Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity

7. The Contra Apionem in Social and Literary Context: An Invitation to Judean Philosophy

INTRODUCTION One of the baseline problems posed in this book by Leif E. Vaage’s programmatic chapter 1 and engaged also by Terence Donaldson in chapter 6 concerns the place of mission in ancient religions, and especially in Judaism. Was Judaism, during the Greco-Roman period, a missionary religion? Through more than a century scholars occasionally debated the issue, but the dominant view was that Judaism encouraged proselytism (e.g., Schürer 1973–1986, 3:1, 150–76; Bamberger 1968; Braude 1940; Leon 1960, 250–56; Georgi 1986; Simon 1986). Evidence was adduced from Greek and Latin authors who reflected upon Jewish proselytizing, from Jewish literature that seemed to welcome converts, from the expulsions of Jews from Rome on charges of proselytism, and from early Christian texts. In recent years, however, the question has been reopened with vigour. In this recent flurry of activity, the decidedly stronger current holds that Judaism was not a missionary religion (McKnight 1991; Will and Orrieux 1992; Cohen 1991, 1992; Goodman 1992, 1994; Kraabel 1994). On this view, texts that extol the virtues of Judaism were read almost exclusively by Jews. And, in any case, the Jewish literature does not advocate proselytism, even if it welcomes the occasional self-motivated convert. In holding to the view that ancient Judaism was a missionary religion, Louis Feldman (1993a) has become something of a lone voice. Shaye J.D. Cohen, himself a recent proselyte to the non-missionary hypothesis, sees a “new consensus” in the making (1991, 166; but cf. 1987a, 49–58). The Contra Apionem in Social and Literary Context An Invitation to Judean Philosophy Steve Mason 7 139 07_vaage.qxd 2006/03/24 9:42 AM Page 139 Although these debates have been helpful in some ways, I see little point in asking whether Judaism was a missionary religion. All of the key terms are problematic: Judaism (which kind? represented by whom?), missionary (does mission require a central body or charter?), and religion (how was ancient religion in these contexts distinct from ethnic culture? from philosophy?). Further, we cannot penetrate through the surviving texts to uncover such psychological motives as missionary zeal. We shall only progress, therefore, if we narrow the question to particular places, times, documents, and individuals. In such local conditions, did Gentiles embrace Judean culture in any significant numbers, and, if they did, how is that process best explained? Accordingly, this chapter deals with one author, one text, one place, and one time: Josephus’s Contra Apionem, written for Gentiles in Rome at the end of the first century CE. This document, I shall argue, is best understood as an invitation to already interested Gentile readers to embrace Judean philosophy . Of course, the text does not plainly say this, so anyone who insists that texts tell us everything we should like to know about them, will not find the argument convincing. But the author and first readers shared extratextual resources that were critical to their communication. In an effort to recover those resources, the best that we can do is to sketch out what is known of Josephus’s broad social context in postwar Rome and of the immediate (personal) literary context provided for Contra Apionem by Josephus’s earlier works. Taking into account both the context and the content of Contra Apionem, I shall argue that the closest parallels to this work are among the so-called logoi protreptikoi, or discourses and dialogues intended to promote “conversion” to a philosophical community. SOCIAL CONTEXT: ATTRACTION AND AVERSION TO JUDEAN CULTURE IN ROME Attraction Fortunately, some germane features of Judean-Roman relations in Rome are well attested. On the one hand, Judean culture attracted considerable interest among Romans, even to the point of a conversion that was perceived to involve the renunciation of one’s native tradition. This conclusion does not depend on courageous inference from a jug handle, but is the only reasonable explanation of an array of evidence. It raises problems from a sociological perspective, for how could a Roman plausibly adopt the ways of another ethnic group and truly forsake his or her own (Goodman 1994, 1–37)? But we must bracket that question while we survey the sources. Because they have been widely discussed elsewhere, and my conclusions 140 PART II • MISSION? 07_vaage.qxd 2006/03/24 9:42 AM Page 140 here are not meant to be controversial, I discuss only what seems to me to be...