State authorities

The framework of political rights into which the Jewish communities had to fit themselves, varied in different places and at different times. We may distinguish some three forms under which the communities in the Diaspora attained to a political existence; and all ete have more or less numerous analogues, 1. The nearest analogy is that of the settlements of foreigners, especially Orientals, in the great trading cities of the Greco-Roman world.

In all the great seaports of the Mediterranean, during the era of Hellenism we meet with Egyptian, Phenician, Syrian traders, who not only carry on’ their business in passing, but are permanently settled there in greater or smaller numbers, and have formed themselves into close corporations for the defence of their common interests. They built their temples, maintained their religious service, and supported one another in their material inter- ests.

Settlements of this kind are known to us from inscriptions, particularly at Athens (Egyptians, Kirets from Cyprus, Sidonians), Delos (‘lyrians, Berytenses, Egyptians), Puteoli (Tyrians, Bery- tenses). The members of the corporation lived in the city as strangers (non-citizens), but their society enjoyed toleration and recognition from the State authorities. To this class belonged, without any doubt, the oldest settlements of the Jews in many places. They formed a xarockia, i.e.

a colony of foreigners, separate from the political commune. 2. Another analogy is presented by the private societies which existed in enormous numbers and ina great variety of forms throughout the whole of the Graeco-Roman world. Religious or commercial in- terests, or both together, led in ancient as in later times to the forming of a great many ‘unions’ (@lacou, pavot, collegia), which had their own administration of funds,and exercised a certain discipline over their members.

In looking after their own affairs they occupied an independent position in relation to the political commune similar to that of the colonies of foreigners just described, but were distinguished from them by the circumstance that (at least as a rule and for the most part) they consisted of natives, whether citizens and freedmen, or non-citizens and slaves. To this class belong most of the Jewish communities in later times.

For the more the Jews became assimilated to their surroundings, the more they passed from the position of foreigners to that of homeborn, particularly in instances where they ssessed the rights of citizenship.

With all this, owever, they appear as a rule to have retained a certain position of isolation, for the amount of jurisdiction which, with the consent of the city authorities, they exercised within their own circle was, so far as we know, for the most part greater than was conceded to other religious or trades unions. * 3. A third analogue to the communities of the Jewish Diaspora is seen in the corporations of Greeks and Romans in non-Greek or non-koman countries.

The Greeks, in view of the wide diffu- sion of Hellenism, had less occasion for forming such corporations. These were much commoner where Romans were concerned. As the rulin nation, the Romans outside Italy everywhere lai claim to a unique position. They were subject neither to taxation by the communes nor to the jurisdiction of the city authorities, but formed in- dependent bodies alongside of the communal socie- ties of the particular cities in which they lived.

Examples of this kind are to be met with in great numbers throughout the whole extent of the Roman Empire (Mommsen, C/Z iii. Suppl. p. 1306, on No. 7240; Mitteis, Reichsrecht ph Volksrecht in den Ostlichen Provinzen des rémischen Kaiserreichs, 1891, pp. 143-158). It is with this ted inde- pendent position which these associations held in or rather alongside the communes, that we may compare the position of the Jews in Alexandria and in the city of Cyrene as described by Strabo (ap. Jos. Ant.

XIV. vil. 2). For here they were not subject, as would appear, to the rule of the com- munal authorities, pat constituted an independent corporation side by side with the rest of the body of citizens. Their independence thus went beyond what was enjoyed by the first two classes above described, A uniform presupposition in all these political regulations was State toleration uf the Jewish cultus. This was enjoyed by the communes almost everywhere and at most periods of time.

In the empires of the Ptolemies and the Seleucids the religious freedom of the Jews was a matter of course. But the early Ptolemies and Seleucids also conferred important political rights upon their Jewish subjects (see below, § iv.)¢ Antiochus the Great protected the cultus at Jerusalem by royal statutes (Jos. Ant. XI. iii. 3, 4). [The genuineness of these is, indeed, disputed (see Biichler, Die Tobiaden und die Oniaden, 1899, pp. 143-171; Willrich, Judaica, 1900, pp. 48f.

, 58-60), but on what appear to the present writer insutti- cient grounds. The genuineness is held, amongst others, by Ed. Meyer, Die Entstehung des Juden- thums, 1896, pp. 66, 68]. The persecution of the *Mommsen (Histor. Zeitschrift, lxiv. [1890] 421-426) has contended that it was only down to the fall of Jerusalem that the Jews were regarded as a people (gens, t6ves), and that after that event ‘the place of the privileged nation was taken by the privileged confession.

’ That is to say, in the earlier period political privileges had been accorded to all who were Jews by birth, and to them alone, whereas in the later they belonged to all who professed the Jewish religion, and to them alone, But, in the opinion of the present writer, this is pushing an ob- servation which is correct in itself to far too sharp a point, when an actual juristic formula is thus arrived at.

Even during the period of the late empire the Jews were still in man: instances regarded as a ‘ people’ (the inscription of Smyrna ra tives vav "lovdaiwy dates at the earliest from the 3rd cent. A.D., and even the inscriptions of Hierapolis must be placed sub- sequent to A.D. 70).

And it was just the later emperors who sought to prevent the ‘confession’ from being extended beyond the circle of the Jewish nation; that is to say, they granted privileges only to the people, and not to the con- fession. Mommsen’s view, however, will be found correct to this extent, that the Jews, as time went on, advanced more and more from the first of the above two classes to the second, + Cf., on the friendly disposition of the early Ptolemies te the Jews, in general, Jos. c. Apion.

ii, 4,5.—A Ptolemy once actually granted the right of asylum to a Jewish proseuche (CIL iii. Suppl. No. 6583 Baosashs Wiroatueaios Evepyérns caw xporsvyiv &ovdov. The monarch referred to is probably Ptolemy t., for had it been Euergetes 1.=Ptolemy vil., we should hae expected his consort to be named along with him DIASPORA Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes was quite an ex- ceptional phenomenon. Pre-eminent as a friend of the Jews was Ptolemy vi.

(Philometor), who even permitted a Jewish temple to be built in Egypt (see below, §v.) The hostile attitude to the Jews assumed by Ptolemy vil. (Physcon) was due, not to their religious but their political partisanship (Jos. c. Apion. ii. 5). The free exercise of their religion was expressly allowed to the Jews also by the Roman legislation, which safeguarded it from any attempts at sup- pression by the Greek communes.

It was especially to Cesar and Augustus that the Jews were indebted for their formal recognition in the Roman Empire. A whole series of acts have been preserved for us by Josephus (Ant. XIV. x., XVI. vi.), partly resolu- tions of the Senate, partly edicts of Cesar and Augustus, partly those of Roman officials or of communal authorities of the same date. These all have the same purpose, namely, to secure for the Jews the free exercise of their religion and the maintenance of their privileges (cf.

, on these acts, especially the investigation of Mendelssohn in Acta Societatis Phil. Lips., ed. Ritschelius, v. [1875] 87- 288 ; also Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1876, cols. 390- 396; Niese in Hermes, xi. [1876] 466-488). While Cesar prohibited in general all collegia except those that had existed from remote antiquity, the Jewish communities were expressly excluded from this prohibition (Jos. Ant. XIV. x.

8: kal yap Tduos Kaicap 6 tuérepos orparnyds Kal Umaros év TH dia- Tdypart Kwhiwy Odoous cudyerOar kata mb pdvous TOUTOVE OVK ExwduceV oUTE XpNUdTwY auVELT pepe OvTE civierva woeiv), We find, for instance, a Roman official appealing to this decree in warning the authorities of Paros not to interfere with the Jews in the ye of their religious observances (Jos. i.c.) It is likewise to the influence of Cxsar that we should probably trace the four decrees quoted by Josephus, Ant. XIv. x. 20-24.

The object, direct or indirect, of all of them is to guarantee to the Jews of Asia Minor (Laodicea, Miletus, Halicarnassus, Sardis) the unimpeded exercise of their religion. After Ceesar’s death, the two con- tending parties vied with one another in maintain- ing the privileges of the Jews. On the one hand, Dolabella, the partisan of Antony, who made himself master of Asia Minor in the year B.C.

43, confirmed to the Jews the exemption from military service and the religious freedom granted them by former governors (Ané. XIV. x. 11, 12). On the other hand, M. Junius Brutus, who in the spring of the year 42 was making warlike preparations in Asia Minor against Antony and Octavianus, per- suaded the Ephesians to adopt a resolution that the Jews were not to be interfered with in their observance of the Sabbath and their other religi- ous practices (Ant, XIV. x. 25).

this had the effect of bringing about a legal standing, in virtue of which Judaism was a ‘religio licita’ throughout the whole of the Roman Empire (Tertull, Apolog. 21, ‘insignissima religio, certe licita’ [the expression, by the way, is not a technical one in Roman law, which speaks of ‘collegia licita’}). That, amongst others, the Jews in the city of Rome enjoyed this legal standing, is speci- ally testified by Philo for the time of Augustus (Legatio ad Gaim, § 23 [ed. Mangey, ii. 568 f.])

It is true, however, that down to the 2nd cent. A.D. foreign sacra could be practised only outside the ‘pomerium.’ The State recognition of the Jewish communities is essentially connected with two important con- cessions: the right of administering their own funds, and jurisdiction over their own members. The former of these had a special importance, owing to the collecting and transmitting of the dues paid to the temple at Jerusalem.

The DIASPORA governor Flaccus, a contemporary of Cicero, had interfered with this (Cic. in Flaccum, 283; see the text of the passage quoted above, §i.) The com- munal authorities of Asia likewise appear, even after the edicts of Cesar’s time and in spite of these, to have continued to act in a similar way. The decrees of the time of Augustus accordingly bear chiefly upon this point. As Augustus per- mitted the export of sums of money from Rome itself (Philo, Legatio ad Gaiwm, § 23 [ed.

Mangey, li. 568 f.]), it was impressed upon the communes of Asia Minor and Cyrene that in this matter they must put no obstacle in the way of the Jews (Jos. Ant. XVI. vi. 2-7; Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, § 40 [ed. Mangey, ii. 592)). Of equal importance for the Jewish communities was the possession of a jurisdiction of their own.

Since the Mosaic law has regard not only to the performance of the cultus but also to the relations of civil life, placing the latter under the control of a Divine law, it was intolerable to the Jewish con- science that Jews should be judged by any code of laws but their own.

Wherever the Jews came they brought their own system of law with them, and executed justice, according to its standard, in the case of their fellow-members, It may be re- garded as probable that the employment of their own code in civil processes was everywhere sanc- tioned by the State authorities, in so far, that is to say, as complaints of Jews against one another were concerned.

Not only must this have self- evidently been the case at Alexandria, but it is witnessed to also for Asia Minor by a despatch of Lucius Antonius (governor of the Province of Asia, B.C. 50-49) to the authorities of Sardis (Jos. Ant. XIV. x. 17: "Iovdato.

modtrac uérepor mpotehObvres por éméderEav avrovs atvodov exe litav Kara rods marplous vouous am’ dpxfs kal rémov tduov, év @ Td Te wpdypata Kal ras mpds ddAdijAous dvTiAoylas kplvovow rodré re alrncapévos ww’ é&y morety avrois, Tnphoa Kal érurpéwar Expwwa), The terms of this despatch show that even those Jews who possessed the Roman citizenship (roNtra: tuérepo.)

, and as Roman citizens could Aare sought redress before the conventus civium Romanorum, preferred to bring their disputes before the Jewish tribunal (sUvodos, conventus) for decision. Even in the legis- lation of the later Imperial period, this Jewish jurisdiction continued to be recognized in civil cases (Codex Theodosianus, I. i.

10 [Decree of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius of the year 398]: ‘Sane si qui per compromissum, ad similitudinem arbitrorum, apud Judeos vel patriarchas ex con- sensu partium in civili duntaxat negotio putaverint litigandum, sortiri eorum judicium jure publico non vetentur: eorum etiam sententias provinciarum judices exsequantur, tamquam ex sententia cogni- toris arbitri fuerint attributi’).

A jurisdiction of their own in criminal cases, in the complete sense of the expression, was certainly not conceded to the Jews in most places. On the other hand, not only do:'we meet with undoubted instances of the exercise of a correctional police authority (see Mommsen, Zeitschrift “bet die Neutest. Wissenschaft, ii. [1901] 88 f.), but this would even appear to have been permitted by the State authorities.

It is from this point of view that we are to understand how Saul of Tarsus applied to the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem for full powers to punish Jewish Christians living outside Palestine (Ac 9? 229 26"), He himself was after- wards as a Christian scourged five times by the Jews (2 Co 11%); in these instances we are cer- tainly to think, not of Palestinian but of foreign Jewish communities. At Corinth the proconsul Gallio leaves it to the Jews to proceed against St.

Paul according to their own judgment, for he himself will not act as judge when an offence 104 DIASPORA against the Jewish religion is concerned (Ac 1812-16), In addition to the freedom of initiative secured for the Jews in the instances we have just de- scribed, the Roman toleration Feld a very large regard to their religious sensibilities. One chief difficulty concerned the question of military ser- vice.

Such service was quite impossible for a Jew in a non-Jewish army, for on the Sabbath day he might neither bear arms nor march more than 2000 cubits. This question became a specially practical one when, on the outbreak of the civil war between Ceesar and Pompey in the year B.C. 49, the party of Pompey commenced the enrolment of troops on a large scale all over the East. In the Province of Asia alone the consul Lentulus raised two legions of Roman citizens (Cesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 4).

Amongst these were included the resident Jews who possessed the Roman citizenship. At their own request, however, Lentulus exempted them from military service, and gave his conscription agents every- where instructions to the same effect (Jos. Ant. XIv. x. 13, 14, 16, 18, 19). Six years later (B.C. 43) Dolabella, with express appeal to the earlier edicts, confirmed the privilege of dorparela to the same Jews (Ané. XIV. x. 11, 12).

Further privi- leges enjoyed by the Jews were the following :—4, By a statute of Augustus they were exempted from citation before a court on the Sabbath day (Ant. XVI. vi. 2, 4), 2. If a public payment of money or delivery of corn fell on a Sabbath, the Jews were to receive their share on the following day (Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, § 23 [ed. Mangey, ii. 569]). 3. Instead of the oil furnished by the communes, the use of which was forbidden to the Jews, they received a money equivalent (Jos.

Andé. XII. iii. 1). The whole political standing above described was never in later times essentially and perma- nently altered. The measures taken by Tiberius against the Roman Jews affected only the city of Rome. The great question of the cult of the Emperor, which afterwards became the main occa- sion of the bloody persecutions of the Christians, led in the case of the Jews to a merely transitory and local persecution.

Augustus and Tiberius were, indeed, gratified when the provincials volun- tarily offered them divine honours after the Greek fashion, but they did not demand that this should be done. Caligula was the first to make such a demand universally. Since the Jews on account of their religion could not comply with it, a bloody persecution began at Alexandria, due at first to the anti-Jewish mob, but afterwards carried on by the governor himself.

But Claudius hastened to issue an edict of toleration by which all the rights and privileges of the Jews were restored (Jos. Ant. XIX. v. 2-3). No subsequent attempt was ever made to compel the Jews to take part in the cult of the Emperor. It came to be regarded as an ancient privilege that they were exempt from this.

They had thus the advantage over the Christians in that their privileges had been long established before the cult of the Emperor became the State religion, and was demanded of subjects as a test of loyalty. While the Christians had to atone by bloody martyrdom for their refusal to sacrifice to the Emperor, no such demand was ever made upon the Jews. It is true, indeed, that certain vacillations in their attitude to the Jews are found on the part of the Emperors.

Claudius himself felt compelled to take measures against the Jews in the city of Rome. But these were local, and were not thoroughly carried out. The great war of Ves- pasian and the destruction of the temple at Jeru- salem led, in the case of the Jews of the Diaspora, to the result that the former temple tax of two DIASPORA drachme had now to be paid to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Jos. BJ vil. vi. 6; Dio Cassius, Ixvi. 7).

This must certainly have been repugnant to the feelings of the Jews. But their religious freedom was not otherwise interfered with by Vespasian. Their political rights were even expressly protected by him, for instance in Alexandria and Antioch (Ant. XII. iii. 1, BJ vil. v. 2). Domitian exacted the two drachme tax with the utmost rigour (Sueton. Domit. 12), and inflicted severe penalties on any Romans who passed over to Judaism (Dio Cass. Ixvii. 14).

But the existing rights of the Jews were not annulled. Under Nerva a milder condition of things was inaugurated, in so far as he forbade any one tu be accused for ‘ living in the Jewish manner’ (Dio Cass. Ixviii. 1). By this order the ‘calumnia fisci Judaici,’ 7.e. accusations laid by informers in the interests of the Jewish fiscws, was abolished Wee coins inscribed ‘calumnia fisci Judaici sub- ata’).

A violent shock to the existing condition of things was given by the great Jewish revolts under Trajan and Hadrian. The latter was due, not wholly but partially, to Hadrian’s prohibition of circumcision (Spartian, Hadrian. 14). This prohibition, so far as we can learn, was quite a general one, issued on grounds of humanity, and not specially directed against the Jews. But the carrying out of such a decree would have been tantamount to a destruction of real legal Judaism.

Hadrian’s immediate successor, Antoninus Pius, however, while he retained the prohibition in other instances, once more granted the Jews per- mission to circumcise their children (Digest. xlviii. 8, 11 pr.) Similarly, Septimius Severus forbade only the formal passing over to Judaism (Spartian, Sept. Sev. 17). Of Alexander Severus we are ex- pressly told that he ‘ Judzis privilegia reservavit’ (Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 22).

The policy of the Chris- tian Emperors was not always the same, but in general was directed towards preventing the spread of Judaism, withcut annulling its existing rights. iv. RIGHTS OF CITIZENSHIP, AND SOCIAL STAND-