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"Anti-Semitism" in Antiquity: The Problem of Definition
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IIAntl-Semltlsm" In Antiquity: The Problem ofDefinition ShayeJ.D.COhen One of the most important objectives of the historian is the interpretation of~ past on its own tenns, and not on the tenns ofthe interpreter. Most historians, however, especially the historians ofantiquity, would concede that this goal is often unattainable . Our knowledge of the ancient world is so fragmentary, our documentation so sparse, and our uncertainties so numerous that the temptation to retroject upon antiquity the conditions and attitudes of the modem world is almost irresistible. This generalization is weD exemplified by the study of ancient "antiSemitism ." Nineteenth-century scholars "discovered" that humanity consisted ofdifferent races, each with its own characteristics. 1he dassification oflanguages into Semitic, Indo-European, Hamitic, and other families was transmuted by these scholars into a racial classification of mankind. Hatred of the Jews was "scientifically justifiable" and received the scientific-sounding name "antiSemitism ." During the latter part of the century even those scholars who were not virulent anti-Semites used the hatred of the Jews in Greco-Roman antiquity to "prove" that Christianity was not responsible for anti-Semitism, since even in pre-Christian times the Jews were odious to Indo-Europeans. The fact that the Jews demanded civic equality while refusing to surrender their 43 distinctiveness and peculiar religious practices was the cause of the anti-Jewtsh riots in Alexandria in 38-39 C.E., claimed these scholars. In addition, the Jews of Egypt were tax collectors and economic middlemen who aroused the righteous anger and jealousy of their hosts. The Jewish troubles in first-century Egypt presagedand justifiedtheunfriendlyreception that theJews were receiving in post-Emancipation Europe. Against this approach Jewish scholars argued that the ancient and the modem hatreds of Judaism were worlds apart (see, for example, the preface of Theodore R.einach to his Texts l?fGreek and Roman Authors ConcemingJews andJudaism, published [in French] in Paris in 1895, when the Dreyfus affair was on the mind ofevery Frenchman), but the issue was not easily treated on a scholarly basis. Polemics were opposed by apologetics. Even contemporary scholars. whose interest in ancient "antiSemitism " is neither polemical nor apologetic, sometimes retr0ject modem conditions upon antiquity. Some of the charges leveled against the Jews of antiquity (e.g., hatred of outsiders, clannishness) are identical with those heard in modem times, but not all the ancient charges have modem analogues and not all the modem charges have ancient roots. No ancient text assigns an economic motive to the hatred of Jews. The Jews as moneylenders , usurers, tax collectors, exploiters-these are the images ofmodem, not ancient, anti-Semitism. It was in modem rather than ancient times that the Jews became a prosperous middle class that penetrated the powerstructure ofsociety and displaced many of the old elites, thereby arousing their hatred. Many ancient authors, especially in Rome, explicitly describe the Jews as poor. Similarly, the ancients did not accuse the Jews of "dual loyalty." Jews were accused ofsedition, rebelliousness, and conspiracy , but not ofdual loyalty. The most serious example ofretrojection is the very notion of "anti-Semitism." The Greeks and Romans did not have a conception of "race." Their division of humanity into "Greeks" (or "Romans") and "barbarians" was a product not ofracism but 44 Sha,eJ. D. Cohen [54.165.248.212] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:51 GMT) of cultural snobbery (compare the Jewish use of the term fJO)'. "Gentile"). Greek and Roman ethnographers knew that the inhabitants ofeach nation had specific physical and moral characteristics , but these were generally attributed to the effects of various natural phenomena(climate, soil, water, air, and so forth). For example, the blacks ("Ethiopians") were regarded not as a "race" but as peoplewhose skin hadbeen bakedby the heatofthe sun (see Frank Snowden, Blacks in Antiquity). The Greeks and Romans knew nothing of "Semites." Their statements on the Jews and Judaism must be compared with their views of the Egyptians,Syrians, Indians, Germans. and Gauls; with the Roman views of the Greeks; and with the Greek views of the Romans. (]. P. V. D. BaIsdon, &mans and Aliens, is an excellent recent survey ofthesubject.)The size ofthe three volumes ofGreekandLatin Authors on Jews and Judmsm. edited by Menahem Stem, might suggest that the Greeks and Romans were very concerned about the Jews or that theJews were the only ethnic group ofantiquity to have elicited so much comment (both favorable and unfavor- .able). These conclusions are false. The context ofancient "antiSemitism " demonstrates that it was not "anti-Semitism" at aU. The use...