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Anti-Semitism in Alexandria1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

H. I. Bell
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Extract

The subject of this paper is the relations between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria, that long-protracted racial animosity which forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of what is commonly, if loosely, known as anti-semitism; but before coming to my subject proper it will be necessary to say something about the position of the Alexandrian Jews.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 1-2 , November 1941 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © H. I. Bell 1941. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

1

A summary of this paper, which was read at the meeting of the Classical Association at Oxford in April, 1941, appears in the Proceedings of the Association. For convenience of reading what makes no pretence to be more than a popular survey of the subject, footnotes are reduced to a minimum. References to the sources used will be found in my Juden und Griechen im römischen Alexandreia (Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1926).

References

2 Jos. Bell. Iud. ii, 495Google Scholar.

3 Some scholars even now persist in claiming the citizenship for the Alexandrian Jews, but the evidence against this seems to me overwhelming.

4 Wilcken, Chr. 60.

5 Cf. Philo, Fl. 57, μηδὲνοσ δέ Ẻωμένου, μῂ, γ;εωργοῠ, μǹ, ναυκλέρου, μǹ, Ẻμπόρου, μǹ, τεχνίτου, τὰ, συνǹθη πραγματεύεσθαι. All these professions then, were found among the Jews.

6 Jos. Ant. xviii, 159 fGoogle Scholar.

7 Philo does not mention the Delta quarter, but this may be presumed.

8 Philo mentions no date (Fl. 97 ff.), but see refs. in next note. Note, too, Philo's ῆδη, which seems to throw this back to an earlier period.

9 Philo, Fl. 103, and particularly Leg. 179.

10 Philo's In Flaccum has recently been translated, with a most valuable commentary and introduction, by Box, H., Philonis Alexandrini In Flaccum, Oxford University Press, 1939Google Scholar.

11 Philo, Leg. 370. The date is not quite certain: some scholars put the embassy in A.D. 39–40, but the evidence as a whole seems to me to favour the previous year.

12 Published in Arch. f. Pap. x, 5–16.

13 Σὺ δὲ Ẻξαλώμη[σ] ( = ẻκ Σαλώμησ [τ]ὺσ Ἰουδα[ί;ασ..]. [….]βλητοσ. So the text in Wilcken, Chr. 14. Th. Reinach's υ[ὶ]σ[ὑπί]βλητοσ had found some acceptance, but W., with commendable prudence, left the lacuna as it was. Premerstein, A. von (Zu den sogenannten alexandrinischen Märtyrerakten, Philologus, Supplementband xvi, Heft IIGoogle Scholar) read Ἰουδα[ίασ ἡμ](I)[ν διά]βλητοσ. In my copy of this article (p. 27) I have read, from original (which I examined at Cairo in 1926), Ἰουδα[ίασ υ]ἱὸσ [ἀπό]βλητοσ or [ὑπό]βλητοσ, noting that ‘α would probably be visible; ο is indicated’, but adding later ‘There is a very tiny trace of ink but it is more probably the end of the last stroke of π’. If my eyes can be trusted (I know how apt one is to read the same characters differently on different occasions) we seem forced back on ἀπόβλητοσ or ὑπόβλητοσ. On general grounds the former is perhaps slightly the more likely. To describe Claudius as the son, whether cast-off or supposititious, of Salome may seem pre-posterous; but the modern world has seen not less monstrous assertions put about by anti-Jewish controversialists, and Isidorus at this stage was quite reckless.