\u2019s \u2018Eight Orations against the Jews.\u2019 As years went by, the redemption of Israel was lost sight of, the apologies having for their main object the strengthening of the faith of believers.\u201d (My italics.) This classification seems to me acceptable in so far as it reduces the bulk of alleged anti Jewish polemical treatises. But it is hard to believe that, as late as the third or fourth century C.E., the Church still entertained hopes of converting the Jews. As I indicate below (see pp. 74\u201376), Eusebius\u2019s Demonstratio Evangelica and his Praeparatio Evangelica are to be seen as pieces of propaganda composed no less for the persuasion of the pagans than for that of the Jews.
\nHarnack\u2019s statements contradict the views of Simon and of many Christian scholars. Simon criticizes Harnack\u2019s views (op. cit., pp. 168\u2013176), or attempts to neutralize them while admitting the validity of some of his hypotheses. I will re-examine these matters below, in the light of the sources. May I note meanwhile that, while the treatises Adversus Iudaeos seem at first glance to contradict my hypothesis concerning the nature of the relations between Jews and Christians, the researches and conclusions of Williams and Blumenkranz offer palpable support for my theory, and Harnack\u2019s approach to this question complements their words in this regard.
\nLet us complete our survey with an examination of the approach suggested by Yitzhak Baer. Baer\u2019s intention is clear: to prove that the Jews were a party of equal weight in the polemic within the pagan empire. His thesis is expressed in the first sentence of his article: \u201cDuring its first three hundred years of existence the Christian Church appears as the rival of the Jewish religious community competing with it even while simultaneously engaged in a common struggle against the pagan Roman Empire.\u201d And a little further on, Baer complains that \u201cstandard history books dealing with the epoch which is the subject of this article, describe the Christian Church as standing singlehanded in its holy struggle against paganism and the kingdom of evil [i.e. Rome], while the Jewish religious community\u2019s part in the political and intellectual reality of this world is forgotten.\u201d And below (p. 102), in relation to the words of Rabbi Yitzhak in Canticles Rabba to Canticles chap. 1:5\u20136: \u201cThe Christian Church appears on the side of the congregation of Israel as her rival of the near past and has still to prove the achievements and credits due to her at Israel\u2019s side in the great historic struggle against paganism, a struggle which doubtless demands its victims from Israel no less than from her young rival.\u201d (Compare p. 114; my italics.)
\nBaer\u2019s attempt to put the Jews on the same level as the Christians, as being subject to religious persecutions, on the basis of his interpretation of Talmudic, Christian and Roman sources is not convincing, just as there is no basis for the contradictory theory which regards the Jews as collaborators with the Roman authorities against the Christians. Not only is there no evidence that the Jews suffered from the persecutions instigated by the emperors Decius and Diocletian but, on the contrary, we have an explicit source in the Jerusalem Talmud (Avodah Zarah, chap. 5,44d end), informing us that the Jews were distinguished from the other peoples of the empire when emperor worship was enforced by Diocletian (\u201cAll the nations must offer libations, apart from the Jews\u201d). Baer does his best to explain away this edict; it is also difficult for him to explain the favour and esteem revealed by Porphyry towards the Jews, so he notes: \u201c\u2026 nor can Porphyry himself actually be reckoned among the friends of Israel\u201d (p. 117).
\nIn the light of his statement that with regard to the struggle against paganism Judaism does not differ from Christianity, the wholly different way in which Julian treats the Jews and the Christians raises unsurmountable difficulties for Baer. Even if we accept Saul Lieberman\u2019s argument for a negative attitude on the part of the Sages towards Julian and his plan for rebuilding the Temple (\u201cthe disgrace of Israel\u201d), we must ask why the pagan polemicists, especially the Neo-Platonists, showed such friendliness towards the Jews, showering them and their Law with approving phrases, if indeed, as Baer argues, the Jews were fighting them no less vigorously than the Christians.
\nOur survey has indicated that the relations between the Jews and the pagan world must be examined in the light of reality, before one tries to determine whether the Jews were and remained a party to the literary polemic. The second problem that must be looked into is that of the relations of the Jews with the Christians; in both cases one must study carefully the nature of the literary sources and ascertain to what extent they reflect political-social relations. To these matters, I shall now turn.<\/p>\n
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The Hellenistic kings, as the Persian kings, viewed the Jews as a useful and trustworthy element because they were an alien minority in their places of residence, despite the fact that they did not conform to the local polytheism. It was due to this trustworthiness that Ptolemy I established Jewish military garrisons on the borders of Egypt and of Cyrene, and that Antiochus III settled many Jewish families in Lydia and Phrygia. The Jews in the Hellenistic kingdoms, especially in Egypt, were active in military service, in all the ranks and probably in separate units, as we learn from literary and papyrological evidence.
\nWe are aware of a clear change in the situation following the Maccabean rising. The Jews now constituted a political factor in the state system of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and even had a hand in the disruption of the Seleucid kingdom; at the same time, serious collisions occurred between the Jews and the Syrian-Greek cities of Eretz Israel.
\nRome\u2019s domination of the East entailed a serious deterioration in the relations between Jews and Greeks in Egypt. The underlying causes of the conflict were the intensified attempts of the local Greeks (compared with those of Ptolemaic times) to limit the political and economic rights granted to the Jews by the central authorities, which had placed the Jewish community (politeuma) on an almost equal footing with the Greek polis as far as privileges were concerned. The Jews of Eretz Israel, on the other hand, expected an improvement in their condition under the direct rule of Rome, as one may deduce from the words spoken in Pompey\u2019s ears in Damascus in 63 B.C.E., and from the repeated efforts to bring about the ousting of Herod and his sons. But, in spite of the remissions and privileges granted the Jews by Julius Caesar, they were disappointed quickly by the rule of the procurators. In Eretz Israel and Egypt, rebellions and riots broke out in the first half of the first century C.E., and reached their peak in the Great Revolt of 66 C.E. Some Jewish leaders preached moderation, such as Rabbi \u1e24anina the Prefect of the Priests: \u201cPray for the peace of the ruling power, since but for fear of it men would have swallowed up each other alive.\u201d There were also Sages, such as Rabban Yo\u1e25anan ben Zakkai, who were opposed to the revolt against Rome, but their actual importance was nil in the light of the activistic attitude towards the Roman government which was expressed in the Great Revolt, in the rebellions of the time of Trajan, and in the war of Bar-Cochba. In these wars, particularly in the rebellions of Trajan\u2019s period, the pagan inhabitants of the various provinces suffered at the hands of the Jews, but the primary target of the rebellions was the Roman government. This government, apart from being the patron and defender of the pagans who were its subjects and who were involved in the rebellions (such as Syrians, Egyptians and Greeks), was also recognized by Jews, Christians and pagans alike as the symbol and embodiment of the power of polytheism (or idolatry) in the world. In this respect, the year 135 C.E. constitutes the end of an epoch. The next Jewish rebellion broke out only when a Christian served as Roman emperor (the rebellion of Gallus\u2019s time, 351 C.E.), and it no longer reflected the attitude of the Jews towards the pagan authorities.
\nAfter Julius Caesar, the Julio-Claudian emperors (other than Caligula) did not depart from the traditional approach to the Jews. The Flavian emperors, who were more attached personally to Jewish leaders (Agrippa II, Berenice, Josephus), nonetheless imposed the \u201cJewish tax\u201d after the destruction of the Temple, a tax that was a grave religious insult as well as an additional economic burden. The picture did not change much in the days of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian, whereas, from the time of Antoninus Pius onwards, a modus vivendi was established gradually. Pagan and, especially, Christian sources stressed the favourable attitude shown by the Severan emperors towards the Jews. The troubles within the Empire of the third century C.E. caused an unbridled struggle for supreme power on the one hand, and the undermining of security in the provinces on the other; their impact was felt by the Jews in Eretz Israel, but the Jews were not discriminated against as compared to other provincial inhabitants: religious persecutions were the lot of the Christians alone. The emperor Decius, instigator of fierce persecutions against the Christians, is not even mentioned in Jewish sources, while Diocletian absolved the Jews from participating in emperor-worship, as noted earlier.<\/p>\n
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In order to avert criticism, and to confirm my hypothesis that the Jews were not an active party to the polemic, I will now present some indications of the atmosphere in the Jewish community then, as it is reflected in the Talmudic sources. I will also examine whether or not one may perceive the beginning of a change in thinking in the second century C.E., a change that became more solidly based in the third and fourth centuries. In order to do this, I will now present some explicit sayings in Talmudic literature which convey the dilemma posed by the existence pf the Roman Empire, of which Judaea was one of the smaller provinces and subject to its jurisdiction and good will. These sayings indicated the position taken by the Sages towards the government and its methods.
\nThe famous baraita in the BT (Shabbath, 33b) betrays the esteem felt by R. Yehuda ben Ilai for Rome\u2019s colonizing activity: \u201cHow fine are the works of this people [= the Romans]!. They have made streets [for \u2018market-places\u2019], they have built bridges, they have erected baths,\u201d as well as the denigration expressed by R. Simeon ben Yo\u1e25ai: \u201cAll what they made they made for themselves. They built market-places to set harlots in them; baths, to rejuvenate themselves; bridges to levy tolls for them.\u201d Similarly the opinions of Resh Lakish (=Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish) and Rabbi Simon were divided about the character of the law and justice instituted by Rome in the world: \u201cR. Simeon b. Lakish said: \u2018Behold, it was very good,\u2019 [this refers] to the earthly kingdom [=Rome], Is then the earthly kingdom very good? How strange! (It earns that title) because it exacts justice [=dikiot=dikai] for men.\u2026\u201d And on the other hand: \u201cR. Pine\u1e25as and R. \u1e24ilkia, in the name of R. Simon.\u2026 Why is it [i.e. Edom or Rome] compared to a \u2018\u1e25azir\u2019 (swine or boar)?\u2014To tell you this: Just as the swine when reclining puts forth its hooves as if to say: See that I am clean, so too does the empire of Edom [Rome] boast as it commits violence and robbery, under the guise of establishing a judicial tribunal\u201d [=b\u00eama].
\nThe opposition and hostility to Rome, oppressor of the nation and destroyer of the Temple, probably brought about a stricter attitude towards idolatrous objects that had any connection with emperor-worship: \u201c\u2026 only that is forbidden which bears in its hand a staff or a bird or a sphere.\u201d The same held true for collaboration in any form with the authorities. The Sages viewed it unfavourably, chastized and even initiated sanctions against those subservient to the Romans. This animosity found its passive expression in the hope that \u201cRome is designed to fall into the hands of Persia.\u201d
\nBut the dominant voices advocated moderation towards the authorities and objected to uprisings and sedition. Thus, for example, R. Yehuda the Patriarch ordered his sons in his testament: \u201c\u2026 And do not seek to evade toll tax.\u2026\u201d (BT Pesahim 112b) contrary to the position of his predecessors R. Akiva and Rabbi Ishmael (BT Baba Kama, 113a; JT Nedarim, chap. 3,38b). Other Sages of the second to fourth centuries C.E. spoke unequivocally: \u201cWhat does it mean \u2018Turn you northward\u2019 (Deut., 2:3)? R. \u1e24iyya said: He said unto them: if you see that it wishes to provoke you, do not stand up against it but hide yourselves from it until the time of its rule will pass\u201d (MR Deuteronomy, 1:17); \u201cBut the bird divided he not (Gen., 15:10). R. Abba b. Kahana said in R. Levi\u2019s name: The Holy One, Blessed be He, intimated to him that he who attempts to resist the wave is swept away by it\u201d (MR Genesis, 44:15); \u201c\u2026 That text is required for (an exposition) like that of R. Yos\u00e9 son of R. \u1e24anina who said: \u2018What was the purpose of those three adjurations? [Song of Songs, 2:7; 3:5; 5:8]\u2014One, that Israel shall not go up (all together as if surrounded) by a wall; the second, that whereby the Holy One, Blessed be He, adjured idolaters [v.l. \u201cThe nations of the world\u201d] that they shall not oppress Israel too much\u2019 \u201d (BT Ketuboth, 111a), and, finally \u201cR. \u1e24elbo said: Four adjurations are mentioned here. [=Song of Songs, 2:7; 3:5; 5:8; 8:4] God adjured Israel that they should not rebel against the Governments, that they should not seek to hasten the end, that they should not reveal their mysteries [=mysteirin=myst\u00earia] to the other nations and that they should not attempt to go up from the diaspora as a wall \u2026 R. Onia said: He addressed to them four adjurations corresponding to the four generations who tried to hasten the end and came to grief, namely, once in the days of Amram, once in the days of Dinai, once in the days of Ben Coziba, and once in the days of Shuthela\u1e25 the son of Ephraim.\u201d The Sages wished to prevent rash and dangerous acts, and tended to attempt to allay tension in the relations of the Jews with the government; a similar tendency was conspicuous in the attitude of the Roman authorities towards the Jews after the Bar-Cochba revolt. It is reasonable to expect that signs of this change may be found in pagan literature, too, which I will now examine.<\/p>\n
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I do not intend to deal at length with Hellenistic and Roman literature of the period before the middle of the second century C.E. The image of the Jews in the eyes of Hellenistic writers of the third century B.C.E., such as Hecataeus, Theophrastus, Megasthenes and Clearchus, can be described as \u201cfavourable misunderstanding.\u201d On the other hand the attitude of writers from the middle of the second century B.C.E. onwards, such as Lysimachus, Apollonius Molon and Poseidonius, seems to be one of \u201chostile misunderstanding.\u201d An anti-Semitic literature along the line of the Acts of the Alexandrian Martyrs and the invectives of Apion emerged gradually against the backdrop of the struggle between the Jews and the Greeks in Egypt for privileges and social and political status in the first centuries of Roman rule.
\nAs for Cicero and Tacitus, one may perhaps include their views in the category of \u201chostile misunderstanding.\u201d As Yo\u1e25anan Levy demonstrated in his essays, political motives influenced these two writers. This is especially obvious in the case of Tacitus, who combined his description of the history of the Jews with his narrative of the fall of Jerusalem (Historiae, 5:2 ff.). Tacitus reproached the Jews for the injunctions they give proselytes and, being a pagan writer at the close of the pagan-Jewish polemic, he emphasized that the Jews are enemies of mankind (Hist., 5:5); while chastising Christianity, he remembered to indicate that Judaea is the source of this evil (Annales, 15:44).
\nAfter Tacitus, no pagan work appeared dealing with the Jews as such, and it is possible to sense a change in the atmosphere concerning them. At the end of the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, Celsus wrote his anti-Christian pamphlet, The True Doctrine (Al\u00eat\u00eas Logos). Celsus used a clever technique; first, the Jew he introduced assailed Christianity and afterwards, Celsus pronounced his verdict that the quarrel between the two sides was like the quarrel about the \u201cdonkey\u2019s shadow.\u201d Origen noted that the words Celsus put in the mouth of his Jewish protagonist were not always in character\u2014especially when he relied on Greek mythology and quoted the words of Dionysus from the Bacchae of Euripides. So, too, his complaint that the Christians, now mostly of pagan origin, had abandoned the religion of their fathers, was inappropriate for a Jew. Hence it is difficult to assume that what we have here are the words of a real Jew disputing with a Christian, a dispute that Celsus attended and recorded; we also have no proof that Celsus made use of written Jewish sources and adjusted them to the needs of his pagan readers. It is simpler to assume that the personality of Celsus\u2019s Jew is his own invention. This assumption is corroborated by the fact that, apart from arguments formulated in Jewish circles in the first century C.E. and directed against the Jewish-Christians (see below), Celsus puts pagan arguments in the mouth of his Jew, later redirected against the Christians by Celsus himself. The attacks of Celsus on the Jews are not to be taken at their face value, however; he was forced to make them since the ultimate origins of the Christian religion were in the Law of Moses. Because of this, Celsus heaped contempt on the fables of the Jewish holy writings, the rebellious Jewish spirit (which had been passed on to Christianity), and labelled Moses, as Jesus, a sorcerer. Praising the Jews who conserved their tradition, Celsus said that they were an \u201cindividual nation\u201d (ibid., 5:25), condemning Christianity for being \u201cthe Church assembled from among the nations.\u201d
\nIn the writings of Porphyry, we come across a similar phenomenon. One must not seek ulterior motives in the fact that Porphyry copied, in his De abstinentia, Josephus\u2019s description of the life and manners of the Essenes, since Porphyry was only too glad to find supporting material for his opposition to the sacrifice of animals. But his treatise De philosophia ex oraculis was directed against the Christians, and his praising the Jews and classifying them with the ancient and wise nations was intended to emphasize their difference from the Christians. In his great polemical work, Contra Christianos, Porphyry attacked the Christians for adopting the barbarian doctrines of the Jews, the enemies of mankind, and, in the same breath, he reproved the Christians for deserting the God and the precepts of the Jews. Since this duality of attitude towards the Jews was also found in Celsus and Julian, I can see no reason to suspect Eusebius of taking words out of their context or of distorting them intentionally. This phenomenon requires explanation: I think that it can be explained satisfactorily on the basis of the exceptional status of the Jews in the polemic, that is, in keeping with my hypothesis.
\nThe ambivalent attitude towards the Jews appears even more prominently in the treatise of the last great pagan polemicist\u2014the emperor Julian. It is clear that this was no accident. In order to deal with the innate contradiction, we must have recourse to the assumption that Julian\u2019s words were not intended for the Jews and not meant to disclose his real feelings towards them, but only to amplify with their help the momentum of his attack on the hated and dangerous Christians.
\nThe complaint which sounds queer in the mouth of a pagan\u2014why did the Christians apostasize from Judaism after deserting paganism\u2014reappears in Julian\u2019s pamphlet Contra Galilaeos (43A, and 238A\u2013B). It is followed by a series of comparisons aiming to demonstrate the superiority of pagan opinions and doctrines (Plato, Homer) as regards the deity and its action on the world over the Jewish scriptures. The same technique was applied also to such other questions as culture, wisdom, power and empire.
\nSince Christian theology relies on Jewish writings and traditions concerning most of these subjects, Julian was obliged to undermine this foundation. Julian also praised the Jews for their strict observation of those injunctions of the Law which were rejected by the Christians. In contrast to Porphyry, Julian was delighted to find that the Law of Moses abounds with sacrifices\u2014which the Jews are prevented from offering because of the destruction of the Temple\u2014whereas the Christians oppose sacrifices of any kind whatsoever. Julian\u2019s desire to draw Judaism and paganism together as much as possible so as to whittle away Christianity\u2019s base is conspicuous in his statement that all but two of the Ten Commandments are perfectly acceptable to pagans: \u201cThou shalt not bow down to other gods\u201d and \u201cRemember the Sabbath day.\u201d (152 D.) Julian also attempted to lessen or obviate the gravity of Israelite monotheism by explaining that Moses was speaking of a national god or daemon, under whose protection and rule the Jews live, just as other nations live under the aegis of other gods. The supreme god, on the other hand, is common to all, and Julian accordingly revered the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
\nJulian\u2019s attempt to weave Judaism into the fabric of polytheistic religions and their theology, as well as his decision to clear the Temple of its debris and rebuild it could not have resulted from an honest persuasion that such indeed was Judaism and such indeed its attitude towards the religious world of the pagans. Had Julian wished to lessen the differences\u2014which were not deep-rooted\u2014between Christianity and paganism, he had at his disposal the Christian doctrines of the logos and the trinity, which would have been adapted far more easily to pagan doctrines than the concept of the one, all-creating god of Judaism. But political rather than theological needs dictated the lines of Julian\u2019s polemic, to which theology had to adapt itself, as we shall see in later chapters; this explains his \u201cfondness\u201d for Jewish beliefs and traditions, and his aversion to and vigorous battle against the Christian Church. We must examine the relations between the Jews and Christians from the beginning to the days of Julian, and also scrutinize their reflection in various Christian writings and in Talmudic literature, in order to complete our picture.<\/p>\n
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We learn from the Acts of the Apostles about widespread missionary activity initiated by the Christian Apostles in the period between the death of Jesus and the Jewish revolt of 66\u201370 C.E. The bases of these missionary operations in the Diaspora, and their sources of converts were the Jewish communities and their synagogues. In Eretz Israel too Christian missionaries provoked considerable unrest, and it is understandable therefore that the leading bodies in Jerusalem were unable to sit idly by. Instead, they sought to suppress them as best they could. At the time of the siege of Jerusalem, in the days of the Great Revolt, the Jewish-Christians deserted the City and went to Pella in Trans-Jordan. This was the first obvious sign of separation.
\nAfter the destruction of the Temple, the duty of fighting unorthodox views within Judaism fell upon the Pharisees, under the leadership of the Patriarchate and the Sanhedrin. The Jewish-Christians were strengthened in their belief in Jesus as the messiah when the prophecies ascribed to him about the destruction of the Temple were fulfilled. Since the Jewish-Christians observed Jewish religious injunctions as did all other Jews, and since they mingled with other Jews in the houses of prayer while simultaneously disseminating propaganda for their creed, the Sages felt it essential to counter-attack in two ways. The first of these was the refutation of the belief in Jesus\u2019s divine power and inspiration; they argued that Jesus\u2019s mother had committed adultery and that his father was really a soldier named Pantera. They also raised the argument that Jesus\u2019s power was derived from the art of magic or witchcraft which he learned from the Egyptians during his sojourn in Egypt. Their other technique was the prevention of contact between Jewish-Christians and Jews in order to avoid the former\u2019s dangerous influence. That there must have been a specific interdiction of dealings with Christians may be deduced from Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, version B, chap. 3: \u201cAnother explanation: \u2018Remove thy way etc\u2019 (Proverbs, 5:8). R. Yehoshua ben Kor\u1e25a says: this is no other than the manner of minuth (heresy). You tell a man not to approach the minim (heretics) and not to hearken to their words so that he will not fall into their ways. He replies to them: though I approach them, I will not listen to their words and will not fall into their ways. They say unto him: though you are sure, yet you should not go; for this reason, it is said \u2018Remove thy way far from her\u2019, and (Proverbs, 7:26) \u2018For she hath cast down many dead\u2019.\u201d The existence of such a warning is confirmed by Justin Martyr, the younger Christian contemporary of R. Yehoshua ben Kor\u1e25a. In his Dialogus, Justin makes the Jew Trypho say: \u201cO man, it would have been good for us to pay heed to our teachers [i.e. the Sages], who ruled that we should not associate with any of you, and that we might not take part in these discussions with you.\u201d An example of the risk involved in such communications is furnished by the fate of another contemporary: \u201c\u1e24anina, nephew of R. Yehoshua, went to Kfar Na\u1e25um and the minim did something to him and mounted him on a donkey to ride on the Sabbath. His uncle Yehoshua went to him and put ointment on him and he was cured. He said to him: since the donkey of that wicked man cleaved unto you [that is, took hold of you], you cannot stay in the land of Israel. He departed from there and went to Babylonia, and died there peacefuly\u201d (Kohelet Rabba, 1:24). An extremely important measure introduced to sever the Jewish-Christians from the Jewish communities was the institution at Yavneh (Jamnia) of the bircat haminim, \u201cthe curse of the heretics,\u201d in the order of prayer.
\nThe cumulative effect of these steps was, most probably, the building of a barrier between the Jews and the Christians. From this point forward, the \u201cEbionite\u201d sects constituted a perennial problem to the Christian-\u201cpagan\u201d Church. A further separation resulted from dispensations granted by the Apostles to pagans who wished to join the Christian Church, allowing them considerable freedom from the yoke of the Halacha (the Oral Law). The pagan element in the Church became ever more powerful as a result, naturally endeavouring to differentiate between its views and those of Judaism. The Jewish-Christians were persecuted by the Jews for the last time when the former refused to participate in the Bar-Cochba revolt. After those events, Christianity turned to its distinct path within the Empire. Its development was accompanied by conflict with the Roman government, and by persecutions on a larger scale from time to time. This process was no longer of interest to the Sages and the Jews in the Diaspora, since they had nothing to fear from it. The more privileged condition of the Jews under pagan rule, in comparison to that of the Christians, was replaced by an inferior and degrading status, while the endeavour of the Church Fathers to establish the validity of Christian theology by decrees and ordinances of the secular arm contributed to the deepening of the separation of the two groups. From the point of view of the Jewish leadership of that time there was a positive element in this anti-Jewish legislation.
\nAs noted above, no special inclination or effort can be discerned on the part of Judaism to absorb new ethnic elements through large-scale proselytism in the two hundred years between the Bar-Cochba revolt and the establishment of the rule of Constantine. Christian literature seems to contradict this statement, but this contradiction is only an apparent one. In my opinion, the Adversus Iudaeos treatises and the Acta martyrum do not reflect an actual Christian-Jewish polemic. If indeed they did, my hypothesis about the \u201cneutral\u201d position of the Jews would be invalid. I believe one may speak only of a Christian-Jewish dispute and of no more. I indicated above (pp. 44\u201348) the support for this position in the works of Harnack, Hulen, Williams, Blumenkranz and Parkes; here I propose to analyse the Acta martyrum, the Adversus Iudaeos treatises, and Christian polemical writings against the pagans in order to see in what way their attitude towards Jews and Judaism contributes to the clarification of our problem and its solution.<\/p>\n
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The stories in the so-called Acta martyrum Christianorum are not objective accounts, but seek rather to glorify the courage of the martyrs and to serve as propaganda materials to strengthen the hearts of the Christians, who might one day have to face such trials. We are entitled in this case to ascribe great importance to the silence of the sources: it is of crucial importance that in the Acta, from the second century C.E. onwards, there is not even one explicit charge that the Jews collaborated with the Roman authorities in the betrayal or capture of the martyrs. The comparison of the martyrdom of Polycarp (of the middle of the second century C.E.) and that of Pionius (of the middle of the third) is also instructive. Both martyrdoms occurred in Smyrna. In the first case, the Jews are described as active participants in the collection of wood for the burning of Polycarp, and they also guard his body and prevent the Christians from taking it for burial. The Jews\u2019 enthusiasm is not weaker, and is perhaps even stronger, than that of the pagans. In the second case, the Jews are reported to have crowded into the market-place only because they were free from work (it being the \u201cgreat Sabbath\u201d). They went therefore to watch the peculiar event of the martyrs\u2019 trial, and to laugh unsympathetically at the Christians\u2019 misfortunes. It may seem unlikely, but the attitude of the Jews at the time of Polycarp\u2019s execution is perfectly understandable in the light of the rather friendly tone of Justin\u2019s missionary approach to Trypho and to the Jews in general. For this reason, I classify Justin\u2019s Dialogus as the last Christian treatise which, like the Synoptic Gospels, attempted to persuade the Jews to put an end to their stubbornness and to admit the divinity of Jesus. To put it in a nutshell: it was in the middle of the second century C.E. that the last missionary activities among the Jews were carried out; Polycarp was, very probably, one of the architects of this Christian policy of conversion, which might explain the strong animosity shown by the Jews towards him. Once the Christians had despaired of converting the Jews and were content to leave them alone, the Jews treated the Christians with equanimity, as is shown by the Acta of Pionius.
\nJustin\u2019s Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo can, in fact, be regarded as the precursor of the Adversus Iudaeos treatises. Such works as the Dialogus, the Adversus Iudaeos treatises of Tertullian and Augustine, and the various Altercationes of the second to fourth centuries C.E. had a basically simple formula: Jesus and the Torah precepts. That is why the identical verses which, according to the Christians, refer to Jesus, the time of his appearance, his divine origin, the attitude of the Jews towards him and so on, appear repeatedly in them. The Christians were also compelled to explain why they rejected the precepts concerning circumcision, the Sabbath, permitted and forbidden foods, and the laws of purity and those of impurity, among others.
\nThe personality of Jesus, as was to be expected, served as a target for the attacks of the pagan polemicists since he was, to use Celsus\u2019s words (Contra Celsum, 8:14) the \u201cfounder of the faction\u201d (stasis). Porphyry and Julian made frequent use of Biblical exposition in order to refute the Christian interpretation. As we have seen, the Christian annulment of the Torah injunctions too, while relying on a radical, allegorical interpretation abounding with contradictions, appeared again and again as a pagan polemical motif. It was therefore a matter of convenience and, perhaps, also of necessity for the Christians to direct their defensive missiles against the Jews, whose very existence and unshakable opposition to the Christians\u2019 system and claims so enhanced the \u201cJewish arguments\u201d presented by the pagans. The Jews also constituted a serious obstacle to the Christians, who had hoped to convince the pagans to join the Church. Since the Christians used, in their polemic against heretics and schismatics, the same arguments found in the Adversus Iudaeos treatises (see above pp. 44\u201348), and since we are aware of their catechetic role and of their value in the struggle against the \u201cJudaizers\u201d, their anti-Jewish weight is diminished ipso facto and their title must not mislead us. One may say then, that all these Adversus Iudaeos treatises were directed against the Jews too. On the other hand, the picture of Judaism that emerged from Christian polemical writings against the pagans was quite clear.
\nTatian was famous for his candid, sharp, and audacious utterances. Like Justin, he sought to create the impression that he was familiar with all aspects of Greek culture: philosophy, poetry, history, and so forth, and that his preference for the Law of Moses followed upon his having pondered and compared the value and truth of all of these. Apart from the last chapters (36 ff.), in which Tatian attempted to prove the antiquity of Moses and of his Law as against that of Homer and of his precursors, such as Orpheus and Musaeus, his words make evident the vast importance attached to the Biblical narrative by people of limited education, who were offended by mythological tales. The simplicity and authority with which the Torah disposed of the most complicated of problems were grasped readily by pagans of this intellectual type and convinced them of its validity.
\nTertullian\u2019s stinging invective on the subject of the pagans and heretics is notorious, but his attitude towards the Jews as exemplified in the Apologeticum was completely different. He refuted Tacitus\u2019s words about their worship of the head of an ass, and branded him \u201cthe most loquacious among the liars.\u201d It is not difficult to guess why Tertullian came forward to the defence of the Jews, for he stated openly: \u201cAnd so, I think, it was assumed that we too [that is, the Christians], being close to the Jewish religion, are introduced to the worship of the same effigy\u201d [of an ass] (ibid., 16:3). Tertullian did not, indeed, deny that there were points of disagreement and even outright contradiction between Jews and Christians. He noted that the Christians do not abstain from forbidden foods, celebrate the Jewish festivals, or practice circumcision (ibid., 21:2), and indicated the most serious controversy, that concerning the coming of the Messiah, whom the Jews still await, whereas the Christians claim that he has already come (ibid., 21:15). But, he said, Jewish Law is true and divine, and Jewish prophets are true ones, and it was under the aegis of the Jewish faith, a very prominent religion, that Christianity grew and flourished. Tertullian reiterates the story of the Septuagint translation (18:5), and expatiates on the antiquity and trustworthiness of the Law of Moses, stressing that it is worthy of credibility because of the fulfillment of its prophecies.
\nOrigen\u2019s lengthy treatise Contra Celsum was designed to dispel the influence of Celsus\u2019s arguments on pagans inclined to Christianity, as well as to provide Christians with replies to the criticism and invective supplied by Celsus to anti-Christian pagans. Apart from his making the usual use of Philo and Josephus, Origen spared no effort to defend Judaism and glorify it. He made it clear that Christians and Jews share the belief that the Bible was written by a divine spirit, in spite of the fact that the Christians do not observe the injunctions of the Law and are divided concerning its interpretation (ibid., 5:60). This fact does not prevent Origen from praising the Jewish constitution (politeia) which, he said, is based in general on useful precepts such as that prohibiting prostitution or those concerning Jewish slaves; in the socioethical sphere, in contrast to the ritual, the Christians continued to view the precepts of the Law as being a regulative and obligatory code for themselves. Origen then remarked that the wisdom of the Jews surpasses not only that of the pagan multitudes but also that of the philosophers (ibid., 5:42). The latter, despite all their wisdom, fell into the trap of idol and daemon worship, whereas even the least of the Jews worships only the god of the universe. In reply to Celsus\u2019s argument that it is unreasonable to say that the Jews should be especially beloved of the god, and that only to the Jews does the god send messengers, since their condition and the quality of their land testified to the contrary, Origen said that the Jews had always retained God\u2019s favour, and that, though few in number, still they were guarded by the power of God (ibid., 5:50). It is possible to present additional examples and also to show that Origen attacked the Jews, in this treatise, only when he was forced to do so. But it will suffice perhaps to discuss one specific paragraph in order to present his mood properly. In the beginning of his treatise, Celsus presented a Jew fiercely disputing with Jesus and the Christians. One might have expected that this would provoke Origen, and lead him to indulge in a detailed and acrimonious debate with Judaism; to our surprise, Origen exibited great restraint and curtailed his exchange of words with the Jew by saying: \u201cIt is not now on the agenda to explain the rationale of circumcision, which was begun by Abraham and forbidden by Jesus, who did not wish that his disciples should practice the same. For the present time is not fit to discuss his teaching; rather, there is a struggle to squash the accusations levelled by Celsus against the doctrine [=logos] of the Jews, thinking that he would be able easily to present Christianity as being fraudulent \u2026 if he were to expose its source which lies in the writings of the Jews.\u201d
\nWe shall now turn to Eusebius, who passed in his lifetime from a pagan to a Christian regimen. Eusebius wrote against Porphyry in particular and, for this task, read widely in philosophical, historical and literary pagan writings. In his Praeparatio Evangelica, Eusebius widened immensely the range of the polemic, as Augustine was to do in the sphere of Latin culture with his De civitate dei. When he wrote the Historia Ecclesiastica, Eusebius had to consult all the early Christian material. His work was compiled for Christians, but was also intended to present the pagans with a picture of the Church, its development, and its relations with the communities in whose midst it grew. One paragraph in the Historia Ecclesiastica (2,18:1) may be called \u201cPhilo\u2019s encomium\u201d. The reason is obvious\u2014Christian allegorical interpretation is based on the work of Philo. Eusebius stated that Clement of Alexandria used, in preparing his Stromateis, the Sapientia Solomonis, Siracides, Philo, Aristobulus, Josephus, Demetrius and Eupolemus among others (op. cit., 6,13:6\u20137). Eusebius did the same for his Praeparatio Evangelica.
\nReading the Historia Ecclesiastica reveals that the central conflict and polemic between Jews and Christians were those of the period that preceded the revolt of 66\u201370 C.E. Afterwards, the Historia Ecclesiastica included almost no comments on the Jews, whereas citations from the addresses of Christian apologists to the Roman emperors and also quotations taken from the Acta of the martyrs abounded. Even a superficial glance at the contents of the work shows that the Church was troubled from its beginnings by an unceasing polemic with the various heretic and Gnostic sects that emerged and spread within it; the silence about the Jews is very significant. The fact that not even one Jewish anti-Christian polemical treatise has been preserved (in contrast to the anti-Jewish pamphlets), and that the existence of such a work was not even mentioned in contemporary Christian literature, is very telling. For
\nit is difficult to imagine, had there indeed existed a work similar to the arguments of the Jew presented by Celsus, that Origen, Eusebius or someone else would not have mentioned it when discussing the attacks of the Jews on Christianity. The argument from silence in this case, which conforms to the conclusion derived from the Historia Ecclesiastica, may be seen as clear-cut evidence of the character of the Jewish-Christian dispute. From the Jews\u2019 point of view, the limits of a debate were not exceeded, and the Jews therefore saw no need to compile polemical treatises against the Christians.
\nImmediately after his short preface to the Praeparatio Evangelica, Eusebius noted Porphyry\u2019s accusations against the Christians (1,2:1\u20134). Further on, he presented some arguments which were, possibly, of Jewish provenance (1,2:5\u20138), and went on to explain (1,3:12\u201313) that he had plenty of evidence from the writings of the Hebrews concerning these matters, but preferred to defer their treatment to a special treatise, the future Demonstratio Evangelica. After this comment, Eusebius gave the reasons for the Christians\u2019 apostasy from the god of their fathers, widening the field of discussion to include all varieties of pagan theology in the East and in the West. Eusebius used a method favourable to Christians: he quoted from pre-Christian writers; from those post-Christian writers-compilers who were far removed from the pagan-Christian polemic (such as Plutarch) and because of this were not on their guard; and also from pagans who fought the accepted pagan concepts (such as the Cynics). Useful citations from an opponent\u2019s writings (such as those of Porphyry) were, of course, never missing, while contradicting paragraphs from one writer\u2019s work were presented in order to lessen the authority of their author, as, for example, that of Plato. Alongside writings of this sort, considerable use was made by Eusebius of Jewish Hellenistic works such as those of Philo, Josephus, and other writers, fragments of whose work have been preserved only due to their having been quoted by Eusebius. Again and again (see, e.g., 4,21:3), there was emphasis placed on the idea that, in contrast to all the nations who had been led astray and had become enslaved to corrupt and corrupting daemons, only the Jews had succeeded in receiving the true words of God, whereas Moses and the other prophets of Israel were presented as men who were taken into the confidence of God. They were almost habitually called theologians and philosophers by Eusebius.
\nHe quoted the praises bestowed by Apollo (according to Porphyry) on the wisdom of the Hebrew nation, which he included among the wise nations of the East (Praep. Evang., 9,10:1\u20133). Eusebius, who needed suport for his rejection of ancestral customs and of polytheistic views as well as for his adoption of Jewish theology, presented all possible materials from various writers dealing with Moses, the Jews, and the inferiority of the Greeks to \u201cthe barbarians\u201d of the East. In the eleventh book of his Praeparatio Evangelica, Eusebius turned to a thorough analysis of Plato\u2019s teachings. Comparing the theological views of Plato and Moses was very popular among the Christians, and even pagan polemicists did not refrain from doing so, although, as was to be expected, they drew rather different conclusions with regard to which of the two was to be regarded as the plagiarist, and whose work was preferable. It is possible to cite many more examples of the dependence of Eusebius on the Jews and their holy scriptures, as well as on Hellenistic-Jewish literature, since the value and usefulness of the New Testament in itself was minimal as a counterweight to pagan philosophy. There is, however, no need to elaborate this; the picture is quite clear. Near the end of the treatise (Praep. Evang., 15, 1:8) Eusebius promised that he would connect his next treatise, the Demonstratio Evangelica, to the Praeparatio Evangelica by dealing in it with what was left of the accusations against the Christians. As he puts it, \u201cfor this we were blamed: that, though we preferred the oracles of the Hebrews to those of our forefathers, we did not choose to emulate a way of life similar to that of the Jews; this challenge I shall try to meet, with God\u2019s help, after completing the present treatise\u201d (15,1:9). Let us, then, pay some attention now to the promised treatise, and see what it can contribute to our discussion.
\nEusebius\u2019s Demonstratio Evangelica is, structurally, a sort of expanded edition of the treatises Adversus Iudaeos, just as the Praeparatio Evangelica may be viewed as an enlarged edition of the various short Apologiae. Whereas in the Praeparatio Evangelica Eusebius frequently cited pagan historians, writers, poets, and philosophers in order to belittle the value and truthfulness of pagan theology\u2014and thereby free the Christians of the charge of apostasy\u2014verses from the Bible have the upper hand in the Demonstratio Evangelica. However, these were valid concerning the Jews and the pagans alike, as the concentration of Porphyry and, to a certain degree, of Julian on criticizing the Christians\u2019 Biblical interpretations shows. In other words, the fact that the pagans did not reject a priori arguments based on Biblical verses but attempted to refute them by means of Biblical criticism proves that such citations were seen by the pagans as having validity. Apart from this, even if the Christians had so desired, they were unable to find positive sources of evidence other than the Bible, on which their Testament relied. We can understand Eusebius, therefore, when he said that the content \u201cmight fit the children of the Greeks too, if they would show good will.\u201d Further on, Eusebius indicated that his treatise was also directed against those who vilified Christianity by arguing that it was only a belief (pistis) and lacked proof. This argument of illogical credulity (alogos pistis) probably originated in pagan circles. When Celsus made this accusation, it still had some justification, because the social classes from which Christianity drew its adherents were the lowest ones. This intellectual-aristocratic attitude of Celsus was most offensive to Origen, and called forth sharp retorts, especially since, in the seventy years that elapsed between the publication of Celsus\u2019s views and that of Origen\u2019s reply, the situation in the Church had changed. Origen himself had contributed to this alteration in no small measure. Porphyry and Julian continued to repeat this charge, but it was without foundation, for Christians and pagans alike were now possessed of a general education and a certain status. This is shown by the great outcry raised by the Christians when the Emperor Julian ordered their teachers of rhetoric to desist from teaching Greek literature in the schools. Eusebius noted that his treatise might be useful not only against the above-mentioned libel, but also in order to refute the false and blasphemous words of the atheistic sects against the divine prophets. This was to be achieved by presenting the harmony (=symphonia) between ancient and new things (1,1:13).
\nFinally Eusebius explained that he dealt separately with various charges against Christianity: the Praeparatio Evangelica was written in response to the pagans\u2019 asking why the Christians had forsaken the Greek ancestral tradition and substituted the barbarian Hebrew doctrines for it. The Jews, on the other hand, reproached the Christians who, having assimilated the Jewish sacred writings, nonetheless led a dissimilar life (Dem. Evang., 1, 1:15\u201316). At first sight, this seems to be an example of a typically Jewish complaint, such as had been presented emphatically by Trypho in Justin\u2019s Dialogus; Justin had already devoted considerable effort to answering it. But, as a matter of fact, this complaint was no less a pagan one, repeated by Celsus, Porphyry and Julian. The aim of the pagans was to show that the Christians were men of apostasy and sedition by nature, just as their spiritual fathers had been. Given this aim, the Demonstratio Evangelica was, at the least, a defensive tract to counter pagan charges, such as those of Eusebius\u2019s adversary Porphyry (it should be remembered that Eusebius did not name any Jewish polemicist), rather than a polemic against Jewish accusations. Thus, we see that what emerges from the writings of Eusebius is not different essentially from the approach of his predecessors. In order to complete our survey, we have to examine the Jewish sources dealing with this subject.
\nThe Talmudic sources which speak explicitly of debates with the minim confirm the impression drawn from our survey of Christian sources. It is difficult indeed in many cases to establish the identity of the min involved, to reveal whether he was a Jewish-Christian, a Christian of pagan origin, a Gnostic, or a pagan. But even if most of these minim were Christians, that would not undermine my hypothesis concerning the character of the relations between the two groups in the post-Bar-Cochba period. In the pre-Bar-Cochba period, there were sharp statements testifying to the intense quality of the polemic, such as that of Rabbi Tarphon: \u201c\u2026 if a man pursue a man in order to kill him and a snake chase him in order to bite him, he should enter a house of idolatry and not enter the houses of these people, because the latter know and deny [God] and the former do not know and deny [Him], and of them Scripture says: \u2018And behind the doors and the posts thou hast set up thy symbol\u2019 \u201d (Isaiah, 57:8). In the later period, the purely disputative character of the exchanges was prominent. This may be shown from a few examples. In Kohelet Rabba, 1:25, we read about Rabbi Yehuda ben Nakossa (flourished in the beginning of the third century C.E.): \u201c\u2026 the minim had been dealing with him: they were asking him questions and he answered them, asking him and he answered. He said to them: your retorts are useless; come, let us agree among us that each man who will achieve victory over his competitor will strike his competitor on the head with a mallet. And he defeated them and wounded their heads till they were full of wounds. When he returned, his disciples said to him: Rabbi, you were helped by heaven and you were victorious. He said to them: and was it for nothing? Go and pray for that man and for that bag which was full of precious stones and pearls, but now is full of coals.\u201d From the story of Rabbi Yehuda ben Nakossa, one realizes that he was thoroughly tired of the unproductive character of the dispute with the minim and, in order to bring about its intensification, he made his drastic suggestion. However, when it was over, he was very upset by the result. It might be argued that this tradition should not be accepted as something that really happened, but rather that it was invented to prove that the Jewish Sages had the upper hand in their debate with the minim. Such a conclusion would not endanger my deductions, since I am interested in the atmosphere of general indifference, before its artificial intensification by Rabbi Yehuda, which is revealed in this story.
\nThe Church Fathers were accustomed to turn to Jewish Sages with questions of Biblical interpretation. In many cases, these were embarrassing questions whose aim was not solely information but which were designed to establish the Christian interpretation. The story of Rabbi Abbahu (flourished late third\u2014early fourth century C.E.) and the minim may serve as an illustration: \u201cRabbi Abbahu praised Rav Safra before the minim, saying that he was a great man; they absolved him of thirteen years\u2019 tax. One day they met him. They said to him: it is written \u2018You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will visit all your iniquities upon you\u2019 (Amos, 3:2)\u2014if one is in a bad humour, will he vent it upon his friend? He was silent and said nothing to them. They threw a scarf around his [Rav Safra\u2019s] neck and started to afflict him. Rabbi Abbahu appeared and found them. He said to them: why do you trouble him? They said to him: did you not tell us that he is a great man? He said to them: what I told you was with reference to Tannaitic studies; did I tell you about Bible studies? They said to him: What difference does it make to you that you do know [scriptural matters]? He said to them: we, since we frequently meet you, [=minim], must take it upon ourselves to study [=the Bible]; they [=the Babylonians] do not study \u2026\u201d (BT Avodah Zarah, 4a). This tradition also shows that the disputes between the minim and the Jews (and it is worth noting that the initiative is always reported as coming from the side of the minim; see BT Avodah Zarah, 16b\u201317a) were characteristically both childish and barren.
\nI have tried to show that, following the middle of the second century C.E., there was a radical change in the relations among Jews, pagans, and Christians. The polemic which had dealt with problems of existence and conflict was now replaced by a barren, colourless dispute. The main argument of the scholars who insist on the continuance of the polemic during the two hundred years after the Bar-Cochba revolt is based on the existence of Jewish religious propaganda directed towards pagans and Christians as potential converts to Judaism. This assumption must be rejected because of the lack of sufficient and decisive proof; with this assumption there also falls the designation of the Jews as an autonomous party to the polemic. The Adversus Iudaeos literature too can be interpreted plausibly as not contradicting the hypothesis that the Jews were a sort of \u201cmiddlemen\u201d in the polemic between the pagans and the Christians. Other sources\u2014pagan and Christian alike\u2014confirm this hypothesis.
\nIf this view be accepted, another question will confront us: what is the meaning of the midrashim (homilies) which contain reactions to arguments or attacks coming from \u201cthe nations of the world\u201d? Are we entitled to say that the Sages meant the Christian church whose members were drawn from among the nations? And if they did refer to the Christians in this way, why was this title bestowed on the Christians rather than the usual expression minim which includes, most probably, Christians of pagan origin as well. There is no reasonable ground for the substitution of an expression favourable to the Christians for the term minim. I think that we must assume that the expression \u201cthe nations of the world\u201d refers to the pagan kingdoms, unless the texts themselves make it clear that this is not the case. When we meet a similar charge against the Jews, made by both pagans and Christians, I think that the Talmudic sources were answering the pagans. It is clear that pagan invective was not directed against the Jews but rather sought to use the Jews to increase the force of the blows it bestowed upon the Christians. The Christians sensed this, and defended themselves by both supporting the Jews and disavowing them. However, the Jews were unable to disregard these polemics intended for the Christians, and had to answer them from the Jewish point of view, especially since there were among the polemical motifs such as constituted a pithy, internal theological problem for the Jews.
\nFor the time being I will content myself with only two concrete examples, in order to clarify my words. The Contra Galilaeos included a dispute between Julian and Paul. Julian argued that the Jews are the elected people, the \u201cportion\u201d of the god of Israel, to whom alone all his devotion is given (ibid., 106A\u2013B). He, therefore, repudiated the Pauline attempt to seduce the pagans, by saying that he is the god not only of the Jews but of the Gentiles as well (Romans, 3:29; Galatians, 3:28). Julian said that if this be so, \u201cit is justified to ask Paul \u2026 why was it to the Jews that he sent the grace of prophecy in abundance, and Moses, and the anointing, and the prophets, and the Law?\u2026 Finally, he sent unto them Jesus too, while unto us (he sent) no prophet, no anointing, no teacher, no messenger to tell of the future love [=philantr\u00f4pia] which should, one day, albeit delayed, emanate from him and reach us too. Furthermore he even disregarded for myriads or, if you wish, thousands of years, people, from where the sun rises to where it sets and from North to South (all) worshipping idols, as you call them, in utter ignorance, except one tiny tribe which not even two thousand years before had settled in one part of Palestine. If indeed he be the god of all of us and the creator of all alike, why did he disregard us?\u201d Further on (176A\u2013B), Julian made it clear that, in his opinion, it was really the other way round: that god\u2019s care and providence were granted to all the other nations no less and even more than to the Jews. In the light of these words his earlier question seems to be rhetorical, even ironical (compare 138C\u2013D). But the question itself, apart from its context, was a serious one and required an answer. The Christians offered various answers: that human beings (with the exception of the Jews) were incapable at the beginning of accepting God and His Law; or that the divine logos, which was revealed to the ancestors of the Hebrew nation as well as to Moses and the prophets, conferred its inspiration also upon such great men among the Gentiles as Socrates and Plato. The Jews too were forced to explain the curious fact that all God\u2019s attention and benefactions had been concentrated on them, although the Church was the true target of the pagans\u2019 barbs. This background sheds new light on some Talmudic sources. The sons of the nations of the world said to God: \u201c \u2018Master of the world, did you give (it to) us [=the Law] and did we not accept it?\u2026\u2019 Rabbi Yo\u1e25anan [mid-third century C.E.] said: it proves that the Holy One Blessed be He went with it [=the Torah] to every nation and language group and they did not accept it, until he came to Israel and they accepted it.\u201d
\nThere is an interesting parallel between Julian\u2019s complaint and the statement of Rabbi Abbahu. \u201cRabbi Abbahu said: it was revealed and known to Him who said \u2018and (let) the world come into being\u2019 that the nations of the world would not accept the Torah. Why, then, did He do them justice? Because such are the ways of the Holy One Blessed be He: He does not punish until He has done justice to his creatures; only afterwards does He drive them from the world; for the Holy One Blessed be He does not behave tyrannically [=trunia=tyrannia] with his creatures.\u2026\u201d (Pesikta de Rav Kahana, ed. Buber, p. 220a).
\nThe second example deals with an expression of reproach. In Shemot Rabba, 42:9, we read: \u201cRabbi Avin [of the fourth century C.E.] said until now Israel has been called abroad the nation of the stiff-necked.\u201d Such adjectives as stiff-necked (=skl\u00earotrach\u00ealos) and hard-hearted (=skl\u00earokardios) were applied to Jews and Judaism by Christian literature from its early days onwards, and served various purposes. These adjectives stressed the stubbornness of the Jews in repudiating Jesus, and their perseverance in sin, as well as their ancient character, because of which God was forced to put a yoke on their necks in the form of injunctions which were now obsolete. Of course, these phrases were instrumental in the creation of the current theological image of the Jews, an expression of ecclesiastical anti-Semitism. Pagan polemicists also made use of this vocabularly while arguing against the Christians. In Julian\u2019s pamphlet we read: \u201cBut when he became man [=Jesus-the logos] what good did he cause his own kinfolk? But they refused to obey Jesus, they [=the Christians] reply. What of it? How was it then that this hard-hearted and stone-necked people obeyed Moses, whereas Jesus, who commanded the spirits, walked on the waters, and cast out the daemons, and\u2014as you yourselves assert\u2014created the heavens and the earth \u2026 was unable to change the attitude of his own friends and kin in order to bring about their salvation?!\u201d
\nWe see then that the description of the Jews here must not be interpreted as a reproach to them (although that is the simple meaning of the Biblical text) but that it was instead a praising of the Jews who accepted the Law of Moses and its injunctions despite their difficult nature. By this, Julian wished to deprive the Christians of the ability to assert that the rejection of Jesus by the Jews was a result of their innate character and that therefore one must not be surprised by the Jews\u2019 action or doubt Jesus\u2019s divinity for this reason. Rabbi Avin\u2019s saying is not absolutely clear; we do not know why it was only \u201cabroad\u201d that the Jews were called stiff-necked. But I think that we must conclude that it was the pagans who named them in this manner, in the course of their polemic with the Christians.
\nIn the following chapters, we shall come across more Talmudic sources of this kind, in which it is not always clear to whom they refer. It seems to me that they will be most readily understood against the backdrop of the pagan-Christian polemic and the place of the Jews in it on the one hand, and the inner problems and agitation of the Jews themselves on the other. This method of interpretation will reveal what measure of importance and actual significance these motifs carried for the Jews who, one might say, were almost \u201cneutral\u201d in the pagan-Christian conflict which they witnessed for about two hundred years in the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n
Chapter Two<\/p>\n
RECOGNITION OF GOD, REVELATION, AND RELIGIOUS MYTH<\/p>\n
In his book, The Ways of the Agada, Isaac Heinemann says: \u201cThe question commonly posed by the Greeks, how did man arrive at the idea of a godhead, was of no interest to the Sages: did not God Himself speak with Adam?! But they did ask how people came to recognize the error of idolatry, and answered with the famous tale referring to Abraham: he realized that the earth is not a goddess because it needs rain; the sun is not a god, since it retreats before the moon and the stars, and they (in their turn) retreat before the sun. From this, he concluded that all of these have no independence but are dependent on an invisible leader.\u201d Heinemann\u2019s interpretation does not reflect all that the Midrash was intended to say. For we read therein: \u201c\u2026 When he [=Abraham] was three years old and went out of the cave, he thought in his heart: who created heaven and earth and me?\u201d The problem, then, which occupied Abraham was the problem of the recognition of God; this recognition he achieved through contemplating the motion of the heavenly bodies, and concluding that they are not gods.
\nThis double recognition or conclusion is also to be found in Philo\u2019s work. I shall illustrate it by a paragraph from his treatise De specialibus legibus (1:13\u201315):<\/p>\n
Some have supposed that the sun and the moon and other stars were gods possessing absolute powers and attributed to them the causes of all that comes into being. But Moses thought that the cosmos was both created and, like an enormous polis, encompassing rulers and subjects: the rulers were all the stars in heaven, whether wandering [=planets] or fixed, while the subjects were the creatures in space, around the earth, and beneath the moon. The said rulers had no independent authority, but were subordinates of the one Father of All; and it was by imitating His government that they realized, in keeping with law and justice, their control over each of the created beings. But those who do not perceive the Charioteer mounted above attach to the harnessed the causes of what takes place in the universe, as though they were independent agents. Our most holy lawgiver changes their ignorance into knowledge by saying: \u201cWhen thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars and all the order of the universe, do not be drawn astray and worship them.\u201d (Deut. 4:19.)<\/p>\n
Philo assumes the same basic attitude towards the heavenly luminaries as the Sages, but his terminology sometimes approaches that of the pagans. The pagans sought to derive from the order of the universe both the recognition of the existence of a supreme god, and the divinity of the heavenly bodies. So, for example, argued Julian in his Contra Galilaeos:<\/p>\n
It is worthwhile to recall briefly when and how a conception of God first came to us; \u2026 Now let the common yearning of all men, whether private or public, individual or ethnic, first of all serve us as evidence that the knowledge of God by men comes not through teaching but by nature. For all of us, without being taught, believe in some sort of divinity about whom it is not easy for all to recognize the exact truth, nor is it possible for those who recognize it to divulge it to all \u2026 To this common conception of all men, another one is to be added. For indeed we all are so attached naturally to heaven and the visible gods therein, that even if someone conceives of another god besides these, he nonetheless allots him the heavens as his abode; he does not thereby cut him off the earth, but seats the King of All as though in this most honourable place, being of the opinion that, from there, he watches affairs here. What need have I to call Hellenes and Hebrews as witnesses of this? There is no one who does not lift up his hands to heaven in prayer and, when he swears by a god or gods, if he possesses any concept at all of the divine, he turns in that direction. And it is not unreasonable that people should feel this way. For, seeing that none of the bodies around heaven increases nor decreases or changes or suffers something irregular, but that its motion is harmonious and its arrangement orderly, that the illuminations of the moon are fixed and that the risings and settings of the sun are fixed in ever-defined cycles\u2014they reasonably drew the conclusion that it is a god and the throne of a god.\u2026<\/p>\n
The title \u201cworshippers of stars and constellations,\u201d which the Sages attached to the pagans, disproportionally emphasized one trend of polytheism. In the eyes of a pagan like Celsus, the Jews appeared to be \u201cheaven-worshippers,\u201d and he charged them with inconsistency in not worshipping the sun, the moon and the stars as well. Origen denied the validity of these assertions for the Jews as well as for the Christians. The Christians were prepared to praise the sun as a creation of God, but not as a godhead in and of itself. But he utterly rejects all reverence towards Athena, who is a mythological concoction contradicting truth.
\nThe view that recognition of god is innate in man (as Julian suggested), that man is endowed with instinctive religious inclinations, was put forward by Iamblichus in a formulation even more acute than that of Julian. According to Iamblichus, recognition of the existence of the gods is implanted in us as part of our very existence, it is more powerful than any judgement or decision might be and it is prior to any logic or proof; in fact, it is because of this recognition that we are what we are.
\nSince the Christians were believers, their feelings concerning this matter were, naturally, close to those of the pagans. Arnobius, so different in temperament from Julian and Iamblichus, wished to appear as a rationalist even in his religious thinking, but nonetheless expressed himself in language that echoed that of Julian and Iamblichus\u2014whose thought and language were imbued with religious mysticism. Here are his words: \u201cWhat person is there \u2026 in whom it has not been implanted by nature, nor impressed, nor stamped almost in his mother\u2019s womb, in whom it is not an innate instinct, that He is the King and master, the controller of all that exists?\u201d And, elsewhere: \u201cPerhaps you doubt whether he is that ruler of whom we speak, and believe, rather, that he be Apollo, Diana, Mercury, or Mars. Give a true judgment; surveying all these visible things, one will rather doubt whether the others are gods than hesitate with regard to God, whose existence we all know naturally, whether when we cry out, O God, \u2026 and raise our face to heaven as though he saw us.\u201d
\nWe have seen that there was a partial consensus at least among Jews, pagans and Christians, with regard to the recognition of god. Whether this recognition is innate in man and it influences him unconsciously or whether he arrives at it as a result of contemplating the working of the cosmos, this recognition informs the feelings and determines the religious behaviour of the individual. Individual religion as such does not require any kind of revelation which presupposes the imposition of ritual laws and obligatory norms. The situation is different when organized religion is concerned, such as Judaism, Christianity or paganism. Each of these claims the crown of truth, exclusively, for itself and its adherents only. But all admit that revelation is the channel by which the thoughts of the divinity reach human beings. So, for example, says Julian in a passage dealing with prophecy: \u201c\u2026 For the spirit that comes from the gods to men is rare and found in few; it is not easy for every man to share in it nor at all times. In this way the prophetic spirit among the Hebrews failed, and even the Egyptians failed to preserve it down to the present. It is obvious that the native oracles [of Greece] too have become silent, succumbing to the cycles of time \u2026\u201d
\nThe Bible, according to the Jews, incorporates in each of its letters and signs the religious revelation of the God of Israel. This revelation includes an \u201cinformative\u201d aspect, such as the story of the creation of the world and of man, or the recounting of all the deeds and words from which we can learn about the character and ways of God; it also has a \u201cnormative\u201d aspect, of ritual and secular laws in which God \u201chath told thee, O man, what is good and what the Lord doth require of thee.\u201d For Christianity all of these are valid, other than the ritual injunctions; however, to these scriptures, the Christians added the \u201cNew Testament\u201d as part and parcel of the general revelation. By comparison with the concentrated nature of the Jewish-Christian writings, what might be called the pagan revelation was composed of traditions scattered and diversified both topically and chronologically. Homer, Hesiod and later poets and philosophers presented mainly the \u201cinformative\u201d aspect as we defined it above, while the \u201cnormative\u201d aspect, rituals and regulations, was generally the offspring of tradition and custom. Pagan state-constitutions were drawn up by various lawgivers, such as Solon and Lycurgus, who were guided and assisted by the advice of the oracles and of their priests. This last facet of pagan revelation will be considered below as part of the cultural motif of the polemic. Here, we will examine the other features of revelation which occupy a central place in the polemic. All of these are encompassed in the subject of \u201creligious myth\u201d, to which we will now turn.
\nGershom G. Scholem distinguishes three periods, the mythic, the classic and the mystic in the historical development of religion in all nations. Of the first period he has said: \u201cThe first stage represents the world as being full of gods whom man encounters at every step and whose presence can be experienced without recourse to ecstatic meditation.\u2026 That, however, is the case only while the childhood of mankind, its mythical epoch, lasts.\u201d At the time with which we are concerned, it is clear that the Jews, Christians and pagans were already in the last stage of their religious development. However, the documents or writings which determined their religious allegiances derived from a period whose theological conceptions and religious mentality were wholly different. No wonder, then, that later generations looked back with uneasiness and even with anger upon certain aspects of these writings. Some of the Jews, for example, used euphemisms for salacious phrases or were even prepared to \u201cuproot\u201d whole portions of the Torah. The Bible\u2019s translators had particular problems of spiritual identification with their work. These \u201ctextual\u201d difficulties weighed heavily on the Christians, and they caused the Christians even more distress than they had the Jews since, as the Christians approached Greek philosophy, they were influenced by it. Hellenistic Jewry, too, was more aware of and troubled by such \u201ctextual\u201d problems than the Jews of Eretz Israel and of Babylonia\u2014for similar reasons. The same was true of the New Testament writings which, because of the time of their compilation, should have been exempt from all \u201cmythical\u201d flaws; however, the intellectual level of their authors brought fierce pagan criticism down upon their works. The pagans themselves were not only ready to admit that their own myths were nonsense, but some of them even went so far as to totally invalidate them, as did Plato.
\nThe Hebrews and the Greeks had both passed through the mythical stage of their religious development. Nonetheless, there were very considerable differences in the characters of the Biblical and Homeric myths: the Torah reflected, as is well known, an opposition to the mythos, expressed by omitting parts of mythical accounts or by transmitting them in such a way as to reject myth and deprive it of its essence as, for example, in the case of thehom (=the deep; see Genesis 1:2) for the mythical creature thihamath, or that of the sons of God. Homer, on the contrary, enjoyed telling fantastic stories to win the heart or at least the ears of his listeners. Furthermore, although frequent and immediate contact between God and man was expressed in the Bible, Jewish monotheism created a gap between the human and the divine. In Greek polytheism, on the other hand, this contrast was blurred because of the variety of powers or of creatures assigned a divine character, and also because the social classification of the Greek world blended the world of the gods and the world of men into one unit whose members were distinguished from one another only by their standing in the hierarchical ladder.
\nThis must be taken into account when one examines the ways in which the parties to the polemic coped with this problem. The literary legacy of each side prescribed the lines of its defence or attack, while the common goals remained attacking one\u2019s opponent, defending oneself against him and keeping one\u2019s camp whole while drawing new believers to it.
\nOne of the important reasons that the pagans and Christians did not reject the mythos was the aura of antiquity that surrounded it. The view that ancient beliefs were superior was based on the assumption that error disappears easily with the passage of time, whereas the core of truth remains. It was thought also that ancient men were closer to god, and therefore knew his ways and thoughts. But the full acceptance of the myth was made possible only when allegory was combined with it as a sine qua non. If a pagan\u2014Plato for example\u2014refused to accept allegory, he had to renounce mythos simultaneously. This was true also of Christians and of our period. The Church embraced from the beginning the principle that the Bible must be interpreted allegorically, both for texts presenting difficulties and for those easily understood. This being the case, the Church had at its disposal raw material in the shape of the Bible, which it could adapt to its theological needs, as well as the pioneering work of Hellenistic Judaism in this field, which it used extensively.
\nBecause of this decision in principle of the Church, there was so much importance for the polemic in the Jewish Scriptures and the interpretations of Hellenistic Jewry. On the other hand, the attitude of the Gnostic sects to the Bible was much weaker (and more negative), since they rejected allegory. So, for example, Marcion stated categorically: \u201cScripture must not be interpreted allegorically,\u201d with reference to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament alike. Marcion\u2019s starting point was the epistles of Paul and the contrast found there between the Law and the New Testament. Whereas Paul had stopped at a certain point, since he neither contemplated nor wished a severance of the link between them, and since there were not in the contemporary Church devoted advocates of the system of extreme dualism (apart from the author of the Gospel of John), Marcion did not flinch from the continuation of his line of thought to a drastic conclusion. Marcion purged even Paul\u2019s epistles, in addition to other Christian writings, of alleged additions and falsifications introduced by the adherents of Judaism and the Bible among the early Christians.
\nMarcion\u2019s dislike in principle of allegory (he was forced exceptionally and unwillingly into symbolic interpretations of the parables in the Gospels), and his literal acceptance of the Scriptures put him in a paradoxical position. He exerted himself in his work Antitheses to widen the conceptual gap between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in order to separate them entirely, and to prove his argument that there is no relation whatsoever between the god of the Bible and the god of the New Testament; on the other hand, he agreed with the Jewish interpretation of various parts of the Bible, thus challenging the Church\u2019s allegorical and Christological interpretation. This situation forced \u201cCatholic\u201d Christianity to defend the god of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Jews against their Gnostic denouncers and, at the same time, to refute the interpretation of prophecies and of the most important Biblical texts that was common to the Gnostics and the Jews.
\nBut it was not in vain that the Christians clung to the Bible. Apart from its being inseparably interwoven into their writings, there were five ways in which the Bible served the Church as a source of religious recognition, according to Harnack:
\n1. for the development of a monotheistic cosmology;
\n2. for the presentation of proof from prophecy (the latter and cosmology together form the \u201ctheology\u201d) of the validity and antiquity of Christianity;
\n3. for the foundations of all the conceptions, ritual ceremonies and regulations which were needed by the Church;
\n4. for a deepening of the life of the faith (chapters from Psalms and from various Prophets);
\n5. for the refutation of Jewry as a nation, that it, for the proof that this nation had been rejected by God, whether by the argument that it had never had a covenant with Him (Barnabas) or that it had been only a covenant of anger, or that the Jews had forfeited the covenant; also, to prove that the Jewish nation did not understand the Bible at all and therefore was deprived of it, if indeed it had ever had possession of it.
\nSo much for the Church\u2019s need for the Bible and its general usefulness for internal and external purposes. Further on, we will discuss in more detail the external uses of the Bible, in the polemic against the pagans. Here, we will consider why the Christians used the Bible in their polemical arguments against the pagans, and why they were forced into compiling expository treatises and commentaries on a considerable part of it. The main reasons seem to be as follows:
\nAntiquity: Without linking itself to Judaism, Christianity would appear to the pagans as one of the new religions that spread in the Hellenistic-Roman period and which were centered on a certain divinity or personality, local or universal, such as emperor worship, for example. But, even in this sense, Christianity was exceptional, since the other religions were absorbed by polytheism while Christianity strove to undermine its foundations. The connection of Christianity with the Jewish religion and its sacred writings, whose antiquity no one could question, enabled the Christians to defend themselves against the accusations of novelty and sedition made against them by the pagans. Moreover, using this link, the Christians could contend that their ways were correct and call upon the pagans to follow in their footsteps. They argued that, since the Bible was older than the writings of the Greek poets and philosophers (an argument presented originally by Hellenistic Jewry), it was therefore also more original and truthful and should be preferred to writings which imitated it. The Christians based their claim to the legacy of Judaism on the argument that they were the \u201ctrue Israel\u201d, verus Israel.
\nAuthority and Reknown: The simple and authoritative style of the Bible were decisive in the conversion of several Church Fathers of average education, such as Justin, Tatian and Theophilus, according to their own testimony. The highly educated Augustine, on the contrary, needed interpretations in order to overcome his aversion for the language and content of the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures. This being so, it was reasonable that they should exploit an instrument which had proved itself very effective in their own cases while spreading missionary propaganda among their former fellow-pagans. In point of fact, the Bible was indispensible for potential converts, since it embodied the origins of Christianity.
\nThe Bible won reknown in the Hellenistic-Roman world because its translation into Greek was ascribed by Hellenistic Jewry to Ptolemy Philadelphus; the New Testament was compiled hundreds of years later, and was known to only a few. Therefore, almost all Christian apologists emphasized that the Septuagint had been prepared at Ptolemy\u2019s request and, at the same time, stressed the authority and sacredness that had accrued to it because of its method of preparation.
\nTheological Needs: The Christians had pagan pre-Christian arguments at their disposal in their polemic against polytheism, just as they found support in the Stoic theories of the logos and of providence. Some of them even put forward examples from mythology in order to make their Christology comprehensible to the pagans. In the pagan world, however, theories of the adherents as well as of the opponents of polytheism were plentiful; had the Christians decided to borrow what was fit for their theological-apologetic ends, they would have been exposed in turn to the counter-arguments forged in the same pre-Christian, pagan philosophical schools; this fact would have entitled them, at best, to the status of an eclectic philosophical school and to that only. Only by using the Bible, which expressed a decisive and uncompromising monotheistic and anti-polytheistic attitude, did they strengthen their position and win absolute independence of the pagan tradition. This indispensability of the Bible was true in the case of the humiliation and crucifixion of Jesus as well. Even the Christians admitted that these events were of such a character as to be inconceivable in connection with a messiah and a god, had they not been foreseen by the prophets.
\nBut the use Christianity made of the Bible for its theological needs and for the establishment of its general position forced the Christians into extreme allegorical interpretations of the Hebrew Bible in order to prove the inner connection between it and the New Testament as well as to explain away the many tales and expressions in it which were incompatible with generally accepted philosophical assumptions, and which failed to fit lofty theological concepts about the divinity and its relation to men. It was because of this, and because historical Judaism and its Law were the foundations of the Christian religion, that the pagan polemicists resorted to attacks on the Jews, presented Biblical criticism, and even devoted time and energy to the historical criticism of certain Biblical prophecies and to the philological interpretation of other paragraphs.
\nBefore turning to a detailed discussion of the role of the \u201cReligious Myth\u201d motif in the pagan-Christian polemic of the second, third and fourth centuries C.E., we must consider\u2014albeit briefly\u2014pre-Christian developments, since the earlier pagan writers served the polemicists as points of departure and of reference in addition to Philo and Josephus. The Stoics had already, in the pre-Christian period, devoted themselves to the allegorical interpretation of Greek mythology. Their interpretation was devoted to achieving two ends: the rehabilitation of those myths, and the confirmation from ancient sources of their philosophical system. In Cicero\u2019s treatise De natura deorum, this method was attacked by Velleius the Epicurean. First, Velleius questioned the symbolical interpretations suggested by Zeno for the Theogonia of Hesiod. Then he mentioned the identifications of the gods and the powers of nature proposed by Chrysippus: \u201c\u2026 this is found in the first book [of Chrysippus] about the nature of the gods. In the second book, he wishes to reconcile the fables of Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod and Homer with the theories that he expressed in the first book about the immortal gods. In this way the most ancient of poets, who were not even aware of this, will appear to have been Stoics.\u201d Velleius enumerated all the absurd things that the poets recounted of the gods: quarrels, wars, lamentations, adulteries, and so forth. The principal counter-argument of Balbus the Stoic was that a theory of nature was embodied in those absurd and impious fables; this being so, the etymological-allegorical interpretations of the Stoa did no more than restore the original versions of true and useful physical theories which had been invested with an anthropomorphic character and then distorted by the poets. Cotta the Academic (= Sceptic) questioned the correctness of the Stoics who, instead of refuting ancient mythologies lest they disturb religion, confirmed the myths by interpretation. The method of the Stoic philosophers was in Cotta\u2019s opinion, dangerous. Zeno, Cleanth\u00eas and Chrysippus went to a great deal of trouble in order to make sense of false fables which were both unnecessary and of no value since \u201cby doing so you admit the fact that reality is quite different from the opinion harboured by men; for those who are called gods are physical powers of nature and not figures of the gods.\u201d
\nStoic tendencies were prominent in many of Cornutus\u2019s etymological-allegorical interpretations of the names of the gods and of their mythologies. At the end of his treatise, Cornutus explained that the aim of his undertaking was to show \u201cthat the ancients were not casual persons, but were capable of comprehending the nature of the universe and inclined to philosophize about it through symbols and riddles.\u2026\u201d
\nThe controversy in the pagan world before the rise of Christianity concerning religious myth and allegory found its way to the parties in the polemic. The Neo-Platonists continued to build on Stoic foundations; as we shall see further on, the \u201cphysical\u201d allegory came to be one of the common ways of explicating myths. The Christians on the other hand made much use of the views of the Epicureans, the Sceptics and the Cynics in order to undermine mythology, which was the theological basis of paganism. Another important and helpful source for the Christians with regard to mythos and allegory was Jewish Hellenistic literature, especially the work of Philo Judaeus.
\nPhilo thought that the term mythos was itself unworthy. That is why he stated that other lawgivers \u201chave deceived the masses, hiding the truth under mythical fabrications, whereas Moses refrained from fabricating myths himself or accepting those created by others.\u201d Nonetheless, the story of Adam\u2019s rib being turned into a woman seemed to Philo to be \u201cmythical\u201d (myth\u00f4des), that is, in need of homiletic interpretation. In similar language, and with the same amount of dislike, Julian defined the description in the Torah of the garden of Eden and of the creation of Adam and Eve: \u201cThis is wholly mythical\u201d (myth\u00f4des). A little earlier, Julian had admitted that the Hellenes \u201cfabricated myths about the gods, incredible and monstrous ones.\u201d
\nBut despite Philo\u2019s approval in principle of allegorical exposition, he believed that the precepts of the Torah should be observed according to the letter of the Law. \u201cSabbath and circumcision have their inner meaning, but the actual rites are to that inner meaning as body to soul, and the body demands our care as the dwelling of the soul.\u201d Heinemann stresses Philo\u2019s disagreement with the radical allegorists, who deduced from their symbolic perception of the laws of the Torah that it was not necessary to observe them literally. Heinemann remarks in this connection that such a rejection of the laws existed among the Jews, whereas the Greek allegorists touched only upon the myths. The Greeks also differed from the Jews in that, to the Greek, custom was the source of law, while the written law was of secondary importance only; to the Jew, on the other hand, the Torah was the beginning and the legitimization of customs, and the words of the Torah might be interpreted. How dangerous for the literal meaning of the laws the application of allegory to them could be, and basically had to be, was demonstrated by its application by the Church: allegory served Christianity to justify its stand against keeping the laws of the Torah.
\nPhilo emphasized that the Essenes devoted their studies to ethics and theology and dealt especially with the allegorical meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Such support for his system was, of course, valuable to Philo and, for obvious reasons, also to Eusebius. One must not forget that the Essenes were honoured and esteemed even by Porphyry, the enemy of Christianity. Eusebius prefaced his quotation from Philo about the Essenes (in the Praeparatio Evangelica) by saying that the Jewish people was divided into two parts: the multitude whom Moses intended to be guided by the plain sense of Scripture, and the philosophers, who were capable of rising above the literal meaning to reach a higher one. As an example of the second group, Eusebius presented Philo\u2019s descriptions of the Essenes, one of which derived from Quod omnis probus liber sit, and the other from the Hypothetica or the Apologia pro Iudaeis. Philo had twofold importance for the Christians: as an aid against the Jews (for their abrogation of the injunctions of the Torah and their adaptation of the logos theory) and against the pagans (defence of the Biblical mythos as well as the demonstration of the philosophical character of the Bible).
\nIf we compare the contributions of Philo and Josephus on this point, we see that Philo\u2019s contribution was a positive one, while that of Josephus was a more negative one. Philo gave the Christians the allegorical method of interpretation, while Josephus served them in his fierce attacks on pagan mythology. After enumerating the disgraceful things attributed by Greek poets and lawgivers to the gods, Josephus repudiated their allegorization, since the true philosophers among the Greeks also rejected it although they were aware of it. Josephus referred, as was to be expected, to the \u201cexcommunication\u201d of the poets\u2014and especially of Homer\u2014by Plato.
\nIn the writings of the Christian apologists of the second century C.E., the mythos-motif appears in a quite schematic way. Let us examine the slight distinctions between the apologists, and also note some arguments which will reappear in the polemic of the third and fourth centuries.
\nAristides argued that the Greek wise men were even more gullible than the Chaldeans, who had attributed divinity to the heavenly bodies, because the Greeks represented the gods as \u201cbeing adulterers and murderers, (as being) wrathful and envious and passionate \u2026\u201d (8:2). In chapters 9\u201311, Aristides considered the various gods and the myths ascribed to them, on which men relied when performing their own licentious and impious acts (11:7). In his opinion, the Egyptians erred more than all other nations in turning \u201cirrational animals\u201d into gods. (12:1). Aristides then concluded that: \u201cIf, then, the stories about them are mythical, [the gods] are nothing more than mere words; if they are physical, they are no more gods than those who did and suffered these things; if they are allegorical, then they are myths and nothing else\u201d (13:7). Like Aristides, Athenagoras dealt at length with the shameful deeds attributed to the gods in Greek mythology. He made it clear that the stories which told of the passions, anger, or pain of the gods were not compatible with our concepts of the nature of a true divinity. As for the possible explanation that this was but a \u201cpoetic aberration\u201d and that there was a \u201cphysical rationale\u201d explaining the names of the gods etymologically and functionally, as for example by saying that \u201cDionysus\u201d was equivalent to \u201cthe vine\u201d or \u201cthe wine\u201d, or Rhea to \u201cthe earth,\u201d Hera to \u201caer\u201d or air, Kronos to \u201cchronos\u201d or time, and Zeus to \u201cthe living essence,\u201d Athenagoras retorted that such methods of explaining away the myths simply confirmed what had been said about the gods. Athenagoras asked what have Europa and the bull or Leda and the swan to do with the earth and air, enabling one to say that the abominable intercourse of Zeus with them is the intercourse of the earth and air? Athenagoras\u2019s query did not challenge the allegorical method as such but rather suggested that there are matters which cannot be solved by it. Athenagoras later turned to a different argument, saying that whether the myths about the gods are based on a lie or are true, the conclusion that emerges from them in any event is that the gods do not exist.
\nThe myth concerning Jesus\u2019s being born as a result of the union of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost caused the Christians a great deal of trouble. In order to show the pagans that such a virgin birth was possible and to make it comprehensible to them, the Christians had to revert to Greek mythology, although they denied in principle the divinity of mythological figures. Athenagoras cited the beginning of the Gospel of John and other Biblical verses when discussing the son of God, but also emphasized that \u201cwe do not think about the God and Father or about the Son as the poets compose their myths, showing the gods as no better than men.\u201d
\nJustin thought that all the adulteries and murders attributed to Zeus and his offspring were performed by evil daemons, since all agree that the gods should be imitated, and it is inconceivable that the creator of the world and its leader should misbehave in such ways. In the Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo (chap. 67), Trypho took issue with the Septuagint translation, saying that Scripture did not say \u201cBehold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son\u201d but rather, \u201cBehold, the young woman shall conceive.\u2026\u201d The entire prophecy referred, according to Trypho, to King Hezekiah. In Greek mythology, on the other hand, it was related that Perseus was born of the virgin Dana\u00eb, with whom Zeus had intercourse (in the shape of a stream of gold). Hence Trypho was surprised that the Christians were not ashamed to tell tales about Jesus which were identical to those told by the Greeks. In his opinion, they should have said that Jesus was a man born of man, and demonstrate from the Holy Scriptures that he was the Messiah who was worthy of being annointed because he lived in accordance with the injunctions of the Law and in a state of moral perfection; instead they went astray in the same way as had the Hellenes.
\nThe Jew of Celsus also challenged Jesus with an argument derived from Greek mythology, saying: \u201cThe ancient myths which ascribed a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus, and Minos, though we do not believe them, still presented their deeds as magnificent and awe-inspiring, as truly exceeding the ability of man, so that they might not appear untrustworthy. But as for you, what have you performed in deed or word that is seemly or wonderful? You have showed nothing to us, although we called upon you in the Temple to give some manifest proof that you are the son of God.\u201d (John 10:23\u20134). The Jew also asked how the Christian claim of virgin birth differed from the myths about Dana\u00eb, Melanippe, Auge and Antiope.
\nThese examples of a Jewish-Christian polemic about the divinity of Jesus are of similar date, and they denote the end of the Jewish-Christian polemic. Although it is impossible to say with certainty that the Jews expressed themselves in this specific way, it is reasonable to assume that the Jews of the Hellenistic Diaspora did not refrain from using Greek mythology in order to inveigh against the Christians who, as former pagans, had once accepted such myths and now appeared to be dissociating themselves from them.
\nClement of Alexandria, like his forerunners, enumerated \u201cthe paradoxes of intemperate mythology.\u201d But, unlike Aristides, he preferred the animal-worship of the Egyptians to the Hellenes\u2019 worship of adulterous and licentious gods who were the slaves of their senses. Clement denounced the early philosophers as atheists, because they worshipped matter, and praised the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes, who \u201csets forth no poetic [i.e. mythical] theology, but a true theology.\u201d He quoted Cleanthes\u2019s description of the characteristics of the supreme god who, apart from being just and useful, is also gentle, griefless and self-disciplined.
\nThe views of Tertullian were similar to those we have just discussed. He too spoke of the adulterous and murderous deeds of the gods; of the struggles among the gods because of the Trojans and Achaeans; and of other disgraceful things ascribed to the gods by Pindar and the tragic and comic poets. Tertullian declared that \u201cif true, these events ought not to be recorded; if false, they ought not be invented, by the extremely religious.\u201d The condemnation of Socrates because of his destructive attitude towards the gods led Tertullian to generalize that \u201cthe truth has always been hated.\u201d In subsequent chapters, whose task it was to introduce Christianity to the pagans, Tertullian assigned, as might be expected, a central role to Jesus\u2019s virgin birth and to his becoming the Christ. Tertullian admitted that this tale was similar to pagan myths, but claimed that the latter had been fabricated in order to rival the Christian myth and to destroy the truth. Tertullian was even prepared to compare Jesus with Moses and with pagan personalities, although the position held by Jesus in Christianity was quite different from theirs. It may be that he wished to use this as a kind of defence, or perhaps he sought to draw Christianity nearer to the concepts of the pagans. In any case, we find Tertullian stating that no matter how much they might be tortured, the Christians would continue to proclaim that they worship God through Christ; even if the pagans consider Jesus to be a man, God wished to be worshipped through him nonetheless. Tertullian pointed out to the Jews that they had learned to worship God through Moses\u2014who was a man\u2014while, he noted, men like Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampus and Trophonius had contributed initiation ceremonies to the Greeks, and Numa Pompilius, also human, had been the author of some elaborate religious rites of the Romans.
\nArnobius was one of the more prolific and active participants in the polemic. A comparison of his work with the works of other polemicists illuminates the polemic in general, and emphasizes its central and important points. Arnobius was exceptional in his attitude towards Judaism, and his attitude is instructive about the one generally accepted.
\nThe Church Fathers, whose comments on our subject we have discussed above, were outspoken critics of pagan mythology, but paid much less attention to their own weak points, such as Biblical myth. Arnobius was even more guilty of this failing. Since he had no interest in the Bible as such and did not use it for his polemical ends concerning this or other subjects, it never occurred to him to spring to the defence of the Bible or to explicate its difficulties. Arnobius habitually cited anonymous pagan polemicists and argued against them. Although the first books of his treatise dealt with our subject in a sporadic and routine manner, the fifth book presents a more thorough and exhaustive discussion. Let us examine each of his arguments.
\nArnobius countered the pagan\u2019s claim that they too had a supreme god, Iupiter Optimus Maximus, by saying that a god who is the source of all things and the creator of eras and times can not be born at a specific point in time; \u201cYet Iupiter, as you relate, has a father and mother.\u2026 and was just recently conceived in his mother\u2019s womb.\u2026\u201d In this connection, he presented additional tales concerning the various gods, and stated that those to whom such disgraceful activities were ascribed were not gods but mortals, as had been proved by men like Euhemerus, Diagoras and others. Arnobius wondered how the pagans dared to characterize as \u201catheists,\u201d \u201cirreligious,\u201d or \u201csacrilegious\u201d those who denied or doubted the existence of the gods or who argued that they were human beings who had become gods because of their fine deeds\u2014while they themselves in their rituals saddled the gods with much worse qualities. The disputants reached deadlock over the question of the credibility of the various religious traditions, since each side believed in its own writings: \u201cYou do not believe our writings, and we do not believe your writings. (You say that) we devise false things about Christ, and (we say that) you put forward empty and false things concerning your gods.\u2026\u201d The pagans tried to break this deadlock by stressing the antiquity of their writings: \u201cBut, you say, ours are more ancient and therefore abound in the believable and the true.\u201d The Christians had two answers to this argument. They said that not everything that was ancient was good. On the contrary! The ancients were backward and more primitive in all fields, including that of religion; we must free ourselves of their errors and digressions. Among those who used this argument were Justin (Martyr) and Ambrose, although Ambrose\u2019s words were meant to refute the reliance of Symmachus on the antiquity of Rome. However, the Christians usually depended on Josephus\u2019s On the Antiquity of the Jews (=Contra Apionem) in order to prove that the sacred writings of the Jews antedated those of the pagans. Since the Christians claimed that they were the true Israel, these writings of more ancient date and of greater veracity than those of the pagans belonged to them. It hardly needs saying that one would not expect to find the latter argument in a writer like Arnobius, who expressed no attitude towards Judaism. Indeed, Arnobius rejected the pagan argument by questioning the assumption that antiquity was a guarantee of truthfulness.
\nIn his fifth book, Arnobius presented a new line of argument about our subject. The pagans had argued that all the myths were no more than poetical amusements, and did not reflect the polytheistic creed. Arnobius, admitting this for the sake of argument, introduced a new element into the discussion: the mysteries. He asked: \u201cWhat? Is all contained in grave, serious and diligent histories and which you transmit in secret mysteries no more than lascivious inventions of the poets?\u201d Arnobius\u2019s anonymous pagan dissociated himself from part of these rituals, saying: \u201cBut these are not the rites of our state.\u201d To this Arnobius replied by asking: \u201cWho is it that says this? A Roman, Gaul, Spaniard, African, German or Sicilian? And what does it avail your cause if those are not your [rites], since those who perform them are of your party?\u201d For the sake of the polemic, Arnobius viewed all the polytheistic nations as members of one group, all of whose members were responsible for each other\u2019s deeds. But, Arnobius continued, even if we accept your reservations, it will make no difference at all, since in your camp, too, one can find rites which are no less disgraceful, such as those connected with the festival of the Thesmophoria in Attica. While expressing his consciousness of and even admiration for the high level of Greek secular culture, Arnobius strongly deplored the religious conceptions of the Greeks (and Romans), which he believed were derogatory to the gods. Other Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius, following Hellenistic Judaism, extolled the abilities and contributions of the Jews (and of the \u201cbarbarians\u201d in general) in the secular fields of science and philosophy.
\nFinally, the pagan disputant put forward his last argument to defend the mythological tales, saying: \u201cYou are mistaken \u2026 for all these stories, which seem disgraceful to you and leading to the dishonour of the divine, contain holy mysteries, wonderful and elevated thoughts \u2026 that which is written is not made known nor said, rather, all of these things are understood in their allegorical senses.\u2026\u201d The allegorical meanings suggested by the pagans were of the \u201cphysical\u201d kind, in keeping with one existing system of interpretation which had already been employed by the Stoics. Jupiter symbolized the rain, and Ceres the earth; when it was related that Jupiter slept with his mother, no incest was meant, but only that the rain falls and waters the soil, and so forth. Arnobius mobilized every reason and argument for a word-by-word refutation of the allegorical interpretations, and also rejected this method, which he named \u201callegorical blindness.\u201d Only someone who disregarded the need of allegory in Biblical studies, and who ignored the extensive use made of allegory by the Church Fathers could reject it so completely.
\nArnobius\u2019s opening statement indicated that it made no difference whether or not mythological writings had other meanings, since the gods were represented in them \u201cnefariously and impiously,\u201d that is, denigration of the gods was expressed explicitly in them and not in any hidden way. Further on Arnobius asked: how do you know that these things were written in an allegorical way or that they should be understood in such a way? Did the authors admit you into their secrets or are you capable of knowing what is in the hiding-places of their hearts? Such questions were of course pertinent to Christian allegory too, but Arnobius paid no attention to this. Another of his arguments against allegory was that there can be no limit to the interpretations one can offer of the same thing, in keeping with the unlimited possibilities that may come to mind, each of which may be offered as the true explanation. This being the case, \u201chow can you distinguish the certain things from the doubtful ones, and attach one meaning to an expression which you see may be interpreted in innumerable ways with a variety of explanations?\u201d The fact that there was no one authorized interpretation invalidated the entire method for Arnobius. This argument reminds one of the scornful words of Rabbi Zeira (a contemporary of Arnobius) about the Agadists, who offered varied explications of every Biblical verse: \u201cIt [the Agada] turns and is turned [in all directions]\u2014we can learn nothing from it.\u201d
\nOrigen, in his Contra Celsum, as well as in his expositions (of the Song of Songs, for example), praised Biblical verses for their double meaning, for having both a clear and simple narrative meaning (historice), and an allegorical-mystical meaning for those who possess the ability to understand it. The questions put forward by Arnobius against the pagans in this connection can thus be addressed equally to Origen. For, Arnobius asked: \u201cDo you think that all these tales, that is, each single one, have been written throughout with a double meaning and tongue.\u2026 or, that some parts of them convey nothing ambiguous at all, whereas others are much divided and enveloped in the veil of allegory which has been cast around them?\u201d Arnobius further challenged the supposition that all mythological tales have an allegorical meaning. For, if we say that Ceres means earth, how does one explain the anger ascribed to her? He posed similar questions about other myths. Arnobius demanded that the explanation given to a certain name be applicable whenever that name appeared, and that every act ascribed to its possessor would have a reasonable meaning in conformity with this basic explanation. Since, in his opinion, the pagans were incapable of acting in this way, he proceeded to consider a second possibility. He suggested that the pagans might say: \u201cThese allegories are not in the whole body of the tale; rather, some parts were written in the ordinary sense, while others possess a double meaning and are veiled in ambiguity.\u201d This supposition, argued Arnobius, was a \u201crefined subtlety,\u201d which aimed at easing the work of interpretation for the pagans. But even if one were to accept this, there remained the unanswerable question: by what sign of recognition or criterion can the pagans establish which text was written in the simple way and which one allegorically? Might they not confuse the two? Arnobius\u2019s next chapter was devoted to examining this last with the help of concrete examples derived from mythology. Arnobius\u2019s conclusion was that either all had been written in an allegorical way\u2014a claim the pagans had yet to prove\u2014or nothing had been written in this way, for it was not reasonable to suppose that things were written partly in this way and partly in the other. Arnobius rejected immediately the idea that everything was written allegorically. Why? \u201cFor neither can that be undone which has been done, nor can the nature of an action be changed into a different one.\u201d Can one transform the Trojan War into the condemnation of Socrates, or the battle of Cannae into the proscriptions of Sulla?
\nWhat proof was there that these tales reflected events that had actually taken place? Arnobius replied: \u201cFrom the solemn rites and mysteries of initiation.\u2026 For it is not to be believed that these have not their origins, that they are practised without any reason or basis, and have no causes connected with their first institution.\u201d Or, more simply, there is no smoke without a fire to feed it. The same idea guided Jane Harrison throughout her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Arnobius, unlike Harrison, did not distinguish between a mythos, a belief or religious opinion which preceded a certain rite and caused its creation, and an etiological mythos, which interpreted rituals of time immemorial and whose meaning had been lost with the passing of the years. These rituals had been embued with the concepts of the generations that had sought their meaning and which had lent them the meaning they thought to be most reasonable. Arnobius then gave some illustrations of his hypothesis: the pine tree in the worship of the Mother of the Gods (= Cybele) symbolizes the tree under which Attis emasculated himself; the wondering of Ceres in her search for her daughter is symbolized in the mysteries of Eleusis, and so on. It made no difference at all whether there was another reason for these ceremonies: what was important was the impossibility that the people of Attica went mad and instituted ceremonies with no causes whatsoever.
\nEven if we were to grant, Arnobius continued, that these tales have a different, allegorical meaning, could there be a graver insult to the gods than the use of their names or of their shameful deeds to signify actions or things in nature and agriculture? But perhaps you will say, in the last resort, that the gods do not wish their secrets (mysteria) to be known to men and that these tales were written therefore in ambiguous and allegorical language. This explanation too was rejected by Arnobius, who asked: who allowed you to divulge these secrets against the will of the gods? How do you know them, and why do you trouble to expound them by means of an allegorical interpretation? If the gods do not wish that decent and honourable things will be told of them, will they condescend to the relating of the reprehensible and disgraceful ones? But, said the pagan, when we name Attis, we mean the sun. If that be so, retorted Arnobius, who is the Attis who, according to your writtings, was born in Phrygia suffered and did certain things which we see represented in theatrical performances and yearly religious ceremonies?
\nIn the following chapters, Arnobius continued to discuss mythological matters. Our survey of his polemical method will help us understand the problems that faced pagan polemicists, and the ways in which they tried to solve them. As for Attis, it is worth noting that both Julian and Sallust offered the allegorization of his mythos as an example of the way in which such myths should be expounded and understood. This was also true of the question recurring in Arnobius: why do the myths contain such abhorrent things, offending one\u2019s religious conscience? Arnobius was not far from the truth when he explained why the pagans were in need of allegory. He said it was, \u201cbecause such writers and histories make you feel ashamed, and you realize that it is impossible to destroy those things which have once been committed repulsively to writing, you exert yourselves to make shameful things respectable \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Let us now return to the polemic (in Greek) where we left it, at the end of the second century C.E.
\nWe noted earlier (p. 99) that Celsus employed a clever device by having a Jew voice comparisons between Greek mythology and the stories about Jesus, while Celsus himself attacked vigorously the Biblical myths shared by Jews and Christians. Elsewhere, the Jew challenged the Christians who thought that such stories as the descent to Hades and return therefrom of Orpheus, Protesilaus, Heracles and Theseus \u201care and appear to be myths,\u201d yet were convinced of the validity of their own story about the earthquake and darkness at the time of Jesus\u2019s crucifixion. Origen here, as elsewhere, evaded arguing with the Jew by contending that all these questions about Jesus could also be raised about Moses; just as one must believe in the divine power of Moses and in the wonderful, supernatural stories of the Bible, one must adopt such an attitude towards Jesus.
\nCelsus criticized not only the \u201chistory\u201d of Moses but also those who interpreted it allegorically. According to him, the Jews who lived in some desolate corner of Palestine were totally uneducated, and had no idea of what Hesiod and many other inspired people had said. They therefore composed most unconvincing and unrefined stories about a man formed by the hands of God, a woman created from his rib, a serpent violating the ordinances of God\u2014\u201ca mythos which they expounded to old women.\u201d Such things are not only old-wives\u2019 tales but even very impious, if we say that God was so helpless even at the outset that he was incapable of persuading even one man, whom he himself had created, to obey his orders. The same was true of the story of Noah and his all-encompassing ark, as well as of the story of the dove and the crow, which he argued was no more than a debased version of the story of Deucalion, recounting the myth for tiny children. Because of this, the more reasonable Jews and Christians attempted to interpret them allegorically but, in Celsus\u2019s opinion, they were unsuitable for allegory since they clearly and very foolishly had been given mythical form. The attempts to allegorize them were even more disgraceful than the myths themselves, he said, since they attempted to harmonize things which could by no means be made to conform with each other. It is worth noting here that Celsus did not distinguish between Graeco-Roman mythology and Egyptian animal worship. If one indulge in explaining the myths allegorically, there is no reason to discriminate against the Egyptians\u2019 approach and no reason not to explicate them symbolically. Iamblichus agreed with Celsus in this respect. Porphyry and Julian, on the other hand, devoted their energies to expounding the \u201cHellenic\u201d tradition, which seemed to them to be the essence of polytheism, and displayed a reserved attitude towards Egyptian mythology. Julian\u2019s friend Sallust noted the Egyptian mythos as an example of a \u201cmaterial\u201d and degraded one, which the Egyptians had adopted because of their lack of education.
\nOrigen\u2019s reactions were varied. He described Greek mythology in the usual way, stressing the fact that pagan poets and philosophers recorded the misfortunes that befell the gods, their indulging in immoral sexual relations, the battles of sons against their fathers, their emasculations, and so forth. By contrast, Moses did not relate things which were far less offensive about human beings and angels, let alone about God. Nevertheless, Celsus prided himself on these deeds while yet thinking that those who received the laws of Moses were deceived by them and led astray. The objection of Celsus to the allegorical exposition of the Bible was, according to Origen, much the same as the behaviour of Thrasymachus (in the Res publica of Plato), who would not permit Socrates to answer a question about the definition of justice as he wished. In book four, chapter sixteen of his work, Origen gave the story of the transfigurations of Jesus on the mountain (Matt., 17:2 and parallels) a meaning quite different from its literal one. He then asked whether this narrative, especially when understood properly, were not much more imposing than the story of Dionysus, who was torn in pieces by the Titans and then put together again before he went up to heaven. \u201cOr is it permissible to the Greeks to refer such things to the account about the soul and allegorize them, while for us the door of a consistent explanation \u2026 has been closed?\u201d It is worthy of note that Origen emphasized the \u201cpsychic\u201d allegory, which served as a basis for the exposition of Philo and of the pagan Neo-Platonist polemicists. He also stressed the total \u201cconsistency\u201d of Philo\u2019s interpretation.
\nOrigen\u2019s reaction to the comparison with Hesiod and other pagan writers, and to disdain for Biblical myth was as follows: 1) Moses preceded Hesiod and the others, and the scorn of Celsus must therefore fall on their writings; 2) Celsus did not understand Scripture; 3) allegorical interpretation is necessary, and Celsus cannot forbid the Jews and Christians what he allows himself about Hesiod; 4) are Hesiod\u2019s words about the woman, which were expressed \u201cin the form of a mythos,\u201d allegorical, whereas the Biblical story about the creation of woman from Adam\u2019s rib \u201cseems to you [i.e. Celsus] to have been related without any deeper and hidden meaning?\u201d He then adds that Plato\u2019s words in the Symposium about the birth of Eros were ridiculous if not interpreted allegorically; Plato wished to hide from the multitude \u201cgreat doctrines.\u2026 in the form of a mythos.\u201d Also, Plato\u2019s mythos was like the Biblical one, and he may have borrowed Jewish ideas of which he learned during his visit to Egypt.
\nWhat is the difference between the Jewish-Christian and the Hellenic myths? Reacting to Celsus\u2019s argument that the former are not fit for allegorical exposition because they were composed in a very foolish manner, Origen says: \u201cOn the contrary, it is the myths of the Greeks which were not only most foolishly but even most impiously composed. For ours had in mind the mass of the artless too, a consideration to which those who created the fabricated tales of the Greeks paid no attention.\u201d That, and not animosity, is why Plato removed these myths and works from his state. Elsewhere, Origen argued that a comparison of Linus, Musaeus, Orpheus, and Pherecydes with Moses proves the superiority of Moses in the field of history and ethics. Further on he explained the source of Moses\u2019s superiority which lies, in Origen\u2019s view, in his successful use of double meaning throughout his work, while the Greek writers wrote only for those who were capable of understanding and interpreting their words allegorically. Because of Moses\u2019s skill, the multitude of the Jews were not harmed morally by the simple sense of Scripture, while the few wise men among the Jews could find therein a source for deeper theories. Origen found confirmation of his argument in the fact that the writings of pagan poets were not preserved (he means of course until his own times), and suggested that this was because the readers did not derive any benefit from them. The works of Moses, on the other hand, moved many\u2014including even pagans\u2014to believe that God the creator of the world had compiled them and handed it over to Moses.
\nOne may see Origen\u2019s words in the seventh book (chapter ten) as completing the above-noted theory. Origen offered there an explanation of the ambiguous language of Biblical parables, an explanation not dissimilar to that offered by Julian for the strange content of pagan myths. Origen stated that the prophets, in keeping with the will of God, expressed without any obscurity that which was useful for the moral reformation of their hearers; they expressed in riddles, allegories, and parables whatever was beyond the understanding of the multitude, so that only those prepared to toil might reach the mysterious truth buried in them.
\nBefore we begin to discuss Porphyry, Eusebius, and Julian, it should be noted that our discussion here centres on one aspect of Jewish Law (Torah), that is, on Biblical myth and the problem of allegory. The Torah was viewed in the polemic as part of the Jews\u2019 contribution to civilization and, as such, was compared with pagan contributions, both barbarian and Hellenic. This will be discussed in detail below (in chapter four) when we deal with the polemical themes of \u201cCulture and Enslavement.\u201d
\nPorphyry was dissatisfied with the Greek ritual and with its animal sacrifices. However, he believed that the mythos might be adjusted, and that it embodied deep spiritual-religious theories. In some of Porphyry\u2019s treatises, preserved wholly or in part, such as De antro Nympharum, De simulacris, and De philosophia ex oraculis, we encounter allegorical explications of Homeric myths as well as the rehabilitation (through exposition) of oracles ascribed to the gods. In contrast to his flexibility concerning Greek mythology, Porphyry vehemently attacked the Holy Scriptures and their commentators (especially Origen), as noted by Eusebius. According to Porphyry Origen went astray when he became a Christian, and applied the theories concerning holy and profane matters which he had learned from the Greeks to the foreign (= barbarian) myths of the Jews. Porphyry argued that one must flee the corruption of the Jewish writings instead of attempting to explain them away, as some commentators did, by offering explanations which were inappropriate to and incompatible with these scriptures. Where things were said explicitly by Moses, these men (Origen is specifically mentioned here) stated that they are riddles, divine oracles full of hidden mysteries; thus, they blunted the readers\u2019 critical sense with regard to their interpretations. We have seen that for Origen, Christian explication was consistent and wholly appropriate, and that the Bible contained hidden mysteries expressed in riddles.
\nAlthough Eusebius did not innovate much concerning our subject, he presented many quotations from pagan literature, endeavouring to prove his case with them. After citing from Phoenician mythology, as compiled by Sanchuniathon (apparently an ancient Phoenician writer, translated into Greek by Philo of Byblus), Eusebius stated emphatically that these were not myths and creations of ancient, wise poets and theologians embodying a hidden theory allegorically. According to the evidence and admissions of the pagan writers and theologians, he said, \u201cthe ancients as well as early authors writing about the gods did not resort to \u2018physical\u2019 allegorical interpretations: neither did they allegorize the myths about the gods, but retained only the literal sense of the stories.\u201d The reason for his objection to the proposition that the myths should not be taken literally but should rather be expounded homiletically is quite understandable: the homiletic approach would mean that precious polemical material would be lost to the Christians in their struggle with contemporary pagans. Eusebius therefore was not prepared to allow pagans of his time (such as Porphyry) to interpret the ancient myths allegorically, although he accepted as a matter of course the allegorical expositions of Philo and the Church Fathers with regard to the much less troublesome stories of the Bible. The young pagan philosophers, argued Eusebius, boast of their logical attitude, yet are prepared neither to depart from the blasphemies of their ancestors nor to maintain them in their pristine form. Therefore, \u201cthey transformed the myths into \u2018physical\u2019 stories and theories.\u201d Exactly the same arguments, and even the same words, were used by Porphyry (above, p. 112) against the holy scriptures of the Jews. Further on, Eusebius added some details from the pagan \u201cphysical\u201d interpretation of the myths and rejected them, saying: \u201cThey introduced a forced and untrue embellishment of the myths.\u201d
\nThere is no point to lengthening this work by presenting repetitive quotations. I will therefore mention only the words of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, presented by Eusebius. Dionysius suggests that only a few of the Greek myths are of benefit to man, and even this benefit is restricted to knowledgeable men; the multitudes, lacking philosophical learning, stumble over the myths. Origen (above, p. 111) ascribed to their lack of usefulness the non-preservation of the mythological writings.
\nThe testimony of the Jewish scriptures, admitted Eusebius, is important evidence for the veracity of Christian claims with regard to Jesus. But how should one understand them? For this purpose Eusebius went back to the Hebrews who preceded Moses. These men, as their name (ivrim) testifies, passed (avru) over to the right path of virtue with the help of \u201cphysical\u201d considerations and unwritten laws, and were beyond (me\u2019ever) the pleasures of the flesh. But when they multiplied in Egypt, he said, they neglected their forefathers\u2019 ways of piety and adopted the way of life of the Egyptians, until it seemed that they differed from them in nothing. Then the god of their ancestors sent Moses to them, and he, after presenting his signs and portents, gave them laws and rules which were congruous with their morals. The Law of Moses was given them since, because of their foolishness, they had ceased to follow the ways of their forefathers. People sick in their souls, they received a constitution which was appropriate to them, a constitution which was, in Eusebius\u2019s opinion, of this character: \u201cOn the one hand Moses ordered them openly in part as to what they had to do; on the other hand he also hinted covertly to them through allegories, ordering them to follow and observe the symbols and reflections, and not the bare truth itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
In his article, \u201cThe Emperor Julian and the Building of the Temple\u201d Jo\u1e25anan Hans Levy says: \u201cHe [Julian] places revelation against revelation. The prophetic utterances of the Chaldaeans are more valid than the utterances of the Bible \u2026\u201d This is perhaps true from Julian\u2019s private point of view: but his public-polemic stand is different. In the following pages, we shall try to interpret it in the light of the guidelines and objects of the polemic as reviewed above.
\nJulian\u2019s attitude towards the mythos is two-fold: he doubts its reliability, and ascribes its unreliability to the additions of poets to the original mythos; he also strives, as Wright states, by expounding the mythos \u201cto provide the Hellenic counterpart of the positive revealed religion of Christianity.\u201d In his earlier treatise, Julian skipped over ancient tales referring to Eusebia\u2019s native country, since they were not far removed from the myths, that is, from unfounded legends. Then he added that he had deleted this material because \u201cit is more appropriate to a mythos than to my oration\u201d (= logos). In his fourth oration, \u201cTo King H\u00ealios,\u201d Julian took the liberty of disagreeing with Hesiod and Homer and, while praising them, sounding nonetheless a note of reservation and criticism. For example, in 136A\u2013C of \u201cTo King H\u00ealios,\u201d after explaining that Zeus, Had\u00eas, H\u00ealios and Sarapis are one and the same, and that the task of Had\u00eas is to elevate to the intelligible world the souls of righteous people, Julian added that no one should think that Had\u00eas-Sarapis is the same god \u201cbefore whom the myths persuade us to tremble, but rather one tender [or civilized=praos] and placable.\u201d He adds immediately, as if apologizing: \u201cFrom the following it will become clear that this doctrine [ = doxa] is not at all new, but that the eldest poets, Homer and Hesiod, entertained it earlier, whether they conceived it so in their minds or whether, by divine design, as in the case of the seers, they were inspired by the god with the truth.\u201d When Hesiod said that this god was the son of Hyperi\u00f4n and Theia, he meant [ainittomenos] that he was a true child of He who is above all [tou pant\u00f4n hyperechontos], for this is the meaning of Hyperi\u00f4n; the same applies to Theia. But, Julian added, one should not accept the tales about the union and marriage of Hyperi\u00f4n and Theia, which are \u201cincredible, and paradoxical delights of the poetic Muse.\u201d After several attempts to explain the words of Homer and Hesiod, Julian stated: \u201cBut let us say farewell to the creations of the poets; for they contain along with what is divine much that is human.\u201d (Ibid., 137C.) Elsewhere in the same treatise (149B), Julian took issue with the mythos which states that Ath\u00ean\u00ea was born from the head of Zeus: in his opinion, she was born from the whole of Zeus. On the other hand, he stressed his agreement with the ancient report (ph\u00eam\u00ea) concerning the identity of Zeus and H\u00ealios: and with calling Ath\u00ean\u00ea Pronoia (= Providence), \u201cthere is no innovation on my part\u201d (ou kainotomoumen).
\nIn his later works, whose writing coincided with his endeavours as emperor against the Church and in favour of polytheism, Julian was clearly less liberal in his attitude towards the mythos, and more conspicuously apologetic. In his fifth oration, \u201cTo the Mother of the Gods,\u201d Julian dealt at length with the details of the mythos of Attis; the love for Attis of Cybel\u00ea, mother of the gods; his love for the Nymph; and his castration and return to Cybel\u00ea. Julian then declared that he did not mean to say that such things had ever happened, but rather that the ancients always looked for the causes of being and, when they had discovered them, concealed them in paradoxical myths in order that these illogical myths might lead capable men to search for the truth. Thus, their reward would be greater, since they would attain the truth through their own intellectual efforts and not by believing others\u2019 suppositions. In the seventh oration he pressed this theory yet further, saying that the more manifest the paradoxical element in a myth, the more certain it is that its riddle and its hidden truth will be revealed.
\nIn Gershom G. Scholem\u2019s book on Jewish mysticism, we encounter the following statement: \u201cThe philosophers, who had passed through the school of Aristotle, never felt at home in the world of Midrash. But the more extravagant and paradoxical these Aggadahs appeared to them, the more were the Kabbalists convinced that they were one of the keys to the mystical realm.\u201d We have, then, a phenomenon common among mystics. Since Julian had, as is well known, a strong predisposition to mystics and theurgy, one can not dismiss the possibility that his motives for the aforementioned suggestion lie in this sphere and not in the apologetic one. (Origen the mystic had suggested a closely related idea about the Holy Scriptures, as noted above.) The nearly absolute identity between Julian\u2019s words and those of Sallust in the latter\u2019s treatise designed to provide pagans with defence material against the attacks of the Christians as well as an explanation of the mythos of Attis indicates that this solution of the problem of the mythos was devised in the emperor\u2019s circle, among his close friends. If, therefore, Julian took part in the preparation of a treatise universally described as an apologetic rather than a mystic one, and this treatise of Sallust included allegorical interpretations, we are entitled to assume that these allegorical-mystical interpretations had an apologetic aim. Sallust offered explanations of the fact that the ancients made use of myths to express their views about the gods and their nature: the usefulness which emerges from the search after the truth, a search which the myths drive men to undertake by their very absurdity (atopia); the language of the myths is appropriate to both the ignorant and the intelligent, and so on.
\nAlmost all of the Christian polemicists repeat a question concerning the mythos which, in their view, refutes its allegorization: if we admit, they say, that Zeus symbolizes the rain and H\u00eara the earth, how does this assumption conform to the actions ascribed to these god-symbols in other myths? In order to answer this question, Sallust prepared a guide to the various myths. In the fourth chapter of his treatise, he stated that they are not identical but that rather, \u201cof the myths some are theological, some physical, others psychological and material, and still others mixtures of these.\u201d In the continuation of this chapter, he gave examples from mythology of these five types. Hereafter, there would be no opportunity for confusion: every pagan would be able to answer embarrassing questions put to him on this subject; he need only establish of what type the mythos in question is an example.
\nThis general solution to the problem of the mythos was not mentioned at all in Julian\u2019s main polemical treatise, Against the Galilaeans, although Julian did touch on this problem in the fragments of his work preserved by Cyril. We can only guess at possible reasons for this: the solution suggested by Julian and Sallust might be good in principle but, as yet, it was not applied in practice to the whole of mythology; it was applied only to those aspects of mythology currently under Christian crossfire. Since allegorization of the mythos was not complete, Julian refrained from getting involved in complicated arguments in this work, which was intended to influence people of average education through forceful, clear, and convincing analysis. Apart from this, an extensive discussion of the mythos would place the pagans in a defensive position, while Julian\u2019s treatise was aggressive and designed to force his opponents into a defensive, even an apologetic, stance.
\nJulian\u2019s method may be explained in this way: first he disables his opponents by saying: \u201cIndeed, the Hellenes forged incredible and monstrous myths about the gods. For they said that Kronos swallowed his children and then spewed them forth again; and they told of illicit copulations: for Zeus had intercourse with his mother.\u2026 Such are the things related in the myths of the Hellenes.\u201d The turn of the Biblical mythos follows: \u201cCompare these with what is taught by the Jews: the garden planted by God, Adam formed by Him, and the woman created for him \u2026 These things are wholly mythical.\u201d Julian then mentions the story of Eve and the serpent, and asks: \u201cIn what way do such things differ from the myths forged by the Hellenes?\u201d The same question is posed by Julian after he relates the story of the Tower of Babel: \u201cNow you think that we should believe these things whereas you yourselves disbelieve the things related by Homer about the Aloadae, namely that they conceived the idea of setting three mountains one atop the other, \u2018so that heaven might be reached.\u2019 Indeed, I myself say that this tale is almost as mythical as the other. But why, in the name of the gods, do you, who accept the former, reject the mythos of Homer?\u201d Julian then abandons this stalemate comparison of Moses and Homer. Near his discussion of the serpent and the tree of life and knowledge, Julian indicates that, in his opinion, these things must not be understood literally:: \u201cEvery one of these, unless it be a mythos incorporating some secret theory, as I myself believe, is full of blasphemous statements about God.\u201d It is clear that this generalization applies to the Hellenic mythos as well (although Julian does not say so specifically in the fragments preserved for us by Cyril), but Julian refrains, as noted above, from considering allegorical interpretation.
\nJulian turns his attention from these findings of equality to a confrontation of Biblical and Platonic cosmogony. Here his conclusion is clear: Plato surpasses Moses, and the manner of his discussion is worthier of the god. Julian disregards the chronological defects of his comparison, but indicates that Plato compensates for his lack of antiquity by formulating his mythos in theological-philosophical language very different from that of Moses, although Plato\u2019s words too need to be interpreted (and are) in order to reveal fully their deeper meaning.
\nAs we have suggested, Julian prefers to attack, rather than to defend his position. His offensive is three-fold. First, he undermines the allegorical interpretations by means of which the Christians negated the obligation to observe the injunctions of the Torah. Then, he discredits theological principles of the Church by showing that they contradicted Scripture. Finally, he shows the weak points of Biblical theology and ethics.
\nPaul had made no distinction between ceremonial and ethical law. However, Biblical ethics were binding on the Church. Julian exploited this fact in order to assail Christianity. The questions put by Julian to the Christians included some considered by the Jewish Sages, whose point of departure was different. The pagans and the Christians examined the Bible in the light of Greek philosophy; the attitudes prevalent among the Jews in the Biblical period had altered, possibly because of environmental influence, and the Jews therefore felt it incumbent upon them to explicate certain Biblical sayings and deeds so that they would not contradict the spirit and concepts of their own age. In the following pages, we will examine some comments by Julian, and remark here and there on the treatment of these problems in writings before his time; we will not exhaust the subject but rather illustrate the general statements above, in order to show clearly what place and importance in the polemic should be assigned to the \u201cBiblical mythos.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the injunctions (mitzvoth) in general:
\nAnd why is it that you do not abide even by the Hebrew sayings or embrace the law which God has given to them?\u2026 For the Hebrews have precise regulations [nomima] concerning religious worship, and innumerable prohibitions [sebasmata] and injunctions [phylagmata] which make the living of a holy life obligatory.<\/p>\n
Prohibited foods; Pork: Here, Julian notes:
\nIndeed it is from the innovations [kainotomia] of the Hebrews that you have appropriated the blasphemy of the gods who are honoured by us; but you have abandoned the reverence for every superior nature characteristic of our cult as well as our affection for ancestral tradition, and have acquired only the eating of all things \u2018as the green herb\u2019 [Genesis, 9:3].\u2026<\/p>\n
and adds:
\nWhy are you not as pure as the Jews in your daily fare (diaita), and why do you contend that we ought to eat everything \u2018as the green herb\u2019, trusting Peter who said, according to them [the Christians], \u2018What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common?\u2019 [Acts, 10:15.] What evidence is there that long ago God regarded certain things as abominable, but now has made them clean? For Moses, when he indicates the distinguishing marks of four-footed beasts, states that \u2018whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is cloven-footed and cheweth the cud\u2019 [Leviticus, 11:3] is clean, but that lacking these qualities is unclean. If, then, following the vision of Peter, the pig has commenced chewing the cud, let us accept his words \u2026 But if he lied about seeing that apocalypse, to use your own terminology, in the house of the tanner, why should we believe him so willingly in matters of such import? For what difficulty did Moses impose on you if he forbade you to eat, in addition to the flesh of swine, winged things and sea food, taking the position that as well as the flesh of swine, these too had been rejected by God and regarded as unclean?<\/p>\n
Circumcision, and unleavened bread during Passover: On these matters, Julian notes:
\nNow I must consider this other question and ask them, for what reason do you not circumcise yourselves? They reply that Paul declared that circumcision of the heart but not of the flesh was bestowed upon Abraham because he believed. He said nothing more about the circumcision of the flesh, and we should accept the not impious words proclaimed by him and Peter. Conversely, note once more that God is said to have bestowed circumcision of the flesh upon Abraham as a covenant and token: \u201cThis is My covenant which ye shall keep, between Me and you and thy seed after thee throughout their generations. And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of a covenant between Me and you and between Me and thy seed \u2026\u2019 Therefore when he [i.e. Jesus] has unquestionably affirmed that it is fitting to observe the law, and provided punishments for those who transgress a commandment, you, who have transgressed each and every one, what kind of rationalization will you contrive?\u2026 Moses says: \u2018The circumcision shall be of thy flesh.\u2019 They [i.e. The Galilaeans] however listened carelessly to him, and say: \u2018We circumcise our hearts \u2026\u2019 They say: \u2018We cannot heed the rule concerning unleavened bread nor execute the Passover; since for us Christ was sacrificed once and for all.\u2019 All well and good! But did he forbid your eating unleavened bread?<\/p>\n
The eternity of the Torah: On this subject, Julian comments as follows:
\nBut why do I expatiate on these teachings of theirs [i.e. of the Galilaeans], when it is possible to examine their potency? For they declare that over the earlier law, God established the second one. For the former was created for a specific occasion and was circumscribed by fixed periods of time, but the latter was revealed and proclaimed because the law of Moses was limited by time and place. That they err in this I will clearly prove from the books of Moses, by offering not merely ten but ten thousand testimonies, wherein he says that the law is eternal. Listen then now to [passages from] Exodus: \u2018And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Howbeit from the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses\u2019 [Neumann notes here that Julian quoted similar verses from the Bible, but that they are missing].\u2026 Although many more such passages remain from which it emerges that the law of Moses is eternal, I forgo citing them because of their quantity. But show me where there is stated [by Moses] what was later audaciously proclaimed by Paul, that \u2018Christ is the end of the law.\u2019 Where does God promulgate for the Hebrews another law alongside that which had been laid down? It is not to be found anywhere, nor is a revision of the extant law. Listen again to [the words of] Moses \u2026<\/p>\n
The status of Jesus: Julian comments on this at length:
\nNow as they [i.e. the Galilaeans] claim that, though they differ from present-day Jews, they are nonetheless and in the strict sense of the word genuine Israelites according to their prophets, and that they obey Moses primarily as well as the prophets who succeeded him in Judaea, let us see in what they are in essential agreement with them. Let us start with the words of Moses, who, as they assert, also proclaimed the forthcoming birth of Jesus. Now then, Moses says not one or two or three times, but rather very frequently that men should worship only one God, whom he even calls Supreme, but nowhere does he declare that they ought to worship any other god. He mentions angels, lords and even many gods, but of these he designates the first and does not contemplate another\u2019s being second, either similar to or unlike him, such as you have created in addition. Should you have somewhere at your disposal a single relevant utterance of Moses, you are entitled to produce it.<\/p>\n
Julian then quotes the Biblical verses upon which the Christians rely, refutes the Christian interpretation, and summarizes, saying: \u201cIt is quite clear that not one of these sayings is appropriate to Jesus; for he is not even from Judah.\u2026\u201d And again, after citing and refuting another verse, he notes:<\/p>\n
If then you try to draw conclusions from these writings, prove them by presenting a single saying from the source from which I have drawn so many. Moses says in Deuteronomy [4:35] that in his eyes God is one God, and there is none else beside Him \u2026\u2019. And again: \u2018Hear, o Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord\u2019 [Deut., 6:4]. And again: \u2018See that I am and there is no God save me\u2019. [Deut., 32:39] Such, then, are the words of Moses when insisting that there is only one God. But they [i.e. the Galilaeans] may respond: \u2018We too do not claim that there are two or three.\u2019 But I will show that they claim this as well, calling for testimony upon John, who says: \u2018In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God\u2019. [John, 1:1] Do you see that the Word is said to be with God?\u2026 How then do these conform to the sayings of Moses?<\/p>\n
After rejecting the Christian reliance on Isaiah 7:14 (\u2018Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son\u2019), Julian adds: \u201cBut now listen to the statements to which I draw your attention from the very same prophets, one after the other: \u2018O Lord our God, have dominion over us, we know no other beside thee,\u2019 And King Hezekiah has been represented by them as praying: \u2018O Lord, God of Israel, who sittest upon the cherubim. Thou art the God, even Thou alone\u2019. [Isaiah 37:16.] Does he leave any room for the second god?\u201d
\nIt is rather interesting to note that an Amora who was a contemporary of Julian uttered negative words about the divinity of Jesus which were linguistically similar to the language used by Julian: \u201cRabbi A\u1e25a said: the Holy One Blessed be He was angry with Solomon when he pronounced this verse. He said unto him: dost thou express a thing which concerns the sanctification of My name by a brief allusion [=notarikon]? \u2018And meddle not with them that are given to change?\u2019 [=shonim, which also means \u201cgiven to seconding\u201d]. Immediately he [i.e. Solomon] explicated the matter once again: \u2018There is one that is alone, and he hath not a second [=sheni]; yea, he hath neither son nor brother.\u2019 [Ecclesiastes, 4:8] He hath neither son nor brother, but \u2018Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.\u2019 \u201d
\nA comparison with Celsus is very instructive as regards the use of Biblical verses. Celsus put into the mouth of \u201chis Jew\u201d the argument that the prophecies applied by the Christians to Jesus could be applied more plausibly to thousands of others. Celsus himself was familiar with the Bible, but preferred to argue against Jesus within the framework of his comparisons of the religious ceremonies and mythologies of the pagan religions with those of Christianity. In his opinion, the mystical ceremonies of Christianity were inferior to the pagan mysteries. By worshipping Jesus, who was apprehended and executed, Celsus said, the Christians behave precisely in the manner of the Getae who adore Zamolxis, the Cilicians who worship Mopsus, the Acarnanians [who revere] Amphilochus,\u201d and so forth. Therefore, he concluded, since the Christians \u201care eager to innovate [kainotom\u00easai], it would have been better for them to direct their energies to some personality who died in a noble way and became legendary.\u201d Celsus then enumerated persons more worthy of this than Jesus, such as Heracles, Asclepius, Epictetus, Daniel and Jonah, among others. A man excellent and appropriate in all respects would have been Orpheus, who was endowed with the holy spirit and who also died a violent death.
\nThe Creation, and the Tower of Babel: Rather than noting everything that Julian has to say on these subjects, we will note only a few points of comparison with his predecessors, in order to show the continuity of the polemic. Julian quoted, with certain omissions, the verses of chapter one of Genesis which describe the creation of the world and of man. The verses are accompanied by interpretation, which stressed their deficiencies by comparison with the lucidity and perfection of Plato\u2019s Timaeus as Julian saw it. As for the Tower of Babel, Julian ridiculed, inter alia, the fact that, in order to confuse the languages, God \u201cdescended from heaven, because He could not, it appears, do it from on high without descending to earth.\u201d He also deduced, from the language of the verse, that in his descent, God had companions whose status was almost equal to his. Concerning this, it is worth noting that Porphyry argued that the angels who serve before God, because they are free of emotions and are incorruptible by nature, are called gods by the pagans, since they are close to him in their divinity.
\nWe have indicated above (p. 27) the connections between the polemical treatises of Eusebius and Julian. Eusebius cited all the above-mentioned verses about the creation of the world and of man, and added explanations drawn mainly, according to his explicit admission, from Philo. Eusebius pointed out that \u201csuch is the theology of the Hebrews,\u201d which is formulated \u201cnot by syllogistic reasoning nor by plausible arguments, but rather in a more dogmatic and didactic manner.\u201d In the course of quoting, Eusebius again and again emphasized the fact that the evidence which he presented and the things he wished to prove were intended to explain why the Christians deserted the traditions of their forefathers and based their theology on the Law of Moses. It is interesting that, in his belittling Biblical cosmogony, Celsus exceeded even Julian.
\nThe Christians borrowed their weapons from Philo and Josephus (see above, pp. 95\u201397). From Philo they drew the technique of allegorical interpretation and viewed it as perfectly reasonable. For example, Eusebius stated in regard to the expression \u201cAnd God said\u201d (Genesis, 1:3 et passim): \u201cIt is not necessary to suppose that He spoke with a voice and syllables.\u201d Clement of Alexandria, when telling the pagans of the chain of events involving Adam and God in Paradise, remarked matter of factly that \u201cthe serpent is an allegory for pleasure.\u201d Origen too asserted without any hesitation: \u201cIf the prophetic utterances speak of God as descending, we take this in a symbolical sense\u201d. This is because the prophets spoke \u201caccording to common usage.\u201d One may compare with this the explanation offered by several Sages: \u201cThe Torah spoke according to the common parlance.\u201d In reply to a general argument of Celsus that Moses, in compiling the story of the Tower of Babel and of the confusion of languages, corrupted the narrative of Homer about the Aloadae, Origen says, relying on the arguments of Josephus in the Contra Apionem, that Moses wrote not only before Homer but even before the invention of the Greek script and that, therefore, one must draw the opposite conclusion.
\nThe Sages were troubled by the possibility that the expressions \u201cLet us make man\u201d (Genesis, 1:26), and \u201cLet us go down and let us there confound their language\u201d (ibid., 11:7), might be interpreted by \u201cheretics\u201d (minim) as evidence for the existence of two or more authorities. The Sages thought that the Septuagint precluded this possibility, and it was therefore praised by them (BT, Megilla, 9a):<\/p>\n
It was taught: it happened that King Ptolemy brought together seventy-two elders \u2026 and told them write down for me the Torah of your master Moses. The Holy One Blessed-be-He instilled advice in the heart of each of them, and they all agreed on one finding and recorded for him \u2026 \u201cI will make man in an image and in a likeness \u2026\u201d \u201clet me go down and let me there confound their language \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Another source puts the question in the mouth of Moses and the answer in the mouth of God. However, this answer is valid for the Christians and the Gnostics, but does not reject the interpretation with which the pagans saddled such utterances. MR Genesis, 8:8 noted:<\/p>\n
R. Shmuel Bar Na\u1e25man in the name of R. Yonathan: when Moses was writing the Torah he set down the events of each day in succession. When he reached the verse stating \u201cAnd God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,\u201d he said unto Him: Lord of the world, why do you provide a point of attack for the \u201cheretics\u201d [minim]?! He said: Record, and whoever wishes to go astray will do so. The Holy One Blessed-be-He said unto him: Moses, this man whom I have created, do I not bring forth from him greater and lesser ones? So that if the greater one will come to ask permission of his inferior, saying: Why do I have to ask permission of my inferior? And they reply to him: Learn from your Creator, Who created the superior and the inferior creatures; when He came to create man, He consulted the ministering angels.<\/p>\n
\u201cA jealous and vindictive God.\u201d In the opening of his treatise De diis et mundo (1:1), Sallust illustrates theological-philosophical opinions accepted by all: \u201cThat every god is good, that he is free of passion (apath\u00eas), that he is unchangeable.\u201d Commenting on this, Gabriel Rochefort, his editor, translator and commentator says: \u201cTo the goodness of god.\u2026 Sallustius joins Stoic apathy, which excludes divine jealousy and passion.\u201d And, indeed, Julian, Porphyry and Celsus do not miss an opportunity to sharply criticize the Christians concerning the passions attributed to God in the Bible, emotions both morally base and theologically flawed in being mentioned at all in this way.
\nWith regard to the altars which King Solomon erected under the influence of his wives, Julian noted: \u201c\u2026 Then if he were misled by a woman, do not call this man wise. But if you believe that he was wise, then do not believe that he was led astray by a woman, but that he worshipped other gods too, as a result of his being convinced by his own judgement and knowledge and by the teaching revealed to him by the god. For envy and jealousy do not even draw near the most virtuous of men; they are all the more remote from angels and gods.\u201d Because of this Julian deplores the second commandment, saying: \u201cBut the commandment \u2018Thou shalt not bow down unto other gods\u2019 is accompanied by a severe libel upon God. \u2018For He is a jealous God,\u2019 he says [Exodus, 20:5], and in another place again, \u2018Our God is a devouring fire\u2019 [Deuteronomy, 4:24]. If then, a jealous and ill-willed man seems to you worthy of reproach, do you turn this quality into a divine one if God is said to be jealous?\u201d
\nJulian was especially angry about the \u201cact of Phine\u1e25as\u201d and its implications. His words expressed the spirit of tolerance characteristic of polytheism:<\/p>\n
Nowhere does God appear to be angry, resentful, or furious,.\u2026 as Moses declares to have happened in the case of Phine\u1e25as. If any of you has read the Book of Numbers, he is aware of what I mean. When Phine\u1e25as had seized in his own hands and killed the man who had joined himself unto Baalpeor, together with the woman who had persuaded him to do so, striking the woman with a shameful and extremely painful wound through her womb, as Moses tells us, God is made to say: \u201cPhine\u1e25as, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned My wrath away from the Children of Israel, in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in My jealousy\u201d [Numbers, 25:11]. What more trivial reason could there be for God to have been wrongly presented as raging with fury by the author of this passage? What might be more unreasonable than that ten or fifteen people, or even one hundred, for surely they would not state that there were a thousand, nonetheless, let us concede that that many persons presumed to violate one of the laws fixed by God; was it necessary that because of this thousand, six hundred thousand should be utterly exterminated? In my opinion, it would be better in every way to preserve one wicked man along with a thousand most excellent men than to exterminate the thousand together with that one.\u2026 But note too from the following how our teachings are far superior to theirs. The philosophers exhort us to imitate the gods as much as we can, saying this imitation is achieved by contemplating realities. That this thing is remote from passion and is based on freedom from passion [ =apatheia], is, I suppose, obvious, even without my noting it. In as much then as we become free from passion, having assigned ourselves to contemplating realities, to that extent do we become like God. But what kind of imitation of God is panegyrized among the Hebrews? Fury and wrath and savage jealousy. For He says: \u201cPhine\u1e25as hath turned away My wrath from the Children of Israel, in that he was jealous with My jealously among them.\u201d For it seems that God, on finding one who shared his resentment and grief, put away his resentment. Moses is made to utter these and similar words about God not infrequently in Scripture.<\/p>\n
Porphyry argues that an attitude of respect towards the gods of the pagans is expressed in the Torah, in the text \u201cThou shalt not revile gods.\u201d Therefore Porphyry concludes that the Christians \u201care very much mistaken when they believe that God is angered if someone else is called god and thereby acquires His appellation, whereas even rulers do not begrudge their subjects\u2019, or masters their slaves\u2019, having the same name; it is, then, forbidden [ou themiton] as regards religion to suppose that God is more petty-minded than men.\u201d
\nCelsus too decries such attitudes, declaring: \u201cThe Jews and Christians attribute human passions to God, holding impious opinions about him when they ascribe anger and threats to him; they go astray when presenting their narratives concerning Him.\u201d
\nThere is no need to demonstrate that the \u201cconventions\u201d about the gods\u2019 freedom from passion were valid in the eyes of the Christians. We will note only that even apologists like Aristides and Athenagoras reproved the Greek writers for ascribing such human traits to the gods. For this reason, they also explicated scriptural statements about the anger and jealousy of God by saying that their language had been adapted to man\u2019s limited comprehension.
\nThe Jewish Sages were not particularly sensitive to philosophical assumptions. Although it was asserted that the deed of Phine\u1e25as was performed \u201cnot according to the wishes of the Sages,\u201d the dissatisfaction of the Sages did not stem from the causes reproved by Julian. Even in the disputes of Rabban Gamaliel with a \u201cphilosophos\u201d and with \u201cAgrippas the military commander,\u201d the problem of God\u2019s jealousy was not the subject, but rather the difficulty which rises from the assumption of God\u2019s jealousy on the one hand and of His forgiveness of idolatry on the other. For we read there:<\/p>\n
A philosophos asked Rabban Gamaliel: it is written in your Torah \u201cFor the Lord thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God\u201d [Deuteronomy, 4:24]; why then is He jealous of its worshippers and not jealous of it [idolatry]?\u2026 He said unto them: if they were worshipping something of which the world was in no need, He would eliminate it; but they worship the sun and the moon and the stars and the constellations, the beds of rivers and the valleys: shall He destroy his world because of fools?<\/p>\n
But the matter cannot not be dismissed so readily. Even in the Sages\u2019 circles, there were some who found it inappropriate to ascribe such traits to God:<\/p>\n
Rabbi [i.e. R. Yehuda the Patriarch] and R. Yonathan say: a mortal is overcome by fury, but The Holy One Blessed be He subdues wrath, for it is written [Nahum, 1:2] \u201cThe Lord avengeth and dominates wrath\u201d [ = baal \u1e25eima, literally, \u201cfull of wrath,\u201d \u201cpossessor of wrath\u201d]. R. Yonathan says: a mortal is subdued by jealousy but The Holy One Blessed be He subdues jealousy, for it is written [ibid.]: \u201cGod is the lord (master) of jealousy and vengeance.\u201d [Literally= \u201cThe Lord is a jealous and avenging God.\u201d]<\/p>\n
Our final example is one in which there is no negative criticism of the Bible but, on the contrary, a positive interpretation wherein Julian joined forces with Judaism against Christianity. Julian exerts himself to minimize the differences between the Jews and the pagans with regard to sacrifices, and to emphasize the separatist and isolated position of the Christians. Contra Galilaeos, 306A\u2013B reads: \u201cBut why do you not perform sacrifices, since you have come up with the new sacrifice and are in no need of Jerusalem? Still it was unnecessary for me to say this to you, since I said it at the outset, when I wished to demonstrate that the Jews concur with the Gentiles, in all except their belief in one, sole, God. For this is, indeed, uniquely theirs, and foreign to us; however, the other things are somehow common to us all: temples, precincts, altars, purifications, and some injunctions. In these matters we differ from each other either not at all or very little.\u201d Julian links Abraham and astrology together, on the same subject, saying:<\/p>\n
And yet, by the gods, I am one of those who decline to celebrate their festivals with the Jews, but I nonetheless always honour the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They themselves, being Chaldaeans, of a sacred race and skilled in theurgy, had learned the custom of circumcision when they dwelled as strangers among the Egyptians. They worshipped a God who was well-disposed towards me and towards those who worshipped him in the manner of Abraham, and he is very great and powerful, but he has no connection with you whatsoever. For you do not copy Abraham by building altars to him, or by raising altars for offerings and worshipping him as did Abraham, by means of sacrifices. Abraham was accustomed to sacrifice even as do we Hellenes, always and uninterruptedly. In addition, he made use of divination through the shooting stars. This too, perhaps, is a Hellenic custom.\u2026 And if any of you disbelieves this, the very words of Moses will prove it clearly: \u201cAfter these things the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a night-time vision, saying: \u2018Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield, thy reward shall be exceeding great.\u2019 And Abraham said: \u2018O Lord, what wilt thou give me? For I go hence childless, and the son of Masek, my household slave-woman, will be my heir.\u2019 And at once the voice of God came unto him saying: \u2018This man shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth from thee shall be thine heir.\u2019 And He brought him forth abroad and said unto him: \u2018Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to count them.\u2019 And He said: \u2018So shall thy seed be.\u2019 And Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness.\u201d Tell me now why did the one called angel or God bring him outside and point out the stars to him? For while still inside was he ignorant of how great is the multitude of the stars which always shine and are visible at night? But I think it was because he wished to show him the shooting stars, in order to provide the confirming vote of the heavens that accomplishes and sanctions all things as a palpable pledge of his words. (354A\u2013357A.)<\/p>\n
Isaac Heinemann considers the Midrashim of the verse \u201cAnd He brought him forth abroad\u201d as examples of the exposition of words. He points out that, because of the term \u201cChaldaeans\u201d (Hebrew=Casdim), which designated astrologers, Philo\u2019s exposition of this verse was similar to that of the Sages. But a comparison of the Sages\u2019 exposition with the \u201cmidrash\u201d of Julian leads me to think that the phrases of the Talmud are not only expository, but also contain reservations about, or even a rejection of, the interpretation applied by the pagans to this verse. Here are the Talmudic expositions:<\/p>\n
For Rav Judah said in Rav\u2019s name: whence do we know that Israel is not dependent on nativity [= mazal, a zodiac sign]? For it is written: \u201cAnd He brought him forth abroad.\u201d Abraham said to the Holy One Blessed be He: Master of the world, one born in my house is to be mine heir. He [God] said unto him: No, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels. He aid unto Him: Master of the world, I looked at my constellation [I\u1e93tagninuth], and I am not worthy to beget a son. He [God] said unto him: Get out of your astrological speculations [=I\u1e93tagninuth], for Israel is not influenced by the planets [=mazal]. (BT Shabbath, 156a.)<\/p>\n
And in another place (MR Genesis, 44:12=Theodor-Albeck, p. 432): \u201c \u2018And He brought him forth abroad.\u2019 R. Joshua in the name of R. Levi: did he bring him forth outside the world, as Scripture said, \u2018And He brought him forth abroad\u2019? (No), but He showed him the streets of heaven.\u2026 The Rabbis said: you are a prophet and not an astrologer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chapter Three<\/p>\n
DIVINE PROVIDENCE, THE DAEMONS, AND THE ELECTION OF ISRAEL<\/p>\n
In the following pages we will try to understand the attitudes of the Jews, the Christians, and the pagans concerning divine providence. This seems to me useful for three reasons: 1) it is instructive in itself, showing us how the very existence of the inter-religious polemic forced the parties to adopt certain positions on theological-philosophical problems; 2) it provides vital background information for our discussion of other central motifs of the polemic, namely, the daemons and the election of Israel, and culture and enslavement; 3) as additional evidence of the place occupied by, and the importance of, the Jews vis-\u00e0-vis the combatants; in this case, specifically, the importance of the writings of Hellenistic Jewry for the Church Fathers.
\nAs we came to realize in our discussion of \u201cThe Recognition of God, Revelation, and Religious Myth,\u201d there existed at the outset an ostensible agreement on principles among the parties, but this agreement turned into disagreement when more detailed problems came to be considered. The same is true of the question of providence. As we shall see further on, not only was there a unanimity of belief but also, here and there, we can see that the polemic forced on the contending parties a position which did not always reflect their true opinions. We refer to the question about the nature of providence: does it mean that God actually intervenes in the daily running of the world, and does His action in favour of one side and against another sometimes exceed the laws of nature or even contradict them, or is providence perhaps no more than a spiritual relationship between God and the individual?
\nThe Bible, as is well known, followed the former, simple concept and endeavoured to show that the history of man confirms its validity. While the parties to the polemic did not emphasize this fact, they did nonetheless believe in a general and all-encompassing providence, which was realized by means of the forces of nature. Only occasionally do we find the view expressed that divine providence is as described in Psalms 73:28: \u201cBut as for me, the nearness of God is my good;.\u2026\u201d
\nOpinion is not uniform concerning the daemons or their status with respect to God and men, good and bad daemons, angels, or the divine logos. Jewish sacred writings and the works of Hellenistic Jewry served as foundations for Christian attitudes and influenced those of the pagans as well. The very existence of the Jews and their claim to election by God were of utmost importance. As we shall see, the changes which the polemic underwent readily explain the changed attitude of the pagans to this claim, as well as the nature of the Christian argument concerning it.
\nIn the opening of his article, \u201cStudies in the Concepts of the Sages on Providence,\u201d Ephraim E. Urbach indicates that his discussion will revolve around the opinions of the Sages on the problems of providence, fate and free will. Concerning providence, he notes that it is twofold; one of its aspects relates to \u201cleading the world, ruling over nature, and providing for the needs of all creatures \u2026\u201d while its other aspect is the \u201cobservation of the ways and deeds of men.\u2026\u201d Urbach then discusses the relation between the concern for the needs of all creatures and the supervision of their deeds, in addition to the question of fate and free will. Fate and free will were not dealt with in the polemic. For us, it is important that the concept of God\u2019s concern for all the creatures of His world was common to the Sages, the Christians and the pagans alike (as will become clear below). We also learn that the worst aspect of heresy did not find its expression in a denial of the existence of God, but rather in the assertion that \u201cthere is no judgement and no judge,\u201d that is, in the view that God does not supervise what goes on in his world.
\nPhilo presented a number of different answers to this question. They stem, apparently, from the character and aim of each individual treatise. His work on the Creation, De opificio mundi, stressed the general providence of the Creator in the cosmos which was His creation. Near the beginning of this treatise (par. nine), Philo stated that \u201cthose who assert that this world is not a creation unknowingly undermine that which, of all inducements to piety, is the most beneficial and the most essential, namely providence\u201d (=pronoia). At the end of the treatise (pars.171\u2013172), Philo expressed the final conclusions to be drawn from his arguments: \u201cFifthly: God also exercises providence [pronoei] over the world [cosmos]. For that the creator should always tend the thing created is required by the laws and decrees of Nature, and it is in accordance with these that parents tend their children.\u201d This assumption, that the world is not managed by nature (physis) in a mechanical way but rather by the providence of God, which establishes law and order in it, is the accepted opinion of all followers of religion and tradition, regardless of the extent of their belief. A greater difficulty was presented by the question of whether it be tych\u00ea, blind fortune, that governs the destinies of nations and individuals, or pronoia, providence, that controls their lives, rewards the worthy and punishes the sinners.
\nIn his pre-eminently apologetic-polemical treatises, Philo declared without hesitation that the Jewish people does indeed enjoy God\u2019s providence, which rescues it from all who conspire against it, and which wreaks vengeance on its enemies and those who do it evil. In the beginning of his Legatio ad Gaium Philo declared that if someone did not believe that the Deity takes thought (=pronoein) concerning men, the present case and its circumstances would remove all his doubts (par. three). And, in summarizing the considerations and apprehensions of the members of the embassy, he said: \u201cBut let our souls preserve an indestructible hope in God the Saviour, who has often saved the nation [i.e. Israel] when it was in helpless straits.\u201d (par. 196). Philo perceived the hand of God in the fact that the emperor Gaius Caligula did not dispatch a statue from Rome and did not even order the governor Petronius to choose the best of those available in Syria and erect it in the Temple in Jerusalem, thus providing Petronius with additional time. This was expressed by Philo as follows: \u201cIn my view, [this occurred] through the providence [pronoia] of God who, unseen by us, stretched forth his hand to protect the wronged.\u2026\u201d (par. 220). When Caligula cancelled his order that his statue be set up in the Temple, he commanded that, if the Jews were to act against the gentiles in Judaea who would accord him divine honours, they should be severely punished. According to Philo, such a disastrous provocation did not occur, \u201cby virtue of a dispensation of the providence [pronoia] and vigilant care of God, who watches and rules over all things with justice.\u201d (Par. 336). We can, of course question his statement and ask: if this be so, why did God not prevent the people of Yavneh from provoking the Jews in the first place, and thereby prevent the entire affair and the trouble it caused? The same is true of the people of Alexandria: where was the preventive providence of the God of Israel then? But this proves yet again that no man should be held to account for what he says in the heat of a polemic.
\nA similar trend of thought informed his treatise, In Flaccum. God, who in His concern for human affairs, was filled with compassion for His people and therefore undid the plans of Flaccus (ibid., par. 102). Then justice (dik\u00ea), the defender and avenger of the wronged, came into action against Flaccus (par. 104). Proof that the downfall of Flaccus was caused by his treatment of the Jews is to be found, argued Philo, in the fact that it occurred at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles (par. 116). When the Jews became aware that Flaccus was doomed, they stretched their hands out to heaven and sang hymns to God, who watches over (ephoros) human affairs, saying: \u201cWe do not rejoice, O master, at the punishment of an enemy, for we have been taught by the sacred laws to sympathize with human beings. However, we justly give praise to Thee because Thou hast pity and compassion on us.\u2026\u201d (Par. 121). Even Flaccus himself, in his place of exile, cried out, saying: \u201cKing of gods and men, it is clear Thou dost not ignore the nation of the Jews, nor are they deceived as far as Thy providence [pronoia] is concerned \u2026 I am a clear demonstration of this, for I myself have suffered inasmuch as I acted insanely against the Jews.\u201d (Par. 170). In his introduction to this treatise, after citing the words in which Philo asserted that the Jews did not rejoice at the punishment of their foe because the Torah taught them to sympathize with human beings (par. 121), Colson deplores the \u201cvindictiveness\u201d revealed by Philo as he \u201cgloats over the misery of Flaccus in his fall.\u2026\u201d Colson goes so far as to declare that this treatise \u201cis the only one which those who admire the beauty and spirituality so often shown both in the Commentary and Exposition might well wish to have been left unwritten.\u201d This strong criticism lends force to my hypothesis that the demands of the polemic influenced the feelings and attitudes of men of even such character and ethical stature as Philo. At the same time it makes conspicuous the difference which exists in Philo\u2019s words on providence in his treatise bearing that name.
\nIn his Praeparatio Evangelica, Eusebius quoted at length from Philo\u2019s treatise, De providentia. The quotations give quite a good picture of Philo\u2019s views and arguments on this subject, and clarify the differences between his statements here and his assertions in the In Flaccum and the Legatio ad Gaium treatises. Colson thinks that this work probably dates from \u201can earlier stage in Philo\u2019s spiritual life, when his mind was more occupied with Greek philosophy and he had not yet settled down to his great task of interpreting the Pentateuch in the light of that philosophy.\u201d I would add that apparently in this period, Philo was not yet absorbed in politics and apologetics. Philo\u2019s adversary in the conversation here recorded, probably his nephew Tiberius Iulius Alexander, opened with the usual argument that it is clear from life that the wicked enjoy all material and physical benefits, such as wealth, health, reputation, and honour, while the righteous are degraded and impoverished. These facts do not accord with assumptions concerning the existence of divine providence in the world. In his reply, Philo declared that the governorship of God together with His care are bestowed on the universe, in the same way that parents care for their offspring and a king for his kingdom (par. three). But later Philo presented a different argument, encompassing a different concept of providence: anyone who would exert his soul and recognize that which is truly good, will value at naught all worldly goods and benefits. \u201cAnd why should it puzzle us that God does not accept them as good things? For even godly men, who honour things truly good and seemly, do not accept them as good things \u2026\u201d (pars, nine, ten, sixteen). The fact that the good things of this world are not valued by God and by those who knew God or the Supreme Good does not confirm the existence of a divine providence in its usual sense, rather, this argument excludes the life of this world and its benefits from the things considered to be worthy of providential intervention. As a result, Philo states, no man should expect or search for God\u2019s providence in the sphere of daily life. When discussing concrete historical cases, Philo put tragic examples into the mouth of his adversary, such as that of the tyrants Polycrates and Dionysius, and so was able to assert that, in the end, the wicked receive their due punishment from God (par. forty-two); on the other hand, the wicked, as stated in the Bible, serve as the agents of punishment of God, who also vents His anger on the human race through famine, pestilence, earthquakes and other such evils sent from heaven. The purpose of all these is to cleanse the earth of moral corruption which has spread over it (par. forty-one). Another explanation of those natural disasters is that they do not derive from God, in fact, but are rather sequels of the primary works of nature and its elements (par. fifty-three). Philo stressed that providence embraces the whole of the human race and of the universe. The changes of the seasons were designed for the benefit of all mankind, and therefore it is of no moment if here and there an unseasonable sea voyager or tiller of the soil be harmed (ibid., par. forty-four). In short, even if some innocent people are hurt, the blame should not be ascribed to the governorship of the world. Philo varied the answers offered by him in paragraphs nine, ten and sixteen by noting that those who are considered to be good by us might not be good according to the standards of God, who can comprehend man\u2019s innermost thoughts, and that providence is directed to the universe as a whole and not to individuals (par. fifty-four). Philo ended his treatise by expressing the hope that his words might implant in the hearts of men the belief that God does take care of human affairs (par. seventy-two). We will turn later to the position of Eusebius. We will only note here that Eusebius found in the words of Philo strong support for his position on this difficult question, since Philo stressed his belief in the existence of God\u2019s beneficient care of the universe and of its inhabitants, and since Philo served Eusebius as a kind of representative of Christianity, in opposition to the various pagan philosophers. The way in which Philo eased the acuteness of the problem, as we showed above, as well as his declaration of his \u201ccredo,\u201d were very convenient for Eusebius and that is why he adopted them, even though they were insufficient to counter the arguments of the pagans who applied this assumption accepted by all to human history, and drew their polemical inferences from it. (This will be discussed in the next chapter).
\nBy comparison with the subtle tones of Philo\u2019s concept, Josephus presented a monolithic position, because he was a man of action and did not trouble himself much with philosophical speculation for its own sake, and principally because his words were designed to face prospective criticism by the pagan public, and to produce a desired impression upon it. Here are three examples illustrating the views of Josephus.
\n1) At the end of his De bello Iudaico, Josephus told of the plottings of Catullus, the governor of Libya, against local, wealthy Jews. As an excuse for his persecutions, he concocted false charges against the wealthy Jews with the help of Jewish Sicarii, who had fled thither. Therefore, Josephus said, he was afflicted by illness and died, his death being clear evidence of divine providence (pronoia), which forces the wicked to pay for their misdeeds.
\n2) In his Antiquitates, when dealing with the fate of Archelaus and of his house, Josephus summarized his views in the following words: \u201cI do not consider such stories alien to this work \u2026 and especially because they provide examples \u2026 of the way in which God\u2019s providence [prom\u00eateia] embraces human affairs; that is why I considered it appropriate to relate them.\u201d (17:354).
\n3) Elsewhere in the Antiquitates, Josephus added explicit polemical statements against the Epicureans. He relied for this purpose on the book of Daniel, from the fulfillment of whose prophecy we learn, in Josephus\u2019s opinion,<\/p>\n
how mistaken are the Epicureans, who exclude providence [pronoia] from human life and do not expect God to control their affairs \u2026 but say that the universe is carried forward by its own movement, free of the charioteer and the keeper.\u2026 It then seems to me, in view of the things foretold by Daniel, that those who declare that God takes no thought [pronoia] for human affairs are very far from the correct view. For if such were the case, that the universe goes on of its own impetus, we should not have seen all these things happen in accordance with his prophecy \u2026 Now I have written about these matters as I have found and read them; if, however, anyone wishes to hold a different opinion of them, let him do so without reproach about his heterodoxy.<\/p>\n
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Let us now examine some Christian examples. The treatise of Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, is clearly missionary in its name and content; almost every page of it presents a rousing appeal to the pagans to leave their gods behind and join the Christian church. Clement expressed his admiration of men like Euhemerus, Diagoras and others, who were called \u201catheists\u201d by the pagans. In his opinion, although those men were not aware of the truth itself, they nonetheless sensed the error inherent in the worship of the gods, and this was an important step towards the discovery of the truth. In his detailed survey of the philosophers and their doctrines, Clement asserted that the early philosophers were \u201catheists\u201d because they attributed divinity to matter. He was, of course, not satisfied with other philosophical schools either, but this did not prevent him from discussing their doctrines. \u201cOnly Epicurus will I willingly remove from consideration here, for he, in all his impious sayings, considers that God does not care at all [for the world.].\u201d
\nIn the introduction (above, p. 22), we cited in another connection the words of Caecilius the pagan (from the treatise of Minucius Felix, Octavius); they express doubt as to the existence of a providence affecting individuals and natural occurrences (Octavius, 5:8\u201313). It was difficult for Caecilius to perceive and understand such a providence. The reply of Octavius the Christian was, however, unequivocal: there is a recognizable, directing hand which keeps law and order in all of creation (Octavius, 17\u201318).
\nWe have already dealt at length, in the introduction, with the problem of Celsus\u2019s alleged epicureanism and of the polemical character borne by this accusation made by Origen. Here I would like to indicate one place in which Origen presented a view of providence which was essentially different from his usual one and even contradicted it. In chapter thirty-eight of book eight, Origen raised the question which emerges from the fact that writers, who were \u201cin every way atheists, and who negated providence [pronoia], and who had created wicked and impious philosophical theories, did nonetheless neither suffer any harm whatsoever themselves nor bring any upon their followers. Rather, they earned wealth and enjoyed good physical health.\u201d Origen solved the problem by asserting that, on the contrary, they really did come to harm, \u201cfor what greater harm and misery might there be than failing to recognize the Creator from the order of His universe?\u201d Origen generally stressed the palpable influence of providence on human life throughout history. For example, he viewed the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple as a punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus; he saw the resistance of Christianity to persecution and its increase in strength and numbers as evidence of a benevolent and succouring providence. But here, Origen found it convenient to escape the difficult position into which the arguments of Celsus had forced him by rejecting the popular, accepted concept of the nature of providence. It goes without saying that, if one assumes that the only harm that will befall the impious is that they will be as \u201cThe people that walked in darkness\u201d (Isaiah, 9:1), then the central part of the theological edifice built by the Church, based on a connection between the attitude of the Jews towards Jesus and his execution, and the disaster which overtook them a generation later, would come crashing down of its own weight.
\nA little earlier we tried to show what is unique to Philo\u2019s treatise, De providentia, and we mentioned the reasons that Eusebius quoted from it so freely. Eusebius probably used Philo also when he rejected Porphyry\u2019s words, in the De philosophia ex oraculis, according to which magic was given to men by the gods in order that men might be able with its help to overcome the power of fate (heimarmen\u00ea). Eusebius could by no means agree that \u201cfate\u201d or \u201cnecessity\u201d was able to eliminate free will and men\u2019s power of choice: if indeed everything were to depend on the stars and the constellations, then there would be no point in piety, philosophy or a life devoted to an unceasing spiritual effort (ask\u00easis). In the last book of his Praeparatio Evangelica (15, 5:7\u201310), Eusebius assailed the Peripatetic school by means of quotations from Herodes Atticus, and claimed that, with regard to the question of providence, there was no difference at all between them and the Epicureans. From our point of view, Eusebius said, it makes no difference whether the divinity be removed from the world and we have no contact with it, or the gods be present in the world but wash their hands of what is going on on earth. In either case, interest and care on the part of the gods for man is lacking, and wrongdoers are free from a deterrent fear of the gods. Even according to Epicurus we derive benefits from the presence of the gods in heaven, as do the animals and the inanimate. But this cannot be classed as providence, nor is it decisive. \u201cFor we seek a providence [pronoia] that has an interest in us,\u201d as Atticus put it. In his Historia Ecclesiastica (8, 16:1\u20133), Eusebius used language similar to that of Josephus concerning Catullus, the governor of Libya, above, p. 139. The persecutions came to an end in the tenth year; there had already been a relaxation of persecution in the eigth year. Moreover, not only did the Christians enjoy the grace of God, but their persecutors (i.e. Galerius and Licinius) even changed their minds in a most paradoxical manner. This was not caused by human agency, pity, or humanity (on the part) of the rulers, \u201cbut it was due to a visible manifestation of the Divine Providence [pronoia] itself\u201d which, apart from ameliorating the condition of the Christians, also afflicted and punished the perpetrator of these evils bodily and mentally.
\nThe attitude of Arnobius is also typical of the general atmosphere of his time. At the very beginning of his treatise, he stressed that at that time there was no place for any philosophical discussion with those who denied the existence of a divine power or who thought that chance rules the world; there was no greater foolishness than to argue against such stupidities. Arnobius had no satisfactory solution for the problem of the existence of evil in the world. For if we say, he declared, that everything is brought about by God\u2019s will, then evil is also included thereby, whereas if we argue that evil does not originate from God and is produced without His knowledge, this will constitute an even greater disgrace to Him, for this assumes that God is ignorant of what happens in the world (Adversus nationes, 2:54). The solution which denies the existence of evil in the world was rejected immediately by Arnobius as being in contradiction of reality. Arnobius was in difficulty there, and he tried to argue that there was no need at all to answer this question (ibid., 2:55). The fact is that this problem badly needed solution, but Arnobius was unable to resolve the above-noted contradiction without turning Evil into an autonomous power independent of God, and thereby falling into dualism. Since Arnobius did not wish such a result, he contended himself with the unproved statement \u201cthat nothing proceeds from God Supreme which is noxious and pernicious. This we hold, this we know, on this one truth of cognizance and science we take our stand.\u201d
\nTwo questions connected with providence were put to Arnobius by his anonymous pagan opponent. In the first instance, he asked why Jesus, the redeemer of humanity, was sent so late, and why former generations were abandoned to their bitter fate (2:63), and also queried why Jesus did not turn the hearts of men toward belief in him so they might be saved, if his power and compassion were indeed so great and if all he strove for was to save mankind from perdition (2:64\u201365). This question, in both its aspects, was formulated by Julian in similar language.
\nArnobius then replied that we are unable to know what became of the souls of former generations; that Christ\u2019s generosity toward all is revealed in his call which was addressed to all without discrimination, distinction of origin or of status; and, finally, that the imposition of belief is an unjust act and in contradiction to divine grace.
\nThe second question put narrowed the scope to the specifically Christian field. \u201cIf indeed,\u201d the pagan asked, \u201cyou worship the Almighty God, and are confident that He is concerned with your safety and salvation, why does He suffer you to undergo persecutions and punishments of all kinds\u201d (2:76)? Arnobius replied first with a counter-question: why do the gods not avert misfortunes and calamities such as diseases, shipwrecks, conflagrations and other natural mishaps from you, as well as wars and their outcome? Arnobius thereby endeavoured to compare two unequal and dissimilar things: regular occurrences in the lives of nations and individuals, with religious persecutions directed specifically against the Christians because of their belief in their God and in His power to save them. It seems that Arnobius too sensed the weakness of his comparison, for he was quick to offer other replies while summarizing his first answer-question. He says: \u201cBut, in such mishaps we too are in no way helped by God. The reason is ready and manifest: for no hope has been held out to us with respect to this life.\u2026\u201d Arnobius then noted that the Christians had been taught to bear lightly the troubles which befell them, and did not fear even death, since by it they would be released from the fetters of the body.
\nWe have already met such explanations, whose common feature is that they seek to divert attention from the essence of an insoluble problem: how can one explain the fact that God\u2019s directing and supervising eye is recognizable only occasionally, whereas in most cases it seems that the world moves along without the involvement of providence? It would seem that, since we have to deal with believers for whom the existence of providence is an essential and primary principle of faith, answers are suggested which only in effect dispense with providence or with its being necessary for men in this world, in order not to deviate from the belief in providence held by them.<\/p>\n
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In the Introduction (above pp. 20\u201322), we endeavoured to reveal the nature of the pagan, Caecilius, who appears in the work of Minucius Felix, through a comparison between him and Cotta the Sceptic, who appears in Cicero\u2019s De natura deorum. We saw that both found it difficult to accept the idea of providence affecting individuals. Here we may add that Velleius the Epicurean ridiculed the demiurge-god of Plato in the Timaeus and the \u201cprophetic old woman of the Stoics called Pronoea\u201d (De natura deorum, 2,29:73). Balbus the Stoic argued against him that \u201cthe world and all the things which are in it were created for the sake of the gods and of men\u201d (ibid., 2,53:153). Then he asserted that \u201cthe gods care for the great things and neglect the small,\u201d but added immediately that \u201cfor great men all things always came out favourably\u201d (2,66:167). This last utterance exposed him to the criticism of Cotta who, in order to refute it, adduced famous historical examples which prove the contrary (see his words which I quoted above in the Introduction).
\nIn his treatise, Contra Christianos, Porphyry raised the question of the generations which preceded God\u2019s revelation: Why did God not care for their good and for the salvation of their souls? \u201cAnd let them not tell me,\u201d Porphyry hastened to add, \u201cthat the human race was taken care of by the ancient Jewish Law,\u201d since it was given to Moses very late in time and was restricted to the knowledge of the dwellers within the bounds of Syria; whereas the nations of the West did not know Moses and, because of their ignorance, were unable to observe the laws and injunctions of God. In addition, a long time passed after Moses and before the appearance of Jesus: why could he not time his arrival before innumerable multitudes were lost in their ignorance? This \u201ccomplaint\u201d was presented, as we noted earlier, by Arnobius in the name of the pagans; it was probably taken from Porphyry by Julian. In his Epistula ad Anebonem, Porphyry seems to have mentioned the age-old problem of why \u201cthe righteous suffer and the wicked prosper.\u201d His pupil Iamblichus attempted to deal with it, adding, as he did with regard to sacrifices, new answers to the usual ones. He suggested that the soul of those who suffer for no apparent reason might have sinned in its former incarnations, and was now brought to judgement; furthermore, many evil deeds are manifest to the gods but not observed by men, since men and gods have different ways of judging right and wrong. For the sake of argument, Iamblichus was prepared to admit that, in everyday life, wrongs are perpetrated. But this does not mean, Iamblichus objected, that the gods are to be blamed for such wrongdoing, for they, because of their goodness, are solely a source of good. Even if we seek the cause of evil and fail to find it, we should not put aside our true and clear recognition concerning the gods merely because of things whose very occurrence and manner of occurrence are controversial.
\nIn the writings of Julian, which are imbued with reverence for the divine, the place of supreme providence is, naturally, not ignored. His first oration in honour of Constantius includes an impassioned address to providence as well as a personification: \u201cO beneficent Providence!\u201d (40B). He ends his letters frequently (see, for example, his letter to Priscus) with a prayer to providence: \u201cMay divine providence keep you in health for many seasons.\u201d Helios, Julian said elsewhere, takes care of all of mankind, and especially of his city, Rome. Providence embraces not only nations and states, but also individuals as for example Julian himself. This he noted in his letter to Priscus from Gaul: through the providence of Helios-Mithras, Julian declared, he was cured of a severe illness, from which he was now recuperating. Julian seems to allude to this event again in the Contra Galilaeos (253B\u2013C): \u201cAsclepius cures our bodies.\u2026 Asclepius has healed me many times when I have been ill, by prescribing medicines.\u201d In his \u201cpastoral letter,\u201d Julian discussed the argument that the destruction of the statues and temples of the gods, which was accompanied by no immediate action against the perpetrators of the sacrilege, testifies to the lack of providence on the part of the gods. He noted that good and righteous men, such as Socrates, were put to death by the mob without being rescued by the gods, but added \u201cI know well that the gods cared for them more than for the temples.\u201d However, statues and buildings and the bodies of men are destructible; therefore, the gods left them to succumb to the dictates of nature, while the perpetrators of these deeds were punished thereafter. This has happened in our times as well, to all temple desecrators. We must conclude, therefore, he adds, that we should not allow ourselves to be misled by those who wish to confuse us and to undermine our faith in divine providence.
\nIn contrast with these expressions which appear in treatises closely connected with the polemic, in which Julian discussed and defended the commonly-held concept of providence, completely different attitudes were expressed by Julian in the treatise he wrote when he parted from his friend Sallust. Even though this treatise was, most probably, intended for a wider audience and Julian had to consider the impressions and reactions of his readers, he could nonetheless permit himself to express in it his innermost feelings and a deeper, more philosophical concept of providence because of its ultimately personal character. This philosophical concept was more in keeping with Julian\u2019s character, which was embued with deep religious sensitivity and a directness of approach to the higher powers resulting from his participation in the various mysteries, than the views forced on him by the demands of the polemic. It is unreasonable, Julian argued, that a man who entrusts himself to the hands of god should be neglected and left to himself; on the contrary, the god helps and supports him, and makes him aware of the things he should not do, as we learn from the cases of Socrates (the famous daemon) and of Achilles. How is this carried out? Julian said that the means of communication is the thinking-power (nous) of man. Through it man comes into contact with the god, and gains knowledge of what is necessary. Since speech, or the action of any other sense, is unnecessary for this, the god is always with us, directing our thoughts. This providence\u2014if I have understood Julian\u2019s words correctly\u2014is nothing but some sort of reflected light, created as a result of the concentration of all our thoughts and innermost feelings on the god, of setting the god always before our eyes. It is quite clear that such a concept of providence is wholly and essentially different from the other one put forward by Julian, according to which the god actually interferes in the history of nations as well as affects the physical condition of individuals.
\nThe treatise De diis et mundo of Sallust, Julian\u2019s close friend, was designed as a guide to polytheistic beliefs for the average pagan. Since the problem of providence is a theological one, Sallust had to discuss it. In the light of what we have seen in other polemicists\u2019 work, we might have expected him to deny Epicurean doctrine. Sallust declared: \u201cThe providence of the gods reaches everywhere.\u201d A more detailed explanation is found in the first paragraphs of his ninth chapter: the existence of divine providence emerges from the order in the cosmos, which could not exist without an ordering power. The existence of providence is also proved by the exemplary appropriateness of the organs of the human body. If this be the case with regard to relatively small things, then how much the more so would it be in great things. The oracles and the temples which serve as places of healing are also the fruit of beneficent divine providence in the world. But we must not suppose that this care causes the gods any effort; it is granted to the world by the mere existence of the gods, just as the sun gives light and warms us by its very existence. In this way, Sallust said, the questions posed by the Epicureans find their solution, since there is no need to assume that providence causes the gods any trouble. As to providence with regard to bodies and souls, Sallust accepted astrological doctrines, saying: \u201cReason shows that human affairs and especially men\u2019s physical nature are ordered not only by gods but by divine bodies [i.e. stars], and therefore sickness and health, good fortune and bad, come according to our merits from that source.\u2026\u201d (Ibid., 9:4.)
\n(The opinions of Spinoza have no direct bearing on our subject, but as they may perhaps clarify the central issues of the polemic, I will quote some of them in the notes.)<\/p>\n
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In tracing the attitudes of Jews, Christians, and pagans to the question of Providence, we discovered that there were no essential differences of opinion among them. Moreover, we found out that if there were some who cherished in their hearts a different concept, the polemic forced them to conceal their unusual opinions and to emphasize the commonly accepted views. But theories are one thing, and their practical implementation another. When the pagans and Christians came to translate their general declarations into practice, sharp contradictions between them appeared. For the being and attributes of the god as conceived by philosophy and adopted by theology made it very difficult to define the relations and bonds between the god and the world and its creatures. They brought about the creation of mediating powers: the logos, the angels, and the daemons. The character and nature of these powers, as well as attitudes towards them, were shaped within each party in accordance with its religious traditions and under the influence of its opponents. In this area, a conflict between the pagans and the Christians was inevitable and, as we shall see further on, the Jews played an important role here not only through their holy scriptures and Hellenistic Jewish literature, but principally by their very existence and unshakable claim to Election.
\nWho are the daemons and what is their nature? Eusebius disagreed with pagan etymology, which derived daim\u00f4n from da\u00eam\u00f4n (meaning \u201cknowing, experienced or skilled\u201d), and argued that the source of the name is in the verb deimainein, which indicates their deeds: frightening and thereby compelling men to worship them. In Homer the meaning of the name is identical with that of theos, god. Later, however, this term was assigned to lesser divinities, and a distinction was made between good and evil daemons. Clement of Alexandria tried anachronistically to deduce from the usage of Homer that the Olympic gods were no more than daemons, and were evil and wicked ones to boot. Two descriptions found in the Symposium and in the Politicus of Plato were of particular importance in establishing the nature of the daemons. In them, Plato explained that the daemons are mediating powers between the gods and men, and maintain contact, communication and dialogue between them for the benefit of both sides. The art of sacrifices, the oracles, the mysteries, the incantations, and sorcery all derive from them. The good daemons were identified by the later Pythagoreans and Neoplatonists with the angels of Judaism, an identification which, as was to be expected, appeared in Philo\u2019s work. In Geffcken\u2019s opinion, the Christians took from the pagans their belief in the existence of the daemons as well as some pagans\u2019 denigrations of and polemics against them. Thus Celsus, Apuleius, Porphyry and the Roman antiquarian Cornelius Labeo all spoke of the daemons who are around and above the earth as not very essential divine powers whose will must be satisfied lest they cause damage while, on the other hand, noting that man might also be helped by them. In the Politicus Plato explained that in early times the world and all its creatures were divided among daemons, who acted as divine shepherds, caring for all the needs of the creatures entrusted to them (see n. 33). We will return below to the theory formed in pagan circles on the basis of these ideas.
\nIn contrast with the lack of clarity that prevailed among the pagans as to the distinction between good and evil daemons, all the pagans agreed that it was the evil daemons who punished the Christians relentlessly, while the Christians asserted that there were no good daemons at all, and that the wicked ones were the gods of the nations. A decisive role was played in Christian thinking by the tradition in the Gospels concerning the expulsion of the daemons by Jesus, and especially by the Jewish and Biblical tradition. Justin Martyr thought that the daemons are the descendents of the angels who transgressed God\u2019s injunction and married the daughters of man. Eusebius, relying on the authority of the Hebrews [=the Jews], stated that there are rational powers who serve God and that they are called angels and archangels; those among them who \u201cfell\u201d and departed from the right way are the daemons. A most favourable text for the Christians was the verse in Psalms: \u201cFor all the gods of the nations are idols\u201d as it was translated in the Septuagint: \u201cFor all the gods of the nations are daemons\u201d (daimonia). Clement of Alexandria had a different version from that of the Septuagint which was even more telling: \u201cFor all the gods of the nations are daemonic idols.\u201d
\nJustin, and other Christian apologists, attributed virtually every evil in the world to the evil daemons. These daemons demand sacrifices and offerings, and are responsible for the persecution of the Christians; all the acts of murder and adultery ascribed to Zeus and his sons spring from them. Justin also commented that Marcion\u2019s doctrine, according to which there is another god greater than the demiurge (the demiourgos or creator of the world), stems from the daemons, and that it was with their help that many people fell into Marcion\u2019s net. He added that the daemons learned many precepts from the Law of Moses and established ones similar to them for the pagans in order to lead the people astray, and claimed that the bread and water of the mysteries of Mithras were an intentional imitation by the daemons of Christian ritual. It is interesting that Iamblichus also accused the evil daemons of disguising themselves as gods and as good daemons in order to mislead men, and declared unequivocally that they are the source of all evil and injustice, whereas the gods and the good deamons are the source of the good and the equitable exclusively.<\/p>\n
The way Eusebius argued our subject is very illuminating for us. First, he stressed Porphyry\u2019s closeness to and great knowledge of the subject. Then Eusebius explained that in his treatise, De philosophia ex oraculis, Porphyry had assembled and interpreted oracles of Apollo and of other gods and good daemons as Porphyry himself noted. Porphyry had quoted Apollo as calling upon people to offer animal sacrifices not only to the daemons and powers around the earth, but also to the powers in the ether and in heaven. In contrast to this, Porphyry admitted in his treatise De abstinentia that those to whom the Hellenes offer animal sacrifices are daemons and not gods, and that not only is there no need to sacrifice animals to the gods but it is even impious to do so. Further on Eusebius quoted Porphyry\u2019s statement in the De philosophia explaining the nature of the different kinds of animal sacrifice and the reasons for them, and then quoted, for the sake of comparison, from the De abstinentia. But Eusebius\u2019s intention in this eonfrontation was not to indicate a contradiction in Porphyry\u2019s attitude to sacrifices, but rather to deduce from this contradiction that \u201caccording to his [Porphyry\u2019s] and Theophrastus\u2019s reasoning, Appolo is a daemon and not a god; and not only Apollo but all those who have been considered to be gods among all the nations as well \u2026\u201d Furthermore, since these last rejoice in acts of inhuman savagery, such as manslaughter and human sacrifice, they are nothing other than evil daemons, as Eusebius endeavoured to demonstrate. Eusebius finds more proofs of the cruel daemons\u2019 demands for human sacrifice in the work of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Eusebius\u2019s conclusion is, then, that the Scripture of the Hebrews chastises the sons of Israel who devoted themselves enthusiastically to these acts saying: \u201cYea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto daemons\u201d (daimonia) (Psalms, 106:37). In the last in his chain of arguments, Eusebius declared that all the above verify the words of prophecy, \u201cAll the gods of the nations are daemons.\u2026\u201d (Psalms 96:5), and the words of the Apostle, \u201cthat the things which [the Gentiles] sacrifice, they sacrifice to daemons, and not to God.\u2026\u201d
\nLet us now consider the theory elaborated by Celsus on the basis of Plato\u2019s words in the Politicus, on the strength of which he attacked the Christians. Celsus said: \u201cThe parts of the earth were distributed among different overseers from the beginning and divided among certain ruling powers, and are governed in this manner. Indeed, the things done by each nation are right insofar as they are done in a way that finds favour with the overseers; but it is impious to undo the laws which have been laid down in each locality from the beginning\u201d (Al\u00eat\u00eas Logos, 5:25). In another instance he was more detailed, asking whether, whenever the Christians eat, drink or even breathe the air, \u201cthey are not receiving each of these from certain daemons to whom the care of every one of these has been entrusted?\u201d (ibid., 8:28). We must, therefore, attract their favour with offerings and prayers for as long as we are alive and wish to live (8:33). Then, Celsus argued, if kings, satraps and other magistrates on earth are harmful when they are offended by someone who does not fulfil his obligations towards them, how much the more would those daemons be so, who are like satraps in the air and on the earth? (8:35).
\nIn this instance, Celsus\u2019s question had an actual-utilitarian formulation; earlier, Celsus\u2019s question concerning the daemons had a more theological character: \u201cWhy should daemons not be worshipped? Is it not true that all things are administered according to God\u2019s wish, and does all providence not come from him?\u201d (7:68). And he stated that, this being so, it applies to all of God\u2019s creation, including angels, daemons, and heroes.
\nOrigen\u2019s response to the last question is dangerously close to a dualistic-Gnostic way of thinking: he suggested that it neither derives from God nor is prevented by Him; just as there are bad people, there are evil daemons and angels. These are organized as are bands of robbers, with a leader at their head, and they seduce men and lead their souls away from the right. Origen recognized the existence of the daemons and of their power to cause harm, but did not look upon them as God\u2019s representatives. Instead he viewed them in the light of the verse from Psalms: \u201cAll the gods of the nations are daemons.\u201d
\nAs for Celsus\u2019s theory about the division of the world from the beginning among daemons-rulers, Origen made use of its vulnerable \u201ctopographic\u201d component in order to refute it, in effect saying: \u201cDo all the nations of the world reside solely in their appointed locality? Did the Roman kingdom not rise and confuse all the nations?\u201d To this implied argument is joined the assumption of Origen as a Christian that there exists an absolute ethical rule according to which we can and should judge every act considered moral in a certain society. Origen confronted Celsus with many embarrassing instances of local practices. For example, what of the laws of the Scythians permitting parricide, or those of the Persians permitting marriages of mothers and their sons, of fathers and their daughters? Or of the law of the Taurians, who sacrifice strangers to Artemis, or that of the Libyans, who sacrifice children to Kronos? The views of Celsus indicate, added Origen, that piety is not divine by nature but rather some arbitrary determination and opinion; one people will worship an animal eaten by another people, to whom some other animal is sacred. Thus we reach the absurd result that a man will be acting piously in some specific act according to some laws, but impiously according to some other people\u2019s laws. The same thing will happen if we say that it is pious for a man to keep his ancestral customs, and not impious as long as he does not keep other peoples\u2019 customs. But what will happen if he has relations, whether friendly or hostile, with people of other nations holding contradictory customs? Thus we face considerable confusion concerning righteousness and piety, for each of these virtues becomes restricted to the practices of a certain place, and there is nothing more absurd than this. A little further Origen returned to this question and gave a concrete example. The Ethiopians of Meroe, according to Celsus, worship only two gods: Zeus and Dionysus, while the Arabians similarly worship two gods, but their two are Dionysus and Ourania. Now, what would happen if an Ethiopian came to live among the Arabians or the reverse? Should each refuse to worship the other people\u2019s god even if such a refusal be considered impious and place him in danger of being put to death?
\nPractically speaking, this question became a theoretical one, since the syncretistic spirit of the Hellenistic and Roman periods rendered it superfluous. The question of relative and absolute ethics, although it might not have worried the average pagan believer, constituted an insurmountable difficulty for a man of the calibre of Celsus who, like his master Plato, sought the universal in current phenomena and beyond them. It posed problems that he could not solve without jeopardizing his basic thesis.
\nThe theory of Celsus about the division of the world among governing daemons was applied by astrologers to the heavens. Eusebius cited it in this context from the work of Bardesanes the Syrian: \u201cThe astronomers assert that the earth was divided into seven territories [\u2018climates\u2019], each one of which is ruled by one of the seven stars. Men did not lay down the various laws for themselves; rather, the will of each ruler was implemented in his particular territory, and was considered to be law by those governed.\u201d The Jews serve as decisive evidence against this theory: they received the law prescribing the circumcision of males on the eighth day of life from Moses, and they do this whether they are in Syria, Gaul, Italy, Greece or Parthia, paying no attention to the law prevailing in the specific country or to the authority of the stars in that district. This applies also to the observance of the Sabbath by the Jews, although it is impossible that they were all born on the same day. Further on, this Christian author added that the fact that Christians live in every nation and in every territory and do not keep local customs also refutes this theory.
\nMultiplicity of gods is a fundamental tenet of paganism. As a result, a pagan will not forgo a theory about daemons when called upon to explain the place and function of the many gods in the world. It is no wonder, then, that Julian\u2019s phrases echo those of Celsus. The attitude towards the Jews expressed by Celsus was also an obligatory one for Julian, as we will see below. But it appears that Julian was aware of the weak points of the daemon-governors theory, and therefore endeavoured to transfer its emphasis from the geographical to the ethnographical, while taking care not to assert that what was established in a certain territory was sacred. On the other hand, he assigned certain arts to the auspices of particular gods, and stressed that they granted knowledge and skills in these fields to all the pagans.
\nTwo characteristics were attributed by Julian to the gods or daemons: they are rulers of nations (ethnarchai) and protectors of cities (poliouchoi). Of these terms, ethnarch was understood literally, while poliouchos had a clear archaic colour, and was used rhetorically in the main. Julian wrote in this vein in his letter to the council and people of Athens when he described his behaviour towards Constantius before the split between them: \u201cI call as witnesses Zeus and all the gods who protect cities (poliouchoi).\u2026\u201d (280D.) In his letter to the Alexandrians, as well as in his satyrical treatise Antiochicus sive Misopogon, Julian cleverly exploited the etymology encompassed in this term. He reminded the former that Sarapis was their poliouchos-god (that is, patron of the polis Alexandria), and complained, on the other hand, that the citizens of Antioch regard Christ as their poliouchos instead of Zeus. In his treatise, Julian also swore an oath in the name of Zeus poliouchos.
\nLet us now examine how Julian formulated his approach in his treatise, Contra Galilaeos:<\/p>\n
But now reconsider our teaching in comparison with yours. For ours states that the creator [d\u00eamiourgos] is the common father and king of all, but that the various nations have been divided by him among nation-ruling gods [ethnarchai] and city-protecting gods [poliouchoi], each one of whom controls his own allotment in accordance with his own nature. And since in the father all things are perfect and unified, whereas in each separate deity a different capacity predominates, Ar\u00eas accordingly rules over the warlike nations, Athena over those that are both warlike and wise, Herm\u00eas over those whose understanding exceeds their daring; thus, each essential quality of their specific gods is adopted by the nations subject to their rule \u2026 (115D\u2013E.)
\nFor let them tell me the reason that the Celts and the Germans are fierce, whereas the Hellenes and Romans are, on the whole, civilized [politikoi] and humane and simultaneously hard and warlike? Why are the Egyptians more sagacious and excellent in the arts, the Syrians unmartial and effeminate, but at the same time sagacious, hot-tempered, conceited, and apt students? For if one is unable to perceive any reason for these variations among nations, but rather asserts that they occurred spontaneously, how can he continue to believe that the universe is administered by providence? But if a man assumes that reasons for these differences exist, let him inform me of them, in the name of the creator himself, and teach me! For it is obvious that the nature of men laid down the laws which were appropriate to it: civilized and humane by those in whom a humane disposition had been fostered in preference to all else, uncivilized and inhumane by those in whom there dwelt and was inherent the opposite personality. For the lawgivers added minimally by their instruction to the natures and tendencies of men. Thus the Scythians refused to receive Anacharsis when he was in the grip of a religious ecstasy, and it is only in rare cases that you will find men of the western nations who are ready to engage in philosophy or geometry or similar studies despite the fact that they have for so long been governed by the Roman Empire. Those among them who are very talented take pleasure only in the art of discourse and of rhetoric, and do not partake in any other study, so strong, it would seem, is the force of nature.\u2026 (116A\u2013131D.)
\nBut as for the difference in ethos and customs, neither Moses nor anyone else has clarified it, although the variation among men in their customs and in the political constitutions of the nations is greater in every way than the difference in their languages. For who among the Hellenes will say that one ought to marry his sister or his daughter or his mother? Yet the Persians considered this a good thing. But why do I have to enumerate their respective characteristics, or delineate the love of freedom and the disobedience of the Germans, the submissiveness and docility of the Syrians, the Persians, the Parthians and, in short, of all the barbarians in the East and the South, and of those nations who have acquired and are satisfied with a more or less despotic regime? If then these differences that are greater and more valuable were produced without a greater and more divine providence, why do we trouble ourselves in vain and worship one who supervises us not at all? For is it justifiable that he who has concerned himself not at all with our lives, our virtues, our customs, our good government or our political establishment should still have some claim on our reverence? Never!\u2026 If, accordingly, he entirely disregarded our spiritual well-being, and paid no attention to our physical state, and sent us no teachers or lawgivers as he did to the Hebrews, such as Moses and the prophets who succeeded him, in return for what are we to express appropriate gratitude to him? (138A\u2013D)
\n\u2026 As we said, then, if some controlling national-ruler [ethnarch] god (and subordinate to him an angel, a daemon, a hero, and a special group of spirits who serve and work for the higher powers) did not lay down for each and every nation the differences in our laws and characters, let it be demonstrated how these differences were brought into being by some other agency. For it is not enough to say: \u201cGod said and it was so.\u201d For the natures of the created things must be in accordance with the decrees of God. I will say more clearly what I mean. Did God order by chance that the fire should be lifted upward, and that the earth be carried downward? Was it not necessary, for God\u2019s decree to be carried out, that the former should be light, while the latter be heavy? And the same is true in the case of other things as well \u2026 It is similar in regard to divine things. The reason for this is that mankind is mortal and subject to destruction. It is then reasonable that man\u2019s works are also perishable and changeable, and subject to every kind of modification. But since God is eternal, it is fitting that his orders be so too and, being such, they are either the natures of beings or are in harmony with the nature of beings. For how could nature oppose the decree of God? How could it willingly diverge from agreement with it? If then he did order that just as our languages are confounded and disharmony prevails among them, and such also should be the case concerning the political constitutions of the nations, then it was not only by a decree that he made such things and endowed them with their qualities, or made us fit for this disagreement. For different natures must have previously existed in those things by means of which the nations were to be distinguished from each other. This indeed is apparent if one observes how much different the Germans and Scythians are physically from the Libyans and Tthiopians. Is this too because of a bare decree, and does not the climate or the country cooperate with the gods to determine what sort of complexion they shall have? Furthermore, Moses too consciously masked this kind of fact, and did not ascribe to God alone the confusion of the tongues. For he says that He did not descend alone, but that He was accompanied not by one but by several when He descended, but he did not say who these were. It is quite clear, however, that he thought that those who descended with Him were nearly as He was. If then it was not the Lord alone but his associates who descended with Him in order to confuse the dialects, it is obvious that, concerning the confusion of the ethos of men, too, not the Lord alone but also those who together with him confounded the tongues might reasonably be considered responsible for this divergence. Why then have I discussed this matter so extensively, although I wished to speak briefly? Because if the immediate creator [d\u00eamiourgos] of the cosmos be the one proclaimed by Moses, then we hold worthier opinions about him, considering him to be the common master of all, but that there are other national-rulers [ethnarchs] under him, similar to the viceroys of a king, each carrying out his own function differently, and we do not set him up as a divisional rival of the gods who are his inferiors. But if Moses, after honouring a divisional god, sets against him the hegemony of the whole, then it is better for you to hearken to us and recognize the God of All without ignoring the God of Moses, than to honour one to whose lot fell the hegemony over the smallest of portions, instead of the creator [d\u00eamiourgos] of all things. (143A\u2013148C.)<\/p>\n
And in another place, concerning the deification of Jesus by the Christians, Julian said: \u201cHe [i.e. Moses] taught that there was one God and only one, but that he had many sons who divided the nations among themselves.\u2026\u201d (290E.)
\nCyril answered Julian\u2019s argument with the explanations that differences of laws and customs derive from different habits, the varying education of parents, and the influence of the fathers, founders, and lawgivers of the nations. This answer was already envisaged by Julian when he stated that, if we assume that chance rules in the world, this is enough to nullify belief in the existence of a supreme providence.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Towards the end of his article, \u201cThe Second Temple Period in the Light of Greek and Latin Literature,\u201d Jo\u1e25anan Hans Levy says:<\/p>\n
We have thus learned that the conflict between Israel and Greece-Rome was not some kind of accidental skirmish between two peoples \u2026 but rather a major war between two methods of thinking. The animosity of the Greeks and the Romans was their response to the concept of the election of Israel. As a result of its adherence to Ata Be\u1e25artanu [\u201cThou hast chosen us\u201d], Judaism earned the hostility of the two nations that ruled the lands of the ancient world. The prophecy of Balaam about them was fulfilled: \u201cI see a people that dwells alone, that has not made itself one with the nations\u201d (Numbers, 23:9).<\/p>\n
This is true of the period that preceded the entrance of Christianity into the polemic with the pagan world and its displacement of Judaism. From then on, the Church firmly disputed the election of the Jews, for it was an obstacle to missionary activity among the pagans; later on, the Church argued that the Jews\u2019 election was merely a temporary one, that is, valid only until the appearance of Jesus. Henceforth, it said, God turned from Israel of the flesh, and transferred his election to the Christians, the \u201ctrue Israel,\u201d Israel according to the spirit. Because of the pagan polemic with the Christians, the absolutely negative view of the pagans prevalent earlier was changed (in the middle of the second century C.E.).
\nOne can trace several variants of the pagans\u2019 attitude. Levy points them out in the concluding pages of his article, \u201cThe Emperor Julian and the Building of the Temple,\u201d although his discussion is directed towards another matter:<\/p>\n
In the opinion of Julian, the god of the Jews is the god of the Roman Empire, the many-named god whose principal name is Helios.\u2026 We saw that Christianity was his [Julian\u2019s] concern. The people of Israel itself was in his eyes a contemptible and powerless nation, but great importance was attributed to it because of the relation of its doctrine to the teaching of Jesus, since the Christian religion is composed of the beliefs of Judaism and the culture of the Greeks.\u2026
\n\u2026 He [Julian] ridicules, indeed, the \u201cfables\u201d of the Bible and the lack of culture and education revealed in them, and demonstrates that the correct opinion about the supreme god whom the Jews worship differs from the tradition of Moses and the prophets. However, he makes clear again at the end of his words that these objections do not concern the existence of Judaism as a religious institution based on holy laws: its regulations are equal to the regulations of the religions of the \u201cHellenes,\u201d because both are based on the keeping of the injunctions of the forefathers, and on the worship of a national god attached to his place. In Julian\u2019s opinion, the Jewish religion is not distinguished from other religions with respect to its laws, except for its second Commandment denying the existence of other gods. However, even this difference is only an apparent one, and the emperor himself indicated the way to resolve this contradiction, noting that Moses mentions the \u201csons of the gods\u201d (Genesis, 6:2), meaning thereby the angels of the nations. Julian thought that the doctrine of the angels could reconcile the opinion of the Jews concerning the one and only god with the Greek belief in \u201cgods of the nations,\u201d who are subject to the rule of the creator of the world.<\/p>\n
When I noted the words of Celsus concerning the division of the world among overseer gods (above, p. 153), I deliberately omitted the initial phrases, which read: \u201cThe Jews then became a separate nation, and laid down laws according to the custom of their country; and they preserve these laws among themselves at this time, and maintain a cult which may be very peculiar but is at least ancestral [patrion]. In this sense they behave like other people since each nation observes its ancestral customs [ta patria] whatever type may be established.\u201d
\nIn these words and in those that follow about the division of the world among overseer-gods and the position of the Jews, Celsus indirectly presented his new interpretation of the election of the Jews. It is true, he said, that they are a special people possessed of a distinctive ritual and special laws; but, when one studies them, he finds that the Jews behave just as do all other peoples who observe the laws and injunctions prescribed for them by the god who rules them. In this way, Celsus placed Judaism within the framework of the polytheistic religions; he isolated Christianity as dissentient and lawless and, with one stroke, expunged the Jews\u2019 pretensions to the election which the Christians claimed as their own, in their capacity of heirs of the Jews. Origen rejected the Jewish aspect of Celsus\u2019s theory, just as he rejected the theory as a whole. He asked: to whom did Zeus assign the Jewish nation and its land? Was it Zeus who wanted Judaea\u2019s ruler to make laws for the Jews, or was this done against his will? No matter how one replies to this, he declared, the answer will be unsatisfactory.
\nOrigen was well aware of the fact that the first alternative was impossible in light of the attitude of the Jewish Law towards the gods of the nations. Origen said further that we cannot dismiss this and argue that the world was not divided by one god among overseer-gods but rather that each of them received his share by chance, because by saying this we abrogate to a certain extent the providence of the supreme god.
\nIn the beginning of the second book of his Demonstratio Evangelica, Eusebius replied to the Jews\u2019 claim that the prophets were sent to them, and that the Messiah would come to them and fulfill all the promises of the Scriptures. Eusebius did not deny that the Messiah\u2019s coming, as foreseen by the prophets, would bring about the redemption of Israel, but he was not prepared to agree that only the Jews might hope for great benefits from his appearance and that the fate of the gentiles would be bad and bitter. In Eusebius\u2019s opinion, such a view contradicted the evidence of Scripture, which he quoted to support the position of the Church. Other Christian writers emphasized the temporary nature of the election of the Jews, an election that came to its end with the Jews\u2019 rejection of Jesus. Julian, on the contrary, came forth with great ardour to defend the Jewish claim, and it is not difficult to guess that he did it not from \u201clove of Mordechai\u201d but rather from \u201chatred of Haman.\u201d For he said that:<\/p>\n
Moses says that the creator [d\u00eamiourgos] of the cosmos elected the Hebrew nation, and that only to that nation did he pay attention and devote care, and he appointed him over it alone. But in what way and by what kind of gods the other nations are governed he has made no mention, unless indeed one should acknowledge that he designated the sun and the moon for them [cf. Deuteronomy, 4:19]. But I will deal with this a little later. Here I will only note that Moses himself and the prophets who came after him and Jesus the Nazarene, indeed, as well as Paul, who surpassed all the sorcerers and deceivers of every time and place, assert that he is the god of Israel alone and of Judaea, and that the Jews are his elected people. Give heed to their own utterances, and first of all to those of Moses: \u201c \u2018And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Israel is my son, my first-born. And I have said to thee, Let my people go that they may serve me \u2026\u2019 \u201d [Exodus, 4:22\u201323] \u2026 And a little thereafter, \u201c \u2018And they said unto him, \u2018the God of the Hebrews hath summoned us; we will go therefore three days\u2019 journey into the desert, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God \u2026\u2019 \u201d [Exodus, 5:3] And shortly afterwards he speaks again in a similar vein, saying: \u201c \u2018The Lord the God of the Hebrews hath sent me unto thee, saying, Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness; \u2026\u2019 \u201d [Exodus, 7:16]
\nBut that God\u2019s attention was devoted only to the Jews from the beginning, and that he elected them as his portion, has been declared clearly not only by Moses and Jesus but also by Paul; although this is questionable in Paul\u2019s case. For he keeps altering his doctrines about God according to the occasion, as the poulp alters its colours in keeping with the rocks, and now he contends that it is solely the Jews who are God\u2019s inheritance and then yet again, when he is endeavouring to convince the Hellenes to support him he says: \u201cDo not think that he is the God of the Jews only, but also of Gentiles: yea of Gentiles also \u2026\u201d [Romans, 3:29]<\/p>\n
In other places, Julian made it abundantly clear that he thought the Jews did not receive special treatment and many gifts from God. On the contrary, the pagans enjoyed and enjoy God\u2019s benevolence in all spheres of life to a much greater extent. He insisted however that, from the point of view of Scripture, the claim of the Jews was correct, whereas the Christians distorted it intentionally. This reliance of Julian on scriptural proofs was, of course, aimed at undermining the base on which Christian theology rests, that is, the Bible. Julian therefore sought to prove by citing many verses, in opposition to the Christians\u2019 interpretations, that the Law of Moses is eternal and that it provides no basis for adding a god-logos as his son to the god of Israel. Julian also disputed the right of the Christians to abolish circumcision on the basis of an allegorical interpretation and showed that, according to the Torah, the foreskin of the flesh must be circumcised (Contra Galilaeos, 351A\u2013B). In addition, Julian dissented from the Christians\u2019 interpretations of key verses such as Genesis 49:10: \u201cUntil there comes what is reserved for him \u2026\u201d (Contra Galilaeos, 253D) and Isaiah 7:14: \u201cBehold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son \u2026\u201d (ibid., 262C), among others.
\nJulian presented two more polemical points against Christianity whose differences were subtle but significant. What did he say?<\/p>\n
1) But reflect whether God has not also given us gods and kindly protectors of whom you are ignorant, gods in no wise inferior to him who from earliest days has been honoured by the Hebrews of Judaea, the only land which fell to his lot and providence, as was declared by Moses and by those who succeeded him, down to our own times. But even if the one honoured by the Hebrews was in fact the immediate creator [d\u00eamiourgos] of the cosmos, still our thoughts about him are loftier than theirs, and he has granted us greater blessings than he has them, with reference to both the soul and external things \u2026\u201d (Contra Galilaeos, 141 C\u2013D)
\n2) For the Hebrews have exact halachot [nomima] concerning ritual, and innumerable revered objects and observances which require the following of a priestly life and vocation. Although their lawgiver [Moses] prohibited their revering all of the gods with the sole exception of the god whose \u201cportion is Jacob and Israel an alloment of his inheritance\u201d [See Deuteronomy, 32:9], he did not limit himself to saying this, but, I imagine also added \u201cthou shalt not revile the gods\u201d [according to the Septuagint Exodus, 22:28]; for the nastiness and recklessness of subsequent generations, wishing to extirpate all fear of god from the mass of the people, have thought that blasphemy follows abstention from worship. (238C.)
\n3) Wherefore it is appropriate to think that the God of the Hebrews is not the begetter of the whole cosmos, having authority over all of it, but rather, as I have stated, his authority is limited; since his empire is limited, we must see him as only one of a group of other gods. Are we to devote additional attention to you because you or one of yours visualized the god of the universe, reaching only a very limited conception of him?\u2026 (100C\u2013106D,E.)
\n4) With the exception of the precepts, \u201cThou shalt not bow down before other gods,\u201d [Exodus, 20:3] and \u201cRemember the sabbath day \u2026\u201d [Exodus, 20:8] I ask you, in the name of the gods, what nation exists which does not believe it desirable to observe the other commandments?\u2026 But the commandment \u201cThou shalt not bow down unto other gods,\u201d [Exodus, 20:5] encompasses surely a terrible libel on god. \u201cFor I am a jealous God,\u201d he says, and again elsewhere \u201cOur God is a consuming fire\u201d [Deuteronomy, 4:24; Hebrews, 12:29]. How is it, then, if a man is jealous and envious you consider him to be worthy of condemnation, while when God is called jealous you make this a divine quality? Yet how can it be conceivable to speak falsely of God in so clear a case? For if indeed he is jealous, then it is against his will that all other gods are reverenced, and that all the other nations make obeisance unto the gods. How can it be that he himself did not prevent them from so doing, if he be so jealous and not desirous of other gods\u2019 being reverenced, but only of himself? Was he incapable of doing so, or was it so that from the beginning, he did not wish to prevent the worship of the other gods? In any case, the first explanation, which states that he was incapable, is impious; while the second agrees with what we ourselves do. (152D\u2013159E.)
\n5) For if whole countries and cities find it hard to bear the anger of even one of the heroes or of an insignificant daemon, who could have tolerated the fury of such a god, if directed against daemons, angels, or men? (161A\u2013168B.)<\/p>\n
As did Celsus, Julian interpreted the election of the Jews as meaning that the Jews have a national god who does not differ at all from the gods of other nations, all such gods being subject to the rule of the supreme god. It should be noted that the second commandment did not deny the existence of other gods, as J. Levy asserted, but rather prohibited their worship. This prohibition contained nothing wrong in and of itself, but was something to be wondered at in the prevailing polytheistic-syncretistic atmosphere. Such a view of the god of Israel represented the absorption of Judaism into the pagan pantheon, and the exclusion of Christianity; it blurred the contradiction between polytheism and monotheism, and turned the latter into an organic part of the former. There is no need to say that, for Julian, the polytheistic creed remained the true and comprehensive one, and that it encompassed the deity the Jews claimed was the sole god.
\nBut there was a possibility that the Jews, followed by the Christians, would refuse to accept this placement of the god of the Bible as no more than a secondary deity in the pagan hierarchy since, aside from expressions confining the god of Israel to Eretz Israel and designating him as being of the people of Israel, there were also expressions in the Bible attributing supreme and universal powers to him. In this case, Julian was forced to present the monotheistic concept as the opponent of the polytheistic, and to show that the latter was preferable to the Christians\u2019 monotheistic view. Julian argued that the pagan spirit of tolerance was more in keeping with the god of all than was the jealousy revealed by the god of the Bible. It was true that the Bible too forbade the cursing of other gods; yet, Julian asked, what sense and reason were behind the antagonism of the god of Israel\u2014if indeed he were the supreme god\u2014to the worship of the gods who were subordinate to him? Did not he himself appoint them to rule and lead the nations of the world?
\nIn that case the second Commandment was entirely defective, since it proved that both Jews and Christians clung to erroneous concepts about god which damaged his image and derogated from his majesty. Julian\u2019s conclusion was that polytheism had the upper hand in any case; therefore, all the pagans who had deserted polytheism for monotheism had erred and should make good their mistake by returning to their ancestral faith.<\/p>\n
Chapter four<\/p>\n
CULTURE AND ENSLAVEMENT: THE RELIGIOUS INFERENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY<\/p>\n
In the last chapter we saw that the polemic forced on pagans and Christians alike unanimity concerning divine providence. Unlike the various atheists, those who fought for the souls of traditionalists were obliged to espouse the clear-cut and simple view that god\u2019s providence is directed towards all worldly events, and that it embraces all human beings, as individuals and as nations. This general a priori consensus fostered certain polemical motifs demonstrating historical events as directed by the lord of the universe. Let us consider the continued expression of these motifs in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, while examining the pagan, Christian, and Jewish sources and the part played by the Jews.
\nSince the Jews, as we have noted, engaged in a polemic with the pagans in the Hellenistic-Roman period (until the middle of the second century C.E.), it was only natural that such motifs would be used against the Jews by the pagans. This was particularly true of Hellenistic Egypt, where the Jews exerted themselves to draw closer to the Greeks and their cultural world while simultaneously producing propaganda for their own religion. And indeed Josephus presented these arguments of Apion and Apollonius Molon:<\/p>\n
\u2026 A clear proof, according to him [Apion] that our laws are unjust and our religious ceremonies erroneous is that we are not masters of an empire, but rather the slaves, first of one nation, then of another, and that calamity has more than once befallen our city.\u2026 \u201cBut\u201d [urged Apion] we \u201chave not produced any geniuses, for example, inventors in arts and crafts or eminent sages \u2026\u201d [He lists] Socrates, Zeno, Cleanthes, and others of that calibre.\u2026
\n\u2026 He [Apollonius Molon] adds that we are the most witless of all barbarians, and consequently the people who have contributed no useful invention to civilization.<\/p>\n
Apion\u2019s argument was as follows: since the Jews do not rule over other nations, but are instead subjugated to them, it is clear that their laws are not good and that the Jews do not worship god as is proper. Thus, Apion drew conclusions about the character of their laws and religion from the historical condition of the Jews. The second argument of Apion also derived from a similar point, although Josephus did not say so explicitly. For, if no great men appeared among the Jews and if nothing were invented by the Jews in the technical and philosophical sciences, this was a sign that they were not divinely inspired and that their piety was defective. Apollonius Molon used similar arguments, and suggested that the Jews, lacking great men and inventors, were the lowest of the barbarians. Earlier, Josephus had cited the words of Apollonius Molon as well as those of Lysimachus, claiming that Moses was a \u201csorcerer and deceiver\u201d and that his laws included lessons in vice and none in virtue.
\nJosephus\u2019s reply concerning the Jews\u2019 enslavement may be divided into three parts. He indicated that the words of Apion, whom Josephus calls an Egyptian, are valid primarily for the Egyptians themselves, who had always been enslaved. He then noted that disaster befell the Athenians and the Spartans, even though the Spartans were the most pious of the Hellenes. Such things had also happened to kings renowned for their piety (eusebeia), Croesus for example, while the temples of Ephesus and Delphi burned. Of course, he said, Apion disregarded the evils that befell Egypt. Josephus here wished to sever the connection posited by Apion between the historical fate of a nation and the quality of its creed. Finally, he stated that it is not true that the Jews were subjugated. On the contrary! In the time of David and Solomon they subjugated their neighbours; when the Persians and Macedonians wielded supreme power and the Egyptians were like slaves, not only were the Jews free but they governed the cities in their hinterland for one hundred and twenty years before the arrival of Pompey, and even afterwards remained the allies of Rome.
\nAs for the second point of the pagan argument, it seems that Josephus was prepared to accept its veracity in part. He thought that there were indeed no fewer individuals worthy of praise in the history of the Jews than appeared in other nations, but acknowledged that the Jews \u201cproduced no inventors in crafts or literature.\u201d The reason for this was rooted in their laws whose sole purpose was to implant piety (eusebeia) in the hearts of the people, and to promote the laws\u2019 strict observance. Josephus suggested that the habit acquired by the Jews of obeying the laws of old imbued them with an aversion towards all inventiveness in the fields of religion, law, and the sciences. Josephus believed that Moses, the Jewish lawgiver, surpassed the greatest Greek lawgivers\u2014such as Lycurgus and Solon\u2014not only because he preceded them, but because the Mosaic Law was directed towards inculcating eusebeia, which he saw as one of the principal virtues if not as the greatest of them. As a result, he said, the contribution of Moses to human civilization was greater than that of all those secular inventors of whom the pagans boast. Josephus went on to enlarge on the principles and values of the Law of Moses, emphasize its power and influence on the nation, and note its diligent observance by the people.
\nJosephus ascribed to Apion, a late contemporary of Philo, and to Apollonius Molon and Lysimachus, who had lived a hundred years and more earlier, the use of the arguments noted above against the Jews. If their treatises or quotations from them were available to Josephus a long time after their deaths, it seems reasonable to assume that they were known in their time to the Jews of Egypt. It is also difficult to suppose that Lysimachus, Apollonius Molon and Apion were the authors of these motifs. It is more probable that these motifs had been presented much earlier, along with commonly-accepted vulgar defamations of Jews and Judaism and in company with comments both favourable and laudatory on the same subjects. It is therefore no wonder that we find that Jewish Hellenistic literature and historiography dealt at length with the question of the origin and authors of human culture, as well as with the matter of the enslavement of Egypt and all it entailed. They understandably minimized the lowly condition of the Jews in Egypt and emphasized the redemption of the Jews in the Exodus from Egypt. It was for a definite purpose that Jewish Hellenistic historiographers exerted themselves in order to prove that Abraham, Moses and Joseph were the fathers of the technical, political and intellectual sciences. It is impossible not to recognize that in these writings there also appeared apologetic reactions to arguments raised and conclusions drawn, such as those passed on to us by Josephus, although this was not stated explicitly by the Jewish writers.
\nYehoshua Gutman, in his The Beginnings of Jewish-Hellenistic Literature, analysed in detail the traditions included in the fragments of these treatises as well as the ways in which Greek mythological material influenced these Jewish writers and was refashioned by them in keeping with the Bible. He also noted that \u201cLater writers, and particularly\u2014and that in the most obvious and specific way\u2014Christian writers in their disputes with the representatives of Greek literature, drew the most extreme conclusions from this, seeing in Moses and in Jewish culture the beginnings and foundations of human civilization as a whole.\u201d Church writers, during their polemic with the pagans, realized that they could find support for their position in these Hellenistic-Jewish treatises, and it was because of this that they were preserved for us in whole or in part. The Hellenistic Jewish authors had found themselves in a similar polemic with their hostile pagan neighbours; how reasonable it must have been for them to write their treatises for such a purpose. But Gutman seems to have been afraid of the label of \u201capologetics\u201d attached to this literature and of the reproach implied by it. He refrained therefore from ascribing such an intention to its authors, straining to explain these writings as the expression of a manifestation of interest from the outside, and as naive expositions which served at most to answer inner needs.
\nThe extent to which Philo of Alexandria depended on Jewish and Greek learning is still controversial. Philo, who was rooted in Greek culture much more than in Jewish literature, had an inner need to prove that all Greek wisdom was already to be found, and that in a more perfect form, in the Bible, and had been derived from it. It is very probable that, when he developed his Exposition in such a meticulous way, particularly its non-allegorical parts, Philo had pagan arguments of the kind we discussed above before him. We do not have to search for implicit answers in Philo concerning the questions of culture, since Eusebius preserved two fragments of Philo\u2019s treatise called Hypothetica or Apologia pro Iudaeis which, without stating so explicitly, seem to refer to pagan polemical utterances as they are found in Josephus. First, Eusebius cited a description of Exodus. Philo stated that the people \u201creviled [Moses] as a sorcerer and knave.\u201d F.H. Colson remarks in his edition of Philo, \u201cProbably this refers to the abusive terms used by Molon \u2026 [quoting Josephus\u2019s phrase in Contra Apionem, 2:145: \u201csorcerer and deceiver\u201d] rather than to the murmurers in the wilderness, though the imperfect eloidoroun, [=reviled] rather suggests this. The next sentence shows that he persists in ignoring any rebellion.\u201d From another paragraph of Philo, we may indeed draw the conclusion that even the expression \u201cdeceiver\u201d used by Josephus-Molon was before Philo and was rejected by him: \u201cAnd no thirst nor hunger nor bodily annihilation, nor fear of the future, nor ignorance of the course which events would take, roused these deceived and perishing masses against that sorcerer.\u201d
\nIn his introduction to the fragments of the treatise, Colson pointed out that there exists a conspicuous resemblance between the Hypothetica and the Contra Apionem, and he raised the possibility that Josephus had used the work of Philo. If this were true, Eusebius might have thought that he was giving the words of two of the most important Jewish writers, Philo and Josephus, on the constitution created by the legislation of Moses, whereas he was in truth presenting only those of Philo. Colson\u2019s notes, which compare various details in the descriptions of the legislation of Moses by Philo and Josephus, are not very relevant to our subject. But the emphasis laid by Philo on the fact that the laws of Moses were kept faithfully by the Jews, implanting in them such virtues as justice and piety (eusebeia), and Philo\u2019s particular stress on the piety (eusebeia) which was instilled in their hearts by the reading of the Torah and its interpretation by the priests on Sabbaths and holy days, lead me to the view that Philo was battling here against the culture motif as formulated by Apollonius Molon and Apion. They had stated that the bad laws given the Jews by Moses had caused them \u201cnot to worship [eusebein] God properly\u201d and that, because of this, the Jews had not attained any achievements of the sort made possible by the gods; they had added that, instead of independence and empire, enslavement was the lot of the Jews.
\nNo explicit response of Philo on the subject of the enslavement of the Jews has been preserved, but one can learn about his views indirectly, from his In Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium. When Josephus tried to answer Apion, at the end of the first century C.E., the condition of the Jews was very dismal. For this reason, Josephus did not expatiate on the political fortunes of the Jews in recent generations; the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple had bestowed a negative significance on Jewish existence in the lands of the Exile. The situation had been wholly different in the time of Philo. From Philo\u2019s descriptions in the In Flaccum of the million Jews living in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt, and of Europe and Asia, which are full of Jews since their own country was too small to sustain their increase in population, as well as from his comments that the forefathers of the Jews had come to many places as first founders and that Jerusalem, the holy city and city of the Temple, remained their metropolis (\u201cmother-city\u201d), it becomes very clear that the great Jewish Diaspora was a source of pride and a source of power for Philo. He stated that the governor Flaccus, knowing how numerous the Jews were, should have understood that it was not profitable to allow incitements and disturbances against them and, instead, should have restrained the mob at the outbreak of the disturbances (ibid., forty-three). In these words, as well as in his words in paragraph forty-eight, to the effect that the Jews \u201ccould not be expected to stay quiet whatever happened,\u201d there was a clear threat to the Roman authorities that the latter must be careful not to call down upon themselves the animosity of the Jews, which might cause them much trouble; Philo, however, hastened to add that the Jews are naturally well-disposed towards peace, in contrast to the Egyptians, who are naturally inclined to sedition.
\nThe same feeling and mood pervade Philo\u2019s treatise Legatio ad Gaium. The gentiles in Yavneh, who initiated provocations against the Jews \u201cknew that they [scil. the Jews] would not tolerate the violation of their customs, as indeed proved to be the case\u201d (30:201). This was true in the case of Caligula, too, who was well aware of the fact that the Jews would not acquiesce in any attempt to introduce his statue into the Temple, and who therefore ordered the mobilization and concentration of the armed forces. As to why Petronius, the governor of Syria, delayed the execution of Caligula\u2019s orders, Philo replied that Petronius, by nature just and pious, was also aware of \u201cthe impending danger not only from God but also from the outraged people\u201d (31:213). In the following paragraphs (214\u2013216), Philo explained the other factors considered by Petronius: the Jews, because of their vast numbers, were spread over islands and continents alike throughout the world; they were many and prepared to defy death for their beliefs; it did not pay to arouse their enmity towards Rome; if they were to unite, no one would be able to stand against them. Petronius was also afraid of the (military) forces (dynameis) of the Jews living beyond the Euphrates, of whose numbers he was aware from their pilgrimages and from the great quantities of gold and silver they contributed for the Temple. Here, too, Philo puts soothing phrases in the mouths of the Jewish elders (gerousia) who appeared before the governor, to the effect that the Jews are a naturally peaceful people and carefully inculcate the love of peace in their children (32:230). Finally, Philo noted the many places both within and beyond the borders of the Roman Empire in which the metropolis Jerusalem had established colonies. The detailed account of these settlements appeared in a letter allegedly sent by Agrippa to Caligula, that petitioned for the repeal of the latter\u2019s decree concerning the erection of his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem. Agrippa pointed out to Caligula that, through the kindness he would demonstrate to one city, Jerusalem, he would at the same time be gracious to vast numbers of other cities throughout the world inhabited by the sons of Jerusalem, and that all the world would resound with praise and gratitude towards him (36:283\u2013284). By this, of course, Philo also hinted at the danger facing Rome from the potential hostility of such numerous groups inside and outside the Empire, should Caligula execute his plans and offend the city they held sacred.
\nIt is clear, then, that Philo was not troubled by the enslavement argument presented by pagan polemicists, nor by the fact that the majority of the Jewish nation lived in foreign countries, providing that Jerusalem and the Temple remained intact and that a broad and dynamic Diaspora supported the centre in Eretz Israel, which itself was ruled jointly by Rome and the house of Herod.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Let us now examine these motifs of the pagan-Jewish polemic some one hundred to one hundred and fifty years after Philo, when it was displaced by the growing pagan-Christian polemic. As we shall see below, the force of the arguments noted above did not diminish, but the arguments became somewhat different in nature and were joined by new arguments. Since Christianity was closely bound to Jewish literature and Jewish history, the attack on these last enabled the pagans to argue against the Christians by saying that the Christians had erred when they deserted the polytheistic creed of their fathers and adopted this new religion. At first (especially in the second century C.E.), the Christians were reproached with being uncultured, because most of those who had joined their ranks were slaves or women. The argument from the past history of the Jews was now strengthened by the Jews\u2019 present political situation.
\nChristians could answer this argument by arbitrarily dividing the history of the people of Israel into periods before and after Jesus, a solution which had been used by the Christians in their polemic with the Jews during the hundred years after the death of Jesus. The pagan argument that the Christians themselves were now persecuted and helpless was more difficult for the Christians to deal with, and it remained so until the government changed and the persecutions stopped. Only then were the Christians able to reply decisively to the polemical-theological problem that confronted them.
\nCelsus was the first pagan polemicist to dwell fully on our motifs. According to him, Moses was a sorcerer (as, he noted, was Jesus) who deceived the Jews, whom Celsus described as being uneducated goatherds and shepherds and runaway slaves from Egypt, who had never been of any significance or prominence whatsoever among the cultured nations. Origen undertook the defence of the Jews, saying that \u201cthey were men who showed signs of a shadow of the heavenly life on earth\u201d; praising the fact that \u201cthe prostitutes \u2026 were excluded from their society\u201d; noting that \u201cthe law courts consisted of the most virtuous men\u201d; and that \u201cto promote leisure for the hearing of the divine laws, the days known as Sabbaths as well as their other feasts were established.\u201d
\nIn all this Origen followed Philo and Josephus. Origen had another answer with an essentially Christian consideration: \u201cthat, since they were \u2018a chosen race and a royal priesthood\u2019 (1 Pet. 2:9), they held themselves apart, shunning relations with the masses so that their morals should not be undermined, and that they were given shelter by divine power. They had no ambition \u2026 to conquer other kingdoms, nor were they so forsaken that they served as ready victims for attackers themselves.\u2026 This sheltering by God continued for as long as they remained deserving of it.\u2026\u201d Finally, he noted, in the time of the Romans, because the Jews had committed the greatest of sins in killing Jesus, they were wholly deserted by God.
\nIn other places too, such as 5:42, Origen spoke of \u201cthe exalted and remarkable constitution of the Jews\u201d and pointed out the praiseworth\u00fd regulations it contained, by comparison with those of other nations. Origen also responded to Celsus\u2019s words (5:41) by arguing that the Jews surpassed in respect of their wisdom not only the pagan multitudes but also the philosophers found among them. The proof of this was supplied, he said, by the fact that even the least among them worship the God of the universe, whereas the philosophers, despite their wisdom, fell into the trap of worshipping idols and daemons.
\nChristian apologists like Justin and Tatian had already revealed their sensitivity in face of the charge concerning their \u201cwant of education\u201d (apaideusia) and had attempted to refute the accusation, although outwardly they sought to create the impression that they harboured nothing but scorn and contempt for Greek philosophy, rhetoric and science. However, the above-mentioned apologists did not succeed in acquiring extensive enough knowledge in those spheres to enable them to contend successfully against their opponents. Clement of Alexandria made progress in this direction; it was only with Origen and Eusebius that a high standard of such knowledge was attained. That was why the contemptuous language of Celsus, valid enough in his day, made Origen so very furious and caused him to shower sharp insults on Celsus.
\nThe Jews were classed ethnically among the Semitic peoples that were included by the Greeks in the class of \u201cbarbarians,\u201d as distinguished from the \u201cHellenes.\u201d This produced a confrontation of \u201cbarbarians\u201d and \u201cHellenes,\u201d that was used in order to taunt the Christians who, because of their joining the Jews, were considered to be \u201cbarbarians.\u201d Celsus had already insisted (1:2) that the importance of the barbarians consisted solely in their having invented the doctrines (dogmata) that the Hellenes had developed properly. Similarly, but with the opposite aim, Clement stressed the fact that almost all the inventors were barbarians, and that the philosophy of the barbarians was the instructor of the Greeks as Plato, himself a pupil of the barbarians, had testified. We will return to this motif later, when we discuss the attitudes of Porphyry, Eusebius and Julian.
\nElsewhere Celsus expressed doubt that the god called \u201cMost High\u201d would fight on the side of the Romans if they were to neglect their own gods and appeal to him. He continued to couple the Jews and the Christians, saying: \u201cBut we see of how much assistance he has been here before, to them [the Jews] and to you. Rather than being rulers of the entire earth, they have been left no clod of earth nor hearth of any kind. While in your case, if there is anyone still wandering about in secret, he is revealed and condemned to death.\u2026\u201d (8:69.)
\nAs we noted above, Origen divided the history of the Jews into two parts: independence before the death of Jesus, ruin and enslavement thereafter. This connecting of the death of Jesus and the fate of the Jews appeared in Origen\u2019s work both as a reply to the questions and accusations of the Jew in Celsus\u2019s work (for example 2:8) and as a refutation of Celsus\u2019s own words (such as those in 4:22). In the swift and extensive spreading of Christianity throughout the world, Origen perceived the hand of God (2:79), that had fought for the Jews and saved them in days past, and had passed later to the side of the believers from among the nations (5:50). This, he thought, was the secret of the Christians\u2019 ability to withstand the Romans\u2019 wish to destroy them. Elsewhere, after remarking that God protects the Christians from their enemies and persecutors, Origen said that in the persecutions of the pagans \u201cseveral men, whose number could easily be calculated, have died on occasion for the sake of the Christian creed\u201d and added: \u201cBut God prevented the utter defeat of their nation.\u2026\u201d (3:8.) This statement seems to have caused Gibbon to draw a mistaken conclusion: \u201cthe learned Origen, who, from his experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the history of the Christians, declares, in most express terms, that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. His authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable army of martyrs whose relics drawn for the most part from the catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches.\u2026\u201d Since Origen\u2019s words appeared in a polemical treatise as a rejoinder against the pagan argument that the Christians were neglected by God, enslaved and oppressed without the hope of deliverance, we cannot accept them at their face value and cannot rely on the facts included in them, despite Gibbon.
\nCompletely different evidence was presented by Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica, at a time when circumstances affecting the Christians were changing. This work was destined for adherents of the Church, and it is not impossible that Eusebius overlooked the theological implications of his inflation of the numbers of the martyrs. We have dealt here with the martyrs only in connection with the \u201censlavement\u201d motif of the polemic, in order to show that the polemic influenced the way in which Christians dealt with this subject.
\nThe polemicists presented to us by Minucius Felix in his treatise Octavius represent the common, half-educated strata of the pagans and Christians in Rome. The pagan Caecilius, for example, brought up the libel concerning the Christians\u2019 alleged worship of the head of an ass, a libel which testifies clearly to a very low level of dispute as well as to a meagre knowledge of the opponent. It is therefore somewhat surprising to discover that the enslavement motif appeared among his arguments. Caecilius asserted that the Jews were wretched and miserable, and that they worshipped one god who was so helpless and powerless that he fell into the hands of the Romans together with his chosen people. In his answer, the Christian Octavius argued that, when the Jews worshipped God (who is also the universal God) properly and kept His precepts as prescribed, they changed from few to many, from poor to rich, from slaves to kings, and so forth. This, Octavius said, Caecilius could read and verify in ancient Jewish writings or in the writings of Josephus Flavius or, if he preferred to read it in the work of a Roman author, then Antonius Iulianus would do (probably referring to the former procurator of Judaea). Then it would become clear to him that the Jews suffered their fate because of their wickedness, and that God was in no way captured with them; rather, He put them into the hands of their enemies, since they had abandoned His Law. It is interesting to note that, just as the martyr Pionius had done, Octavius did not indicate exactly what sin of the Jews had caused their misfortune, and did not even mention Jesus, although it is perfectly clear in both cases that taking the life of Jesus is the sin meant.
\nTertullian approached the problem of the enslavement of the Jews from another angle; that of Roman domination. The pagans claimed that the Romans had reached world rule in return for their piety, noting that the gods rewarded most highly those who were most devoted to them. This sort of theological deduction had been made by earlier writers who dealt with Roman affairs, such as Cicero and others. Tertullian, however, dismissed this view with three arguments, the third of which touched on the subject of the Jews and their enslavement. First, Tertullian said, the order of things must be reversed. At first, the Roman empire was acquired; it was only later that Roman religiosity grew. When the Roman religion was conceived by Numa Pompilius, he noted, the Roman state had not yet been filled with images and temples constructed by Greek and Etruscan men of genius. \u201cThe Romans were not \u2018religious\u2019 before they reached greatness; and, therefore, they are not great because they were religious.\u201d In this way Tertullian sought to sever the causal connection that polemicists were trying to forge between polytheistic religion and political aggrandizement. As we shall see, pagans like Julian (and Symmachus after him) continued to insist on this analogy. However, Tertullian was not wholly satisfied with this \u201cchronological\u201d rejection, and put forward another response, later employed by Ambrose against Symmachus on the question of the altar of Victory. Tertullian asked, \u201chow could they be great as a result of their religion, when their greatness proceeded from irreligion?\u201d Since the expansion of Roman rule entailed wars against and victories over other nations, by which the gods of those peoples and countries were simultaneously injured, \u201cthen the sacrileges of the Romans number the same as do their trophies.\u201d The third answer saw in the independent existence of Judaea, famous for its contempt for universally accepted gods, and in the relations Rome once had with Judaea, a refutation of the assumption that it was Roman religion that supported and directed the Roman regime (26:3). Indeed, the Romans would never have dominated Judaea he declared, \u201cif Judaea had not sinned against Christ at the end.\u201d In Tertullian\u2019s opinion, the god who has the world and its inhabitants in his charge endows certain nations with empire and deprives others of it in the course of history (26:1). Near the end of his treatise Tertullian deplored the cruel persecutions of the Christians, and took pride in stressing that, although Christianity was but a recent creation, it had managed to win adherents all over the world and in all spheres of society (37:4). He declared that the Christians refrained from presenting armed resistance to their persecutors not because of their numerical or physical inferiority but because the principles of their religion prevented them from doing so (37:5).
\nArnobius, as we might expect, made no use of materials connected with Judaism that cast aspersions on Christianity; he similarly refrained from Jewish literary sources even in cases where other Christian apologists had used them in the manner of discoverers of great treasures. Nevertheless, we may note an indirect comment related to our subject in Arnobius\u2019s argument that the expansion of the Christian religion throughout the world in so short a time is evidence against those who question its veracity.
\nPorphyry\u2019s extant polemical writings indicate that, as a religiously-minded man, he preferred to comment on the \u201cculture\u201d motif rather than on the \u201censlavement\u201d motif. Of the latter he remarked in a matter of fact style in his De abstinentia: \u201cOf the nations known to us, it was the Jews who suffered intolerable assaults on their laws and customs, first at the hands of Antiochus and later at the hands of the Romans, when their Temple in Jerusalem was captured and access to it was permitted to all those to whom it had been forbidden previously, and the city itself was ruined. Then the Jews abstained for a long time from the eating of many animals, and they especially refrain, even now, from eating pork\u201d (4:11). The language of Porphyry, if not compassionate, was in any case not hostile; it is obvious that the last matter referred to was of interest to him.
\nOn the question of \u201cculture,\u201d it seems that Porphyry adopted a twofold approach. In his Contra Christianos he asked: \u201cAnd to what kinds of punishment should those men who, deserting their ancestral customs, have become zealous adherents of the alien mythologies of the Jews, which are held in contempt by all men, not rightly by subjected?\u201d The expression othneia mytholog\u00eamata does not mean only \u201calien mythologies\u201d in contrast with patria (ancestral); othneia here corresponds to barbara (barbarian) and is used in a negative sense, since these terms serve Porphyry alternately as adjectives for the same noun. A similar classification of Jewish doctrine as barbarian is found in Porphyry\u2019s comments on Origen: \u201cbut Origen, a Hellene educated in Hellenic doctrines, drifted towards barbarian recklessness \u2026\u201d (In the same fragment, Porphyry spoke of the othneia to be found in the Jewish writings and of their othneioi mythoi.) Eusebius\u2019s comprehensive treatise, the Praeparatio Evangelica, was in fact devoted to the explication and justification of the Christian position against both facets of the above-noted argument: the desertion of ancestral religious-national traditions, and the preference for and adoption of barbarian, i.e. Hebrew, doctrines. Eusebius began to deal with the second part of the argument, the relative cultural barbarianism of the Jews as compared to the Hellenes, in the seventh book of his Praeparatio Evangelica, declaring that he now turned to \u201cthe Hebrews and their philosophy and religion [or piety, eusebeia], to which we have given preference over all our ancestral doctrines; it is now time to describe their way of life\u201d (7, 1:1). His presentation of evidence and his discussion of this subject continue until the end of the extant treatise.
\nAlong with the view that the barbarians were naturally and culturally inferior to the Hellenes, an idealized picture of the barbarian peoples had been widespread from the classical period onward; it emphasized their superiority as the inventors of civilization as a whole, and most especially of religion and worship. The reason offered for this image was the uninterrupted culture of those countries from ancient times on, as against that of the Greeks, who had had to start all over again from the beginning in the wake of natural disasters that wiped out their ancient civilization. Porphyry acceded to this tradition, along with other Neo-Platonists, as is seen from his treatise, De philosophia ex oraculis.
\nIn the excerpts from his treatise presented by Eusebius, Porphyry stated, in the name of Apollo, that the wisdom of the Hebrews and the Chaldaeans in the field of religious worship was unique. Apollo also testified, according to Porphyry\u2019s interpretation, that the barbarians, that is, the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Chaldaeans, the Lydians, and the Hebrews, had discovered the difficult but correct path to the divinity to which many paths led, whereas the Hellenes had gone astray. Was there not a contradiction here, or did this perhaps reveal that Porphyry tended to change his mind, as Eunapius charged? Porphyry\u2019s attitude can be explained without our having recourse to such assumptions. Other Greek writers saw no contradiction between their honour and admiration for ancient Eastern civilizations, and the contempt in which they held contemporary barbarians, in an age in which the Greeks, with their talent and industry, surpassed their teachers\u2019 achievements. But, if this explanation be valid for the confrontation of barbarians and Hellenes in Porphyry\u2019s work, it does not clarify why Porphyry thought it necessary to include the Hebrews in his list. This inclusion may indicate his wish to isolate the Christians as people who \u201cpaved for themselves some new, desolate road that is no road, following neither the Hellenic nor the Jewish tradition.\u201d This is the source of his assertion in the treatise mentioned above, according to which the Christians were uncorrigibly corrupt, while the Jews were to be praised for their recognition of god; it was also the point of departure for his attempts to sever the connection which the Christians tried to establish between the New Testament and the Jewish Bible, especially in connection with the Book of Daniel and the messianism of Jesus. Julian followed Porphyry in this.
\nIn keeping with the twofold approach adopted by Porphyry to the \u201cculture\u201d question (above, p.183), Eusebius declared that the defensive course he was about to take was a double one: on the one hand, a positive and impressive presentation of the Jewish doctrines and constitution, on the other hand, a demonstration that \u201cthe Hellenes, even their celebrated philosophers, had plagiarized from barbarians all their philosophic learning along with everything that was otherwise public and useful for their civic needs.\u201d In the tenth book of his work Eusebius added more details on this subject: \u201cI will now prove, from various sources, that each and every one of these marvellous Hellenes, circulating among the barbarians, has collected the other fields of knowledge: geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy, medicine and the primary elements of grammar, as well as countless other skills practical and useful in daily life.\u201d (1:2.) For this purpose Eusebius first called Clement of Alexandria to his service. After citing him, Eusebius said that should the pagans consider Clement to be untrustworthy, since Clement preferred \u201cbarbarian\u201d philosophy to that of the Hellenes, as did Eusebius himself (although Clement\u2019s proofs did not derive from his own words but rather from those of the Hellenes themselves), then Eusebius would be ready to present evidence from philosophers considered trustworthy by the pagans. He thereupon began quoting Porphyry and other pagan writers.
\nWith regard to the first point of Eusebius\u2019s defence, the character of the Jews, their constitution, philosophy and literature, Eusebius referred to Hellenistic Jewry, especially that of Alexandria. At the beginning of this chapter we surveyed what Josephus and Philo had to say on these matters. As is well known, in addition to the \u201cApology\u201d of Philo, which was preserved in part only by Eusebius, unique fragments of the work of many Jewish writers of the Hellenistic period were preserved in the Praeparatio Evangelica. Eusebius, however, was not content with copying from others, but sought to make his own contribution to the polemic in this sphere.
\nEusebius showered the ancient Hebrews with praise, as the first and only people who had followed the path of true piety (eusebeia). Even though \u201cMoses, the great theologian, had been a Hebrew of the Hebrews,\u201d Eusebius was nonetheless anxious to make it clear to his readers\u2014and in this he differed from Josephus and Philo\u2014that the Hebrews had existed prior to Moses and, because of their greatness of mind, had not been in need of the laws and precepts Moses gave to Israel. This distinction was necessary so that he might distinguish between \u201cJudaism\u201d and \u201cHebraism,\u201d and defend the rejection of the former by the Christians and emphasize their connection with the latter. But this was of secondary importance to the major concern of Eusebius, the polemic against the pagans, and he therefore presented the Hebrews and Moses as a front united against polytheistic doctrines and beliefs. The ancient Hebrews, he said, understood and concluded correctly that the four elements of which the cosmos was composed (earth, water, air, fire), as well as the sun, the moon and the stars, were not gods but God\u2019s creatures. They also realized, he added, that the nature of material being was such that it lacked both logos and soul, and was perishable, and that the order of the cosmos could not be \u201cautomatic,\u201d but that, rather, for each and every thing, there had to be some directing and generating hand or power. Eusebius then described Biblical cosmogony, which he called \u201ctheology,\u201d by citing verses from Genesis, the Prophets and Hagiographa (especially Psalms), and by offering expository notes in the spirit of Philo, from whose work he quoted from time to time in order to provide support for the accuracy of his general and Christological interpretations. The teaching of Moses, Eusebius noted, was not made up of syllogisms and persuasive arguments, but was informed by authoritative and decisive principles deriving from the holy spirit which had inspired him (7, 11:1). Incidentally, this technique of contrasting frail human reasoning, unable to reach complete truth, with the Law of Moses and the Prophets, whose truthfulness had a divine origin, was a technique much favoured by Church writers. Without dwelling much on the views of various philosophic schools, such as the Epicurean and the Stoic (7, 11:13), or those of the Phoenicians and the Egyptians (7, 17:1), Eusebius proceeded to lecture on the creation of man, while quoting the words of Philo, as was his habit (7, 17:4ff.). A little further (7, 18:11), Eusebius declared that he intended to show that the Greeks, whose cultural development came long after that of the barbarians (including the Hebrews), devoted their efforts to pillaging the intellectual treasures of the barbarians and the Hebrews. The remainder of the seventh book of the Praeparatio Evangelica, and books eight, nine and ten of it, were composed in the main of quotations from Jewish and pagan writers that confirmed these theses. It was in the eleventh book that Eusebius returned to his \u201ccomparative research\u201d on this subject.
\nAt the outset of book eleven (preface, three) Eusebius stated that the time had come to fulfill his promises and show the \u201csymphony\u201d existing between some (or all) of the theories on matters of principle held by Greek philosophers and expressed in the prophetic utterances of the Hebrews. Since the subject was so broad, Eusebius decided to limit his discussion to the doctrines of Plato, whom he considered to be foremost among the Greeks. Even though most of Plato\u2019s words were signed with the seal of truth, Eusebius said, not all of them were, as Eusebius would show in his work. He found it necessary to emphasize immediately the fact that he wrote not for the purpose of belittling Plato but rather in order to explain why he (Eusebius) willingly accepted barbarian philosophy rather than Greek (preface, five). The method Eusebius employed was in no way different from that of his predecessors; however, his writings were much more extensive. Eusebius and his predecessors would find some \u201cmechanical\u201d similarity, sometimes a literal one, like the Talmudic gzera shava (= an identical-term analogy), and claim on the basis of it that whoever had said these things in this way first was their source, while the later writers of such phrases were plagiarists. In the event that the similarity was not obvious, they argued that the copyists had not understood their sources and had, because of this, erred in their work. One favourite subject of the Church Fathers was a comparison of the creation of the world and of man in Genesis with the Timaeus of Plato. Celsus, too, compared Plato and Jesus and drew, of course, quite different conclusions. For example, Celsus argued that the Christian precept to turn the other cheek to a man who smote you on one, was no more than an inferior version of Plato\u2019s conclusion in the Crito (49B\u2013E) that not only should one not wrong any man but that one should not even revenge himself on one who does him wrong. This was also true, he said, of the saying of Jesus: \u201cIt is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,\u201d which was, in Celsus\u2019s opinion, a clear corruption of the Platonic saying: \u201cIt is impossible for an outstandingly good man to also be exceptionally rich.\u201d Plato explained in the Leges (715E) that justice (dik\u00ea) was always to be found with the god, punishing those who transgress divine law, and that he who would be happy follows it humbly (tapeinos) and in an orderly manner, that is, without transgressing the laws of the cosmos and of nature (physis). In this statement by Plato, Celsus detected the origins of Christian humility (tapeinot\u00eas) which, he said, in their mistaken view, means that a man throws himself on the ground, wears sackcloth and heaps ashes upon his body.
\nEusebius dealt with his material (Plato and the Bible) in a similar way, as we will see presently. Before presenting a long series of textual comparisons Eusebius commented that Plato\u2019s division of philosophy into three spheres, physics, ethics, and logic, had already been in existence among the Hebrews. As an example of ethics, Eusebius put forward the book of Proverbs, the work of \u201cSolomon, the wisest of all men,\u201d which comprised ethical doctrines formulated as aphorisms. As for logic he indicated approvingly that the Hebrews were not happy with the skillful syllogisms and sophistry contrived to mislead people, so popular among the Greeks, but rather strove to reach the truth itself. Nonetheless, and without himself knowing the Hebrew language, Eusebius had the audacity to argue that \u201cif someone were to become experienced in the study of the [Hebrew] language itself, he would see how there exist, among the barbarians, men who are excellent dialecticians, in no wise inferior to sophists and rhetoricians in his own [Greek] language.\u201d
\nThe same held true, Eusebius argued, of the technique elaborated by the Greeks for writing poetry: \u201cThere were also poems in metre to be found among them, such as the great song of Moses and the 118th psalm of David, which were written in what the Greeks call heroic metre. At any rate, it is said that these consist of hexameters, and are composed of sixteen syllables. Their other epic compositions too are said to be made up of trimeters and tetrameters, in keeping with the sound of their own tongue.\u201d
\nAlthough Eusebius insisted in the Praeparatio Evangelica that Plato had followed Moses and the Hebrew prophets, he was less rigorous concerning the way in which Plato had arrived at his views (11, 8:1). Perhaps, he said, Plato had learned from the Hebrews, who had returned to Egypt for the second time when Plato sojourned there. Plato might have added ideas of his own, or even have been endowed with some inspiration from above. In any case, Eusebius contended, Plato had admitted in the Cratylus that the natural harmony of names with the things they represent was preserved among the barbarians, and he suggested that Plato probably referred by this term to the Hebrews and to Moses (11, 6:1). Not only material harmony was to be found between Plato, and Moses and the Prophets, he contended, but even considerable linguistic identity. Eusebius indicated that this was the case concerning the mystery of God\u2019s name, which was to be found in the Seventh Letter of Plato \u201cword for word\u201d (11, 12:1). Moses said: \u201cHear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One\u201d (Deuteronomy, 6:4); Plato taught similarly in the Timaeus that there was one god (11, 13:1). Eusebius referred to the Platonic saying about the goddess of justice (dik\u00ea), who is always at the side of God to avenge those who transgress divine law, as being parallel to verses from Psalms (for example, 11:7: \u201cFor the Lord is righteous, He loveth righteousness; The upright shall behold His face\u201d) and from the New Testament. Concerning the same saying Celsus, as we noted above, had accused the Christians of a corrupted plagiarism. Plato, argued Eusebius, was of the same opinion as Moses about the immortality of the soul, while the mystical words of Moses with regard to events in Paradise, to Adam being misled by his wife, and to the story of the snake, were copied by Plato in the Symposium \u201call but directly, translating word for word\u201d; just as had Moses, Eusebius said, Plato related them allegorically.
\nIt is clear that Plato, in the Symposium, did not understand the intention of Moses in the story told about the creation of woman from Adam\u2019s rib. Moses thought that he should preface his legislation with an introduction based on \u201carchaeology,\u201d dealing with such themes as the Flood and the renewal of human life on earth in its wake; so did Plato in the Leges. Solomon said succinctly in Proverbs (10:7): \u201cThe memory of the righteous shall be for a blessing; But the name of the wicked shall rot,\u201d while the Book of Sirach (Ben Sira), 11:28, admonished men to \u201cPronounce no man happy before his death.\u201d Plato expanded this in the Leges, saying that it was appropriate to extol the dead who had performed praiseworthy deeds when alive, but that this should not be done during their lifetimes. The Hebrew nation was divided into twelve tribes; Eusebius noted that Plato established a similar division for the citizens of his state in the Leges. The metropolis of the Hebrews was situated in the mountains far from the sea and in possession of agricultural land; Plato prescribed that such should be his city-state as well. It is possible to multiply these examples, but even those noted above will suffice to elucidate the means employed by Christians and pagans alike in order to buttress their polemical positions.
\nAs we have noted, neither Porphyry nor Eusebius made use of the motif of the enslavement of the Jews. Nonetheless, certain indirect comments on this subject are to be found in the work of Eusebius. It was important to Eusebius, in connection with Christian theology, to show that the abrogation of the ancestral laws of the Jews, the Jews\u2019 loss of autonomy, their subjection to their enemies, the destruction of their Temple and of Jerusalem, the resettlement of the city by strangers, and the dispersion of the Jews among the nations were all direct results of the Jews\u2019 outrageous behaviour (tolm\u00ea) towards Jesus, or of their execution of James, the brother of Jesus, which was followed immediately by Vespasian\u2019s siege of Jerusalem. Eusebius retorted to the argument already recorded, that Jesus was \u201ca sorcerer and a deceiver,\u201d by stressing that the present success of the Christians and the diffusion of Christianity and its doctrines among all the nations would have been impossible had Jesus, indeed, been such a deceiver. Elsewhere, Eusebius contended that the victory of the Church was the victory of Jesus, as well as evidence of the truth of his doctrine. The development of his argument on this question is interesting: if Jesus were a deceiver and sorcerer, and his disciples were likewise deceivers and knaves as well as being uneducated men, and were, moreover, barbarians ignorant of any language other than the Syrian, how was it that they had made progress throughout the inhabited world? The very arguments of Christianity\u2019s opponents prove all the more, he added, that true divine power is the basis of the Christian faith. Eusebius enumerated later the lands in which the Christians were present and even held positions of power among them, Rome, Persia, Armenia, Scythia, India, and the islands of Britain. He concluded by saying: \u201cThese things could not indeed, in my opinion, be regarded as wrought by a mere man, let alone by worthless and common persons, and least of all by deceivers and sorcerers.\u201d
\nIn the fragments preserved by Cyril from Julian\u2019s treatise Contra Galilaeos, these motifs appear in full. However, as we will see presently, there was no mechanical borrowing by Julian from former polemicists; rather, after examining the material, including the answers of his opponents and their criticism, he accepted things as they were where he saw no need for change and inserted changes only where they were essential. It is clear that Julian had read the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, and he replied to Eusebius both directly and indirectly. He declared explicitly:<\/p>\n
But, as for the laws of society and the qualities of the courts of law, the conduct of affairs of the cities and the splendour of the laws, the furtherances of scholarship and the amelioration of the liberal arts\u2014were not these things wretched and barbarian among the Hebrews? And yet the scoundrel Eusebius claims that some hexameters are to be found even among them, and strives to prove that there exists among the Hebrews the practice of logic, whose very name he heard from the Hellenes. What kind of medical art has been revealed among the Hebrews similar to that of Hippocrates or of other schools after him among the Hellenes? Is Solomon, the wisest of men, the equivalent of Phocylides or Theognis or Isocrates among the Hellenes? Nonsense! In any case, if you were to match the moral precepts of Isocrates and the proverbs of Solomon, I am certain that you would discover that the son of Theodorus [= Isocrates] surpasses the wisest king. \u201cBut,\u201d they say, \u201cSolomon was also trained in theurgy.\u201d What of it? Did not this very Solomon worship our gods after being deceived, as they say, by his wife? What greatness of virtue! What abundance of wisdom! He was unable to prevail over his pleasure, and the words of a woman led him astray! If he were indeed deceived by a woman, do not declare him to have been wise. But if you believe that he was wise, do not accept that he was deceived by a woman, but rather that he worshipped the other gods as well, having been persuaded by his own judgement and sagacity, and through the instruction of the God who appeared to him.<\/p>\n
Julian was prepared to admit that Greek mythology, which told of immoral or improbable acts of the gods, was no better nor worse than Biblical tales about Paradise, the woman and the snake (44A\u201394A). The same was true of the story of the Aloadae and its equivalent in the Pentateuch, the story of the construction of the Tower of Babylon (134D\u2013135D). With regard to the accusation put forward by Eusebius that Plato was a plagiarist, Julian presented passages from the Pentateuch on the creation of the world and of man, contrasting them with the relevant passages from the Timaeus of Plato. He stated at the outset that \u201cin this way, it will be seen who was the better and who was more worthy of God [i.e. in his description], Plato the worshipper of idols or the man concerning whom the Scripture says that God spoke with him mouth to mouth\u201d (Numbers, 12:8). Here the comparison ended (according to the preserved fragments), but there is no doubt as to what would have been its conclusion. If the words of Plato were superior to those of Moses, it was of no relevance to assert that Moses had anteceded Plato and Plato could not be accused of unsuccessful plagiarism, as he was by the Church Fathers. The Fathers did indeed rely on the same passages from the Bible and from Plato but, through allegorical interpretation, both theirs and Philo\u2019s, the Church Fathers concluded that the Law of Moses was superior, and that there had been a transcription or a more or less corrupt literary theft by Plato.
\nJulian realized that the argument that the Christians were dependent on barbarians\u2014the Hebrews\u2014not only missed its target but even served as a great hindrance to the pagans. For the Christians assiduously collected all the sayings of the philosophers from the classical period onward which demonstrated that, in the barbarian-Greek struggle, it was the former who had the upper hand with regard to the creation of human civilization. These philosophers said that, at the time when the barbarians had already developed a broad culture in the spheres of science and religion, the Greeks were still in a savage condition or at any rate in a very primitive stage of development. This literary fashion was also to be found among neo-Platonic philosophers such as Porphyry and Iamblichus; since their hostility to Christianity was never in doubt, the Christians were delighted to discover that they might turn the philosophers\u2019 own words against them. This is exactly what Eusebius did when he collected all the passages in Porphyry that praised the Jews, since they belonged to the nations of The East\u2014the barbarians\u2014so noteworthy for their wisdom and antiquity. Inasmuch as the Christians claimed to be associated with the Jews, either as the faithful upholders of their Law or as their heirs, the natural conclusion was that, even as regards culture, the Hellenes were in the inferior position. In order to sever this connection, Julian replaced the racial conflict of barbarians and Hellenes with a religious polytheistic contraposition, joining the religions of the barbarians and Hellenes against the monotheism of the Jews. By such a presentation of the conflict, Julian succeeded in reviving the culture motif even more forcefully; it now was wholly supporting the polytheistic side, while the Jews, with their monotheism, and the Christians were left in wretched isolation. This is the interpretation I suggest for the following passages, in which Julian also made comprehensive comparisons between the Jews and the pagans. Here is what he said in Contra Galilaeos on these matters:<\/p>\n
Moreover, look and see from the following that god did not care solely for the Hebrews but rather for all nations; he gave them nothing valuable or great while he granted us things that far excelled theirs. Indeed the Egyptians, when they recount the names of not a few wise men among themselves, are able to say that many of them received [knowledge] from Hermes, that is, from Hermes who visited Egypt in his third appearance. The Chaldaeans and Assyrians can pride themselves on those who received knowledge from Oannes and Belos, while the Hellenes can claim myriads who received knowledge from Cheiron. From then on, all became gifted in the mysteries and theology, the same field that the Hebrews pride themselves on holding as their monopoly.\u2026
\nBut did God give you the foundations of any science or any philosophical discipline? Which, then, is it? Why, the theory of heavenly phenomena was brought to perfection by the Hellenes after the first observations had been made by barbarians in Babylon; geometry, which has reached such excellence, was born in the measurement and division of land in Egypt, whereas the study of numbers, whose beginnings were among Phoenician merchants, became established as a science among the Hellenes in the course of time. The Hellenes joined these three and music into one science, interweaving astronomy with geometry, and they brought the numbers into concord with both after detecting the principle of harmony in them.\u2026
\nDo I have to name them one by one, or according to their professions? Should I name persons like Plato, Socrates, Aristeides, Cimon, Thales, Lycurgus, Agesilaus, Archidamus, or instead speak of the class of philosophers, of army-commanders, of craftsmen, of legislators? For even the most wretched and loathsome of army-commanders will be found treating more reasonably those who committed the greatest sins than Moses treated those who erred in nothing. And now of what kingdom shall I tell you? Should it be that of Perseus, or of Aeacus, or of Minos of Crete, who cleansed the sea afflicted by piracy, dislodging and expelling the barbarians as far as Syria and Sicily \u2026 And sharing with his brother Rhadamanthus, not the earth itself, but rather the care of men, he himself instituted the laws which he received from Zeus, and left it to Rhadamanthus to carry out the administration of justice.\u2026 (176A\u2013190C.)
\nFor a while the greatest of the gifts of Helios and Zeus escaped my memory. It is appropriate however that I reserved it for the last. For it is not special to us Romans alone, I imagine, but in common with the Hellenes our kinsmen. For indeed Zeus procreated Asclepius from himself among the intelligible gods, and through the life of procreativeHelios he manifested him to the earth. Asclepius, having made his way to earth from the sky, appeared at Epidaurus in one image, the image of man; but then he multiplied himself, and, in his visitations, held out to the whole earth his redeeming right hand. He went to Pergamum, to Ionia, then to Tarentum; and later he went to Rome. He journeyed to Cos, from there to Aegae. Then he is present everywhere on land and sea. He does not visit anyone of us separately, yet he puts back in order souls that went astray as well as bodies that are ill.
\nOf what thing of this kind do the Hebrews boast they were given by God, so that you have been persuaded to flee from us to them? At least, if you had paid attention to their teachings, you would not have been cast into utter misery \u2026 And though you would be using a severe and inflexible law, which encompasses much that is rough and barbarous, in place of our fair and humane laws, and would otherwise be in worse condition, you would still be more holy and pure as regards your rituals.\u2026 (200A\u2013202A.)
\n\u2026 If indeed those things which we say be true, show me among the Hebrews one army-commander who equals Alexander, one who equals Caesar. For there is no one (like them) among you.\u2026 For the lesser of those army-commanders are unknown to the masses, but each one of them is more admirable than all of those who were among the Hebrews put together.<\/p>\n
Apart from these comments, we find in Julian some more invective on this subject, stressing the educational and moral inferiority of the Jewish and Christian holy scriptures. He stressed that the gods had bestowed on the pagans abundant benefits of the body and soul.<\/p>\n
Why do you consume the learning (current) among the Hellenes, if the reading of your own writings is sufficient for you? Although it were preferable to prevent people from studying it than from consuming sacrificial meat.\u2026 For because of this learning, every being among you whom nature has made noble departed from atheism.\u2026 But you yourselves are aware, as it seems to me, of the difference between your writings and ours with respect to sagacity, and that from your writings no one would become a noble man nor even a good one, while from our writings every one would become fairer than before, notwithstanding the fact that he were wholly lacking natural talents \u2026 And yet you are so wretched and lacking in sense that you think those treatises of yours divine, by means of which no one could ever become more wise or courageous, nor better than he was before; but the very writings, by means of which it is possible to gain additional courage, wisdom, and justice, all these you assign to Satan and to those who worship Satan.
\nAsclepius cures our bodies; the Muses, together with Asclepius, Apollo and Hermes, the god of eloquence, educate our souls; Ares and Enyo aid us in that which concerns war; Hephaistus allots and bestows that which concerns the crafts, and Athene, the motherless virgin, presides over all these things together with Zeus. Contemplate then whether we are not in a better position than you as regards every one of these things; I refer to that which concerns the crafts, wisdom, and sagacity \u2026 (229C\u2013235C.)<\/p>\n
As might be expected, the enslavement motif is present in Julian\u2019s work, although as we noted above, Eusebius had not paid attention to this motif. But in this matter (in contrast to other matters), Julian followed the beaten path, saying:<\/p>\n
However, to go back to the point at which I digressed, in asking \u201cfor what reason were you so ungrateful to our gods that you ran away from them to the Jews?\u201d Was it because the gods bestowed the right to rule on Rome, allowing the Jews only a brief period of freedom and then making them forever foreign and enslaved? Consider Abraham: was he not foreign in an alien land? And Jacob: was he not a slave first to the Syrians, then to the Palestinians, and in his old age to the Egyptians? Does not Moses say that he led them forth from the house of bondage out of Egypt \u201cwith an outstretched arm\u201d [Exodus, 6:6]? And after their settlement in Palestine, did their fortunes not change more often than a chameleon changes its colour, as observers say, here subject to the judges [Judges, 2:16], there enslaved by alien races? And when kings began to rule them, (let us postpone for the time being the question of how they were ruled) \u2026 they did nonetheless at least inhabit their own country and cultivated it for just over three hundred years. They then were enslaved, first by the Assyrians, then by the Medes, thereafter by the Persians, and now, finally, by ourselves. Jesus, who was proclaimed in your midst, was also one of Caesar\u2019s subjects. If you doubt me, I will prove it to you in a little while; perhaps you will allow me to state it now. Indeed, you declare that he was registered along with his father and mother in the census of the time of Kyrenius [Luke, 2:2].<\/p>\n
In his letter to the Alexandrians in connection with their request to recall bishop Athanasius from exile, Julian utilized this motif cunningly, in order to influence with its help the Christians whose Hellenic-pagan patriotic feelings had not vanished. He said:<\/p>\n
By the gods, I am filled with shame, O men of Alexandria, to think that even a single Alexandrian concedes that he be a Galilaean. The ancestors of the true Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians long ago but, nowadays, men of Alexandria, you who defeated the Egyptians (for your founding father was the conqueror of Egypt) willingly yield yourselves, in spite of your ancient traditions, to enslavement by men who have despised the doctrines of their forefathers.<\/p>\n
That Julian had no real intention of vexing and humiliating the Jews as well, in this letter, and in Contra Galilaeos since he did not regard them as a party to the polemic (as I tried to show in the first chapter) can be learned from Julian\u2019s explicit words in another connection, from which a conclusion emerges that is valid for our subject. In his long \u201cLetter to a Priest\u201d Julian dealt with various arguments against polytheistic worship. One of them was why the gods did not strike down those who desecrated their statues and temples. Julian dismissed this query, saying:<\/p>\n
Therefore let no one deceive us with his sayings or shake our faith in providence. For, with regard to men who make such profanation an argument against us, the prophets of the Jews, what will they say about their own temple, which has been overthrown for a third time, and has still not been rebuilt once again?<\/p>\n
But Julian immediately apologized for his possibly offensive words and explained the reason for them:<\/p>\n
This I said not in order to reprove them, for I myself, after such a lapse of time, have considered rebuilding it, in honour of the god by whose name it is called. In the present instance, I have used this case because I wish to show that nothing which is of human manufacture can be incorruptible, and that the seers who wrote such things were saying silly things, as a result of their gossiping with foolish old women. (259C\u2013D.)<\/p>\n
Julian further ascribed the errors of Jewish prophets to the fact that \u201cthey have not made submission of their souls to purification by encyclical studies.\u201d And added: \u201cBut, concerning this, it will be preferable to demonstrate separately that these proponents of tales about the gods are greatly inferior to our bards.\u201d (296B.) Julian\u2019s treatise dealing in great detail with these matters is, of course, the Contra Galilaeos.
\nStudy of the origins and development of our motifs has revealed how the parties manoeuvred them and how, although their essential form did not change (except for current additions), they were now addressed by the pagans to a new address: Christianity. Let us now consider to what extent we can apply the results of our study to the relevant Talmudic sources.<\/p>\n
* * *
\nThe Hellenistic Jews, who were imbued with Greek culture and familiar only in part (and that, at one remove) with Jewish literature, were very much disturbed by pagan arguments on this subject. Josephus, who was more learned in the Jewish sources and less so in the Greek ones, was not as troubled by these arguments. Considering relative familiarity or unfamiliarity with Jewish or Greek sources, it is only reasonable to assume that the Sages would have been less disturbed than Josephus or Philo by this motif when it was aimed directly at the Jews, and even less by it when it became a pagan tool to attack the Christians. The Biblical injunction, \u201cObserve therefore and do them [the statutes and the ordinances]; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, that, when they hear all these statutes, shall say: \u2018Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people\u2019 \u201d (Deuteronomy, 4:6), aptly expresses the attitude of the Sages and, to a certain extent, even the view of Josephus. His statement at the end of the Antiquitates (20:264) seems to reflect the attitude of the Sages to foreign languages and, concomitantly, to foreign literatures. Josephus seems to have apologized for his poor style, and to have explained the obstacles which prevented him from studying the Greek language and literature: \u201cFor among us they who study thoroughly the languages of many nations are not approved, since it is thought that this occupation is open not only to any free man but also to slaves who wish it; only those are credited with wisdom who clearly understand the traditional laws [nomima\u2014halachot], and are capable of expounding the meaning of the holy scriptures.\u201d About one hundred and fifty years after Josephus, in response to Celsus, who had presented a Jew disputing with the Christians while quoting verses from the Bacchae of Euripides, Origen expressed doubt as to whether Jews (probably including those of the Diaspora) devote their time to reading classical literature, although he was prepared to concede for the sake of argument that some Jew or other might do this. On the other hand it is clear from Tertullian\u2019s comments that it was considered vital for the Christians to study pagan literature as a foundation for their general education.
\nA question arises in this context: how are we to understand all the Talmudic sources which refer to \u1e25ochmath yevanith? In two works of great erudition, Professor Saul Lieberman collected, compared, and analyzed Talmudic and Midrashic texts attesting to Greek influence on Eretz Israel. But, unfortunately, Lieberman revealed a strong inclination to exaggerate the results of his investigations. He commented:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a thousand young men in my father\u2019s house, five hundred of whom studied the Law, while the other five hundred studied Greek wisdom,\u201d said Rabban Simeon (the son of Rabban Gamaliel the Patriarch). This is first-hand evidence that an academy of Greek wisdom existed in Jewish Palestine under the auspices of the Patriarch. It was established in the beginning of the second century for the purpose of facilitating the relations between the House of the Patriarch and the Roman government. The Rabbinic sources have not provided us with a clear statement of what they called \u2018Greek Wisdom.\u2019 Did it include all the Hellenistic sciences and arts of that time or only the superficial oriental knowledge of certain branches of Greek literature which were prerequisite to acceptance into Roman high-official society?
\nAlthough we are unable to answer this question we can assert that the very existence of an officially recognized \u201cAcademy of Greek Wisdom\u201d in Jewish Palestine is of great importance. The members and teachers of the academy were in a position to make valuable information from Greek sources available to the Rabbis. Good literary style was probably one of the main subjects studied in this academy, and we can expect that certain Rabbis were well equipped to speak and write literary Greek.
\nIt seems that the foundation of this academy marked a turning point in Jewish literary history. The Jewish leaders felt that not only is \u201cGreek wisdom\u201d indispensable for proper relations with the Roman government but that Greek philosophy is a useful instrument in religious discussions, especially with the Gentile Christians who became more and more influential. Yet it is obvious that Greek philosophy was the appanage of only very few outstanding Rabbis \u2026<\/p>\n
And on page sixty-six, Lieberman added: \u201cThe Rabbis of Palestine were familiar with the fashionable style of the civilized world of that time. Many of them were highly educated in Greek literature as has been proved above.\u201d
\nIn his review of this book, Gedaliahu Alon strongly criticized Lieberman\u2019s theory, and offered a diametrically opposed one, positing a minimum of Greek literary knowledge and influence in Eretz Israel. In a later article, Lieberman seems to have altered his former statements considerably, thereby coming close to Alon\u2019s position. But it still seems to me that the central point has not been clarified sufficiently, and that it is worth looking into the matter again.
\nIn the English version of his books, Lieberman disregarded the construct-state form \u1e25\u0323ochmath and invariably translated the whole expression by \u201cGreek wisdom,\u201d paying no attention to this unusual form. In the Hebrew translation of his books, checked by Lieberman himself, \u1e25\u0323ochmah, the nominative form, even replaced the enigmatic \u1e25\u0323ochmath. This change matches the interpretation Lieberman attached to this expression. It is curious that Lieberman, a master of manuscript versions, did not wonder about this extraordinary form. For there is no doubt that the true version is \u1e25\u0323ochmath. Apart from the fact that it has been preserved in manuscripts, it is also to be found in the printed editions of the Talmud, even when it appears in shortened form (\u1e25ochm.) in the manuscripts. It is clear that the version \u1e25ochmath, though the lectio difficilior, was left intact by the copyists because they considered it to be equivalent to \u1e25ochmah. The Rabbis of the Middle Ages were not confronted by the problem of whether to study the Greek language, but rather of whether to study profane subjects. That is why they always interpreted \u1e25ochmath yevanith as \u1e25ochmah yevanith, that is, Greek philosophy and sciences. Lieberman accepts this interpretation, as well as their unfounded distinction between teaching one\u2019s son and studying oneself; the former, in their view, was prohibited, while the latter was permissable.
\nBut, if we examine the sources, we realize that there was no distinction made at all between \u1e25ochmath yevanith and the Greek language (lashon yevanith). The clear point of departure was in the Mishnah, in Sotah (9:14), in which it was decreed \u201cthat no man should teach his son Greek,\u201d that is, the Greek language. The baraita in BT Sotah (49b), which ostensibly explained the circumstances in which this injunction was issued, ended up by stating: \u201ccursed be the man who will teach his son \u1e25ochmath yevanith.\u201d The Gemara also raised an objection, on the basis of the saying of Rabbi (= R. Yehuda the Patriarch): \u201cWhy speak the Syrian language in Eretz Israel? Nay, either [speak] the holy language or the Greek language (lashon).\u201d This indicates that it understood \u1e25ochmath yevanith as equivalent to lashon yevanith but, in order to extract itself from the contradiction between the Mishnah and the saying of R. Yehuda the Patriarch (who approved the use of Greek), the Gemara tended to distinguish between the two statements.
\nThe objection raised afterwards concerning \u1e25ochmath yevanith itself was based on a tradition in the name of Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel, according to which five hundred children had studied \u1e25ochmath yevanith in Yavneh. It is difficult to believe that these children studied Greek literature and philosophy, rather than the foreign language itself. The adherents of the interpretation \u1e25ochmath yevanith = Greek philosophy found support for their theory in the question posed by Ben Dama to R. Ishmael: \u201cIs a man like myself who has studied the whole Torah permitted to study \u1e25ochmath yevanith?\u201d R. Ishmael\u2019s response was that since there is an injunction to study the Torah day and night, studying Greek was permissable only if the questioner found a time that was neither day nor night. But the question was similar to the case in which R. Joshua was asked: \u201cIs a man permitted to teach his son Greek?\u201d That is, the Greek language was meant, as would be appropriate for a youth; the response of R. Joshua was identical to that of R. Ishmael. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that even an adult like Ben Dama, who had devoted much study to the Bible, was necessarily asking permission to study Greek philosophy. It is entirely possible that he wished to acquire a good elementary knowledge of the Greek tongue, some words of which he might have known only from hearing them spoken. That the Sages of Eretz Israel did not always know simple words in Greek can be seen from what R. \u1e24anin related in the name of R. Joshua ben Levi: \u201cI went round to all the language masters to learn the meaning of \u2018diethemon,\u2019 but no one told me anything.\u201d Similarly, R. Huna and R. Shemi did not know \u201ctill what number konta is used\u201d. This being the case, it seems to me that \u1e25ochmath yevanith was not identical with \u1e25ochmah yevanith, but was an abbreviated expression of \u201c\u1e25ochmah of the Greek language\u201d (lashon). This, then, is what I suggest was the meaning of the unusual grammatical form, \u1e25ochmath. The meaning of \u1e25ochmah here is not wisdom but rather discipline, art (the Greek techn\u00ea). \u201c\u1e24ochmath yevanith\u201d therefore signifies \u201cthe art of the Greek language.\u201d
\nThe prohibition to study the Greek language was, most probably, issued as a token of solidarity with the Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, who had suffered a devastating blow in the rebellions under Trajan. But the prohibition was a symbolic one and of short duration, just as had been the decree \u201cthat a bride should not be carried in a litter within the town,\u201d concerning which it was explicitly stated that \u201cour Rabbis\u201d thereafter permitted the renewal of this custom. If this interpretation of \u1e25ochmath yevanith as referring solely to the Greek language be accepted, all the theories based on the \u201cphilosophic\u201d interpretation fall, as well as all the attempts to find support for it in various utterances of the Sages ostensibly echoing Greek literature or philosophy.
\nThe attitude of the Sages towards the enslavement motif was completely different from their position on the culture motif. In the case of enslavement, there was no room for indifference; even if this motif had not been employed as a tool by the pagans and Christians, the Sages could not have disregarded it. They had to report to the people about grave events which touched on the life of the nation. The prophets of Israel had attributed the misfortunes that afflicted the people of Israel to the sins committed between man and man, and between man and God. But this general explanation was seen as being trite by the Sages, and they therefore endeavoured to improve it by bringing forward some other and rather peculiar reasons to explain the destruction of the Temple.
\nR. Yo\u1e25anan said, for example, that the \u201cdestruction of Jerusalem came through [a trivial dispute of] a Kam\u1e93a and [his opponent] a Bar Kam\u1e93a; the destruction of Tur Malka [the mountain of the king] came through a cock and a hen; the destruction of Bethar came through the shaft of a leather.\u2026\u201d And, a little further on, in an even more paradoxical expression, \u201cR. Yo\u1e25anan said: through the scrupulousness [literally, \u201cthe humility\u201d] of R. Zechariah b. Abkulas our House has been destroyed, our Temple burnt and we ourselves exiled from our land.\u201d The explanation of R. Yos\u00e9 ben \u1e24\u0323alafta also has a curious (and anachronistic) character: \u201c\u2026 And why was it [the town of Bethar] laid waste? Because it kindled candles after the destruction of the Temple.\u2026\u201d
\nOne Midrash presented the problem of the enslavement of Israel by foreign kingdoms in a dramatic manner; in it, Abraham the patriarch had misgivings on this subject, since he was required to determine by his decision the fate of his descendants\u2014hell or enslavement. The conclusion that emerges from the story is that enslavement was seen as the lesser evil. In the Talmudic sources, there are other, multiform answers treating the whole problem of the domination of the Romans and the enslavement of the Jews. Among their themes are the following:<\/p>\n
1. Sin. For example, Tan\u1e25uma, Va\u00ebre 17:
\nR. Yehuda Halevi bar Shalom said: Moses said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: Lord of the World, why is this nation enslaved? There are seventy nations in the world and they are not enslaved but this nation only. Then the sin is known [ = informing, false accusation], as it is written: \u201cThen the matter is known\u201d [Exodus, 2:14], that you are not enslaved for nothing.<\/p>\n
2. The situation, although bad, nonetheless had some redeeming features:<\/p>\n
\u201cSimeon bar Abba in the name of R. Yo\u1e25anan \u2026 The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to him [Abraham] \u2026 and the Temple will be destroyed and the sacrifices cease: which do you prefer, that your children will be oppressed in hell [Gehinom] or by the kingdoms?\u2026 R. Berechia in the name of R. Levi: all this day Abraham sat and pondered in his heart, saying: which shall we choose, hell or the kingdoms? The one is harder than the other. [Or, \u201cthis is hard and this is hard.\u201d] The Holy One, Blessed be He, said unto him: Abraham! till when will you sit and wonder in your heart? Stop this softness [ = the Greek word malakia in Hebrew transliteration] in your heart. This is that which is written: \u2018On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying\u2019 [Genesis, 15:18]. What does it mean saying? R. \u1e24inena bar Papa said: Abraham chose the kingdoms for himself. We have arrived at a controversy. R. Yudan and R. Idi, R. \u1e24ama bar \u1e24anina and one elder said in the name of Rabbi [ = R. Yehuda the Patriarch]: The Holy One, Blessed be He, chose the kingdoms for him.\u2026\u201d The controversy over Abraham\u2019s position indicates that the Sages of the second and third centuries C.E. held different positions on the matter of the enslavement; in addition, the very fact of the ascription of this decision to Abraham suggests that the Sages sought to cast off their burden of having to explain the bitter facts.
\nR. Oshaya said: what is the meaning of the verse \u201cEven the righteous acts of His Ruler in Israel?\u201d [Judges, 5:11] The Holy One, Blessed be He, displayed righteousness [mercy] towards Israel by dispersing them among the nations. And Rabbi Eleazar said: the Holy One, Blessed be He, did not exile Israel among the nations if not so that converts might join them. [BT Pesa\u1e25im, 87b.]<\/p>\n
3. The situation is temporary; it is now the Romans\u2019 lucky hour. Josephus explained his having surrendered to the Romans instead of committing suicide on this basis:<\/p>\n
Since it pleases thee.\u2026 who didst create the Jewish nation, to break thy work, since fortune [tych\u00ea] has wholly passed to the Romans, \u2026 I willingly surrender to the Romans and consent to live; but I take thee to witness that I go, not as a traitor, but as thy minister.<\/p>\n
Midrash Rabba, Deuteronomy, relates:<\/p>\n
What is the meaning of \u201cTurn you northward\u201d [Zafonah] (Deuteronomy, 2:3)? R. \u1e24iyya interpreted: Moses said to Israel: If you see that he [Esau = Rome] seeks to make war on you, then do not stand up to him but hide [hazpinu] yourselves from him, until his day has passed.\u2026<\/p>\n
4. Hopes for the downfall of Rome, and promises for the future. Our sources abound in these. Here are a few examples.<\/p>\n
Rome is designed to fall into the hand of Persia.
\nR. Mena\u1e25ma (others state, R. Tan\u1e25uma in the name of R. Yehoshua b. Levi) said: The Holy One, Blessed be He, will make the peoples of the world drink a cup of bitterness from the place whence this [river] issues.\u2026 \u201cAnd the fourth river is Perath [Euphrates]\u201d: that is Edom \u2026 Perath also denoting that I [God] will ultimately consign it to oblivion [hafer]; [finally it is called] Perath on account of its ultimate destiny, as it is written, \u201cI have trodden the winepress [Purah] alone \u2026\u201d [Midrash Rabba, Genesis, 16:4].<\/p>\n
Finally, three citations from R. Yo\u1e25anan:<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd heareth the voice of adjuration\u201d [Leviticus, 5:1] \u2026 R. Yo\u1e25anan said: They [God and Israel] gave reciprocal promises: He, that He would not disown them, they, that they would not disown Him. [Midrash Rabba, Leviticus, 6:5];
\n\u201cAnd He [God] will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers\u201d [Deuteronomy, 30:5] \u2026 For R. \u1e24elbo or R. Simeon bar Abba said, in the name of R. Yo\u1e25anan \u2026 \u201cmore \u2026 than your fathers\u201d, your fathers, although they were delivered, were enslaved again, but you, when you are redeemed, you will not be enslaved again. Why? \u201cAsk now, and see, can a man bear a child?\u201d [Jeremiah, 30:6] Just as a male cannot bear a child, so you, when you are redeemed you are not enslaved again.\u2026 [JT Sheviit, chap. 6, 36b];
\n\u2026 R. Yo\u1e25anan interpreted the verses as referring to Sodom and Israel.\u2026 \u201cThen was I in his eyes as one that found peace\u201d [Song of Songs, 8:10] Why so? Because all the other nations [of the world] taunted Israel saying to them: If that is so, why did God expel you from his land, and why did he lay waste His sanctuary? Israel thereupon answered: We are like a king\u2019s daughter who went to celebrate the first festival after her marriage in her father\u2019s house; in the end she will certainly return to her own house in peace.\u2026 [Midrash Rabba, Songs of Songs, 8:8\u20139]<\/p>\n
The last saying is an attempt to evade the question rather than to answer it, but we must remember that it was difficult to find satisfactory replies for this vexatious question, and that the conventional attempts of theodicy were unable to hearten the people\u2014in contrast to the descriptions which painted pictures of a glorious and joyful future.<\/p>\n
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS<\/p>\n
At the outset of this work, we considered biographical sketches of the pagans and Christians who played the most important and active parts in the polemic. We attempted to reveal their characters by studying their attitudes towards sacrifices and daemons.
\nWe then turned to a general analysis of the place of the Jews in the polemic. Scholarly literature dealing with the polemic presents the opinion that the Jews participated in the polemic during the period from the Bar-Cochba revolt to the time of the emperor Julian and even afterwards no less than they did during the Hellenistic period and the first hundred years of Christianity. Some scholars suggest that the Jews were fighting the Church for the souls of the pagans; others argue that there existed a pagan-Jewish alliance to fight Christianity, the common foe. Still other scholars admit the existence of a Christian-Jewish polemic, but emphasize that, while the Christians and Jews fought one another, both were waging a fierce battle against idolatry. Reading the sources themselves, however, I drew the conclusion that such explanations are not compatible with the literal meaning of the pagan writings and that even the character of the Christian treatises \u201cAdversus Iudaeos\u201d does not necessarily testify to the existence of a Christian-Jewish polemic.
\nThe pagans contributed a realistic character to the literary polemic by turning it into a part of their political and police activity directed towards the liquidation of Christian cells or defence against them. One must deal, therefore, with the pagan point of view in the period before the rise of Christianity as well as in that after it, showing pagan motives and what changed in the pagan attitude towards the Jews. There is no reason to suppose that the pagans were \u201cborn\u201d anti-Semites, though Jewish monotheism seemed weird to polytheists, and the Jews\u2019 contempt for idolatry and idolaters might have awakened feelings of resentment and hatred. But if one looks into the relations of the Jews of Eretz Israel and of the Diaspora with pagan neighbours and governments, there appears a parallel between the politico-social sphere and the spiritual. The generally positive attitude concerning Jews that dominated pagan thinking of the third century B.C.E. yielded its place to a negative, hostile one. The change was produced by several causes: the emergence and actions of the Hasmonean kingdom; the struggle of the Jews of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt for civil rights; and, not least, the intensive propaganda campaign waged by Hellenistic Jewry against the polytheistic religions. This last, with the help of the spiritual atmosphere that existed in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, must have brought about the conversion to Judaism of pagans in such numbers as to worry the adherents of polytheism, and became a constant factor in attracting their animosity. Pagans such as Tacitus saw in conversion to Judaism the cause of the corruption of virtues and the decline of morals in the Empire. Furthermore, Jewish rebelliousness in Eretz Israel and the Diaspora (the great revolt of 66 C.E., the rebellions of Trajan\u2019s and Hadrian\u2019s reigns) constituted a danger to the security and integrity of the Empire. If all the above-mentioned factors created the pagan-Jewish polemic, one might expect its decline or even cessation with their disappearance. And, indeed, from the middle of the second century C.E. there is a recognizable change in pagan-Jewish relations. This may be ascribed to the spread of a spirit of moderation and acquiescence among the Jews as regards their subjugation by the Romans, and also to an apparent subsidence of the conversion wave, due most probably to the physical destruction of Hellenistic and Eretz Israel Jewry.
\nBut Judaism produced a replacement that came forth to conquer the pagan world. From the middle of the second century C.E., the activity of the Christian \u201cmission\u201d was intensified. This phenomenon, and the social separatism of the Christians which was expressed in their avoidance of military and civil service, was viewed with increasing alarm by the authorities. The pagan polemical literature against the Christians testifies that the threat to the Roman state played a major part in its creation; factors similar to those that elicited the pagan polemic against the Jews produced a pagan polemic against the Christians. This theory about the transmutation of the pagan-Jewish polemic into a pagan-Christian one receives further support from an argumentum e silentio. In the Hellenistic-Roman period, the pagans composed special polemical treatises against the Jews, and were answered by them, whereas from the second century C.E., no work of such a character is extant, nor is the title of such a work even mentioned in the sources. This gap is filled by pagan and Christian polemical-apologetic writings. It is difficult to explain this fact unless one assumes that it reflects the polemical reality. This analogy is somewhat weakened by the existence of the Christian writings \u201cAdversus Iudaeos\u201d; however, no Jewish work has been preserved which might have caused their composition or which reacted to them. If one examines the content of these writings against the Jews and their schematic construction, it becomes clear that their title is misleading and that they were not addressed to the Jews in particular but to pagans, sectarians, heretics, and even catechumens. The fact that the existence of the Jews and their keeping of the Law constituted an internal difficulty for the Church\u2014because of their \u201cobjective\u201d attraction for Christians and would-be Christians\u2014does not prove that an actual Christian-Jewish polemic existed. This impression is strengthened by the nature of the exchanges between the minim (heretics), sometimes obviously Christians, and the Jews in the Talmudic sources.
\nThe importance of the Jewish factor in the polemic was different for each side. The Christians sought by the help of the Bible to escape the accusation of revolutionary renovation; apart from ancient roots, the Bible offered them a text for building their theology and ethics as a counterweight to pagan doctrines. From Hellenistic Judaism, Christianity acquired the allegorical system of Biblical exposition and a whole body of apologetic arguments and proofs. The pagans, on the other hand, tried to sever this connection of the Christians and the Holy Scriptures by emphasizing the position of the Jews against the Christians. Each side could use all things relevant to Judaism without being handicapped by the counter-argument that the Jews were partial to it, since the position of the Jews was thought to be one of hostile \u201cneutrality\u201d towards Christians and pagans alike. One must therefore understand that the praises and recriminations that pagans and Christians alike heaped upon the Jews and their doctrines were but their means of attacking an opponent. The pagans recognized that the basic teaching of the Christian religion originated in the Law of Moses (see Origen, Contra Celsum, 5:33, 65), whereas the Christians were aware that the pagans intended to \u201cprove Christianity to be untrue\u201d by showing \u201cits spuriousness by attacking its origin in Judaism\u201d (ibid., 1:22).
\nWe then considered such topics as the recognition of God, revelation, and religious myth. We traced the development of the polemic around a central theological problem, religious myth, and examined the Jewish factor in it. It is worth noting that the polemic was not a theoretical dispute among theologians, but an attempt to defend the docrines and traditions upon which the missionary propaganda of each side was based. The success of their preaching depended upon their proving superiority and credibility.
\nFor a discussion to take place, there must be certain premises accepted by both sides. Among pagans and Christians (as well as among the Sages and Hellenistic Jews), it was taken for granted that recognition of God is inherent in every person, or that he arrives at it by contemplation of the workings of the universe. The heavenly bodies were even thought by the pagans to be divinities.
\nThere was also no difference of opinion as regards the existence of and necessity for a divine revelation. For the Christians this revelation was embodied in the Bible, whereas the pagan revelation was scattered in books of poetry, oracles, laws, and so on, the rituals being a question of custom and tradition. Although this material had its limitations, arising from the mythical frame of thought in which it was formed, both sides adhered to it as it was. They were nevertheless obliged to have recourse to a greater or lesser amount of allegorical exposition in order to demonstrate their opinions and beliefs. And even though each side denied the other the right to allegorize its own writings, the legitimacy of allegory for the solution of problems arising from the religious myth was accepted by all. (Arnobius was extraordinary in this respect, but then he did not pay any attention to the \u201cBiblical myth\u201d and the problems of its adaptation by the Church.) Josephus served the Christians as a model, especially in his attacks on pagan mythology and concerning the question of antiquity, while Philo put in their hands the tools for constructing their theology and for defending themselves against the attacks of pagans whose point of departure was Greek philosophy.
\nWe have examined a number of examples of positive and negative attitudes towards the \u201cBiblical myth,\u201d which appeared indiscriminately in the polemical writings of the pagans. The pagans argued on scriptural grounds against the rejection of the injunctions (mitzvoth) by the Christians and praised the Jews for keeping them, and rejected\u2014again on scriptural grounds\u2014the special status with which the Christians endowed Jesus, making him the foundation of their belief. On the other hand, they belittled Biblical cosmogony, and complained bitterly of the degradation of God\u2019s image caused by the description of deeds such as that of Phine\u1e25as. In all these cases, one must remember that the treatises were directed against the Christians, and that the use made of anything connected with Judaism was only a means and not an end in itself.
\nA number of additional subjects, such as divine providence, daemons and the election of the Jews also required treatment. As regards the question of who is an impious man and what is impiety, there existed full agreement among Jews, pagans and Christians, as we have seen. They all emphasized that the most impious man is not he who denies the existence of God or the gods, but the Epicurean type who denies the existence of providence as concerns the world, nature, nations, and individuals. The aims of the polemic forced the adoption of an anti-Epicurean, popular concept of providence, in spite of the fact that the polemicists themselves might have held a very different view of it. Examples of this are to be found in the Jewish (Philo), Christian (Origen), and pagan (Julian) camps. The work of providence is described as a spiritual relationship or intellectual contact between man and his creator (Julian); the value of the goods of this world is so belittled that it is of no importance whether the impious enjoy them, since they are valueless in the eyes of God and the righteous (Philo); it is explained that there is no graver punishment for the atheists than the fact that they do not know God (Origen). All these theories about providence are in contradiction to the conceptions expressed by the same men in their polemical treatises, and it is worth noting that Philo\u2019s and Julian\u2019s unusual statements appear in writings that were not intended directly for the polemic.
\nIn contrast to the general agreement on this principle, there was sharp disagreement between pagans and Christians about the powers implementing divine providence. The pagans were of the opinion that the daemons were the gods of the nations, and supervised and cared for those entrusted to them. The Christians, on the other hand, believed the daemons to be wicked powers of darkness, and exerted themselves to prove that the daemons were identical with the gods mentioned in pagan mythology. The Christians repeated time and again, as an irrefutable statement, the Psalmist\u2019s pronouncement that \u201call the gods of the nations are idols.\u201d \u201cIdols\u201d was translated by the Septuagint as \u201cdaemonic powers,\u201d and this authority set aside the distinction made by the pagans between good and evil daemons.
\nThe Jewish people\u2019s claim to be the elect can be seen as evidence of a special and particular care on the part of an all-embracing providence; for this reason, it appeared in the discussion of providence. The pagan attitude on this question testifies clearly to the change that the polemic underwent. At first, when the pagans were involved in polemical exchange with the Jews, they unequivocally rejected this presumption. This stand altered when the Church, whose adherents now came mostly from pagan circles, began to dispute the election of Israel, saying that it was only temporary and that it had passed to the Church, the True Israel. Celsus dismissed the Jewish pretensions to election adopted by the Christians when he stated that the Jews did not differ in any respect from other nations maintaining the ancestral traditions delivered to them by their special god (Origen, Contra Celsum, 5:25). The emperor Julian even used the Bible in his attacks upon Christianity, citing Biblical verses to show that the Jews were indeed elected by their particular national god\u2014just as other nations were. Such a god was entitled to order them \u201cThou shalt not worship other gods.\u201d If, on the other hand, the Jews and Christians insist that the god of the Bible is the supreme god and not merely a national one, then, retorted Julian, their false notions about his jealousy of the lesser gods and of their worship denigrate from his highness and are much inferior to the pagans\u2019 conception (see Contra Galilaeos, 99E ff.; 148B ff.).
\nThe polemical motifs of culture and enslavement derived directly from the general consensus about the existence of a divine providence in the world, as we noted above. There was a continuity in the usage of these motifs at least from the second century B.C.E. Just as the neo-Platonic polemicists of the Empire depended upon their pagan predecessors of the Hellenistic period, so did the Church Fathers make use of the apologists of Hellenistic Judaism. Only one thing changed: the object. In the Hellenistic period, the Jews served as a target for pagan missiles; now, the Christians occupied the place of the Jews.
\nThese motifs can be summarized in this way: the Jews were culturally inferior to the Hellenes; the Jews were subjugated to the Hellenes. Later, the latter motif was amplified to include the contemporary condition of the Jews and the persecutions that befell the Christians. The pagans argued that the Greeks and Romans were endowed by the gods with an extensive empire, and that the arts and sciences were developed by their talented men with divine help. And, they argued, since the benefits of the gods are bestowed in proportion to man\u2019s piety and correct worship, the self-evident conclusion is that the religion of the Jews (and of their Christian \u201cheirs\u201d) is defective, whereas pagan worship is the true one.
\nIn treating the theme of enslavement, the Church Fathers arbitrarily divided Jewish history into two periods: before, and after, the coming of Jesus. This division was also necessary to them for internal theological reasons. As far as the culture motif was concerned, the Christians adopted the arguments developed in early Jewish-Hellenistic circles and by Philo and Josephus, according to which the forefathers of the Jewish people were also the progenitors of the sciences, and in which there was no doubt as to the religious and ethical superiority of the Law of Moses to constitutions of the other nations. In some cases, the Christians even surpassed the Jews in their praise.
\nThe culture motif was connected in the polemic with a wider question: is the status of the Barbarians, who were according to a general consensus the inventors of culture, superior to that of their pupils, the Hellenes, who developed it and brought it to perfection? Since the Christians put themselves on the side of the Hebrew-Barbarians as against the Hellenes, Julian was forced as a last resort to replace a racial antagonism with a religious one, with polytheism, both Barbarian and Hellenic, being opposed to Jewish-Christian monotheism.
\nWhen reviewing the Talmudic sources, one realizes that the Sages saw no need to react to the culture motif; the Talmudic expression \u1e25ochmath yevanith (\u201cGreek wisdom\u201d) does not signify Greek philosophy and literature but only the art of the Greek language. The motif of enslavement, however, was an internal problem that the Sages had to face whether or not \u201cthe nations were chastising Israel\u201d about it. The Sages\u2019 reactions to this challenge had no systematic character; they did not emerge from an attempt to explain human history in general after contemplation, but were intended only to solve a religious difficulty in such a way as to satisfy the people and to instill in it a spirit of hope and encouragement.
\nIt has been impossible in a work of such limited size as this to enter into a detailed discussion of all the sources having any bearing on the polemic. Therefore, I have not exhausted all the Christian and Talmudic sources here, but have rather attempted to take account of and deal with all the sources that seemed to have possibly damaging implications for my thesis.
\nOn the surface there seems to have been a constant and unchanging repetition of motifs and arguments used by the parties to the polemic. But a deeper and more thorough analysis of the sources reveals the differences and alterations, sometimes subtle and virtually undetectable at first glance, to which these motifs and arguments were subject.
\nMy hypothesis about the objective and subjective \u201cneutrality\u201d of the position of the Jews emerges from and is confirmed by the connection between history, that is, political and social occurrences, and the literary polemic. It is only by taking into account what was happening in the spheres of reality, and in political and social relations between nations, that we can understand more accurately what was going on in the literary and cultural spheres of which our polemic was an important part.
\nIn the course of this study, we have tried to follow the development of the pagan-Christian intellectual polemic, its sources and its actual causes. We have also tried to ascertain the place occupied by the Jews and Judaism in its general framework. Like every generalization, my hypothesis will be tested on the basis of the accuracy of its component parts. To the extent that the various detailed interpretations suggested above for all of the sources creating a picture of the polemic are reasonable and convincing, to that extent my general thesis will stand or fall. There is also a negative test of my thesis, that is, the impossibility of explicating a large part of these sources, even if with difficulty, on the basis of another hypothesis.
\nThe religious and, to a certain extent, the intellectual background of the parties to the polemic provided the polemic with a common base. Nevertheless, the polemic might have degenerated into one of abuses and insults, of casting aspersions on and of concocting unfounded and malicious libels about one\u2019s opponents, were it not for the Jewish factor. The influence of the Jews was instrumental in raising the level of the polemic, and in intensifying the consideration of problems of essential importance as being worthy of historical-theological-philosophical contemplation in their own right. It is true that, since we are dealing with a polemic, the parties to it were not very strict about pursuing truth for its own sake\u2014as they repeatedly claimed\u2014but endeavoured to derive the maximum benefit for their cause, as well as to frame arguments, from that which was considered and presented as the factual truth. Although we did not gain much, in this sense, we did profit immensely by the unique preservation of fragments of various works, Jewish-Hellenistic and pagan, as the result of their use in the polemic. The way in which people of later antiquity viewed their past is an instructive lesson for us, a lesson to which we should pay attention, when we approach the task of summing up the inheritance of the ancient world, which has cast its stamp on Western society and culture to this very day.<\/p>\n
title Jews, pagans, and Christians in conflict<\/p>\n
author Rokeah, David<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PREFACE* In order to clarify my basic hypothesis, it is necessary first of all to distinguish between \u201cpolemic\u201d and \u201cdispute\u201d or \u201cdebate,\u201d terms interchanged casually nowadays. \u201cPolemic,\u201d because of its original Greek meaning, war (polemos), is used to indicate a campaign or conflict haveing the aim of changing an opponent\u2019s views or his religion. A … <\/p>\n