Pagan Anti-Semitism

"The various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful." (Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' quoted by 155, Christopher Hitchens, 'god is not Great.')

This bon mot of Edward Gibbon remains as popular with atheists today as when first penned. It is remarkable in that each individual clause is contrary to fact: the pagan peoples of antiquity did not regard competing pagan cults as "equally true," nor were the philosophers of antiquity unanimous either in preference for atheism or in demeaning the gods of the city, nor did the Roman magistrate consider 'foreign superstition' as equal in value to the usages instituted by the founding fathers. Roman law did not give protection to novel or foreign religion:

"The Roman Law concerning offenses against witchcraft and religion are summarized in Hunter's Roman Law, p. 1066, as follows:

"'Prophets were to be beaten and expelled from the city; if they came back they were to be imprisoned or deported. [...] Paul (a praetorian prefect) says that persons introducing new kinds of worship, unknown to custom or reason, disturbing weaker minds, were to be punished, if persons of rank, with deportation; if not of rank, with death.'" (quoted p. 111, Frank J. Powell, 'The Trial of Jesus Christ.')

The intent of made-up 'facts' like Gibbon's quote above is to leave the reader with the impression that it was monotheists who invented intolerance. One very efficient factual corrective to this fantasy history is to study pagan anti-semitism. Why did so many pagan magistrates find it "useful" to forbid the practice of the Mosaic religion, and how many people were they willing to kill to make it happen?

The Maccabees

The Diaspora

Caligula

70 A.D.

The Maccabees

Alexander the Great conquered the ancient Near East. Upon his early death, his empire was dismembered and parcelled out amongst his generals, who founded dynasties. These families pursued a policy of Hellenization: they wanted to make their subjects into Greeks. They weren't looking for volunteers; they were fully prepared to murder those Jews who would not abandon the law of Moses. King Antiochus Ephiphanes required apostasy or death:

“Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that all should give up their particular customs. All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath. And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the towns of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and festivals, to defile the sanctuary and the priests, to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and other unclean animals, and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, so that they would forget the law and change all the ordinances. He added, 'And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die.'”
(1 Maccabees 1:41-50).

The Maccabees did not aim to institute religious toleration. Their ideal was not that those Jews who wanted to adopt Greek paganism should be free to do so, rather, they sought to vindicate the Mosaic theocracy and restore sole worship of Jehovah to the temple. But neither had the Hellenists offered the choice of freedom of religion; the only choice the Hellenists offered was conformity or death.

Untroubled by violence provided only the victims are monotheists, Christopher Hitchens perceives the assimilationist Jews as the heroes of the tale:

"The Maccabees, who founded the Hasmonean dynasty, were forcibly restoring Mosaic fundamentalism against the many Jews of Palestine and elsewhere who had become attracted by Hellenism. These true early multiculturalists had become bored by 'the law,' offended by circumcision, interested by Greek literature, drawn by the physical and intellectual exercises of the gymnasium, and rather adept at philosopher. They could feel the pull exerted by Athens, even if only by way of Rome and by the memory of Alexander's time, and were impatient with the stark fear and superstition mandated by the Pentateuch." (Christopher Hitchens, 'god is not Great,' pp. 273-274).

The fact that these assimilationist Jews felt "the pull exerted by Athens" only when the alternative offered was death does not trouble this former Trotskyite.

Christopher Hitchens

How did "Athens," or rather the monarchist Macedonians, work their magic and exert their "pull?" By inventive torture methods:

“For example, two women were brought in for having circumcised their children. They publicly paraded them around the city, with their babies hanging at their breasts, and then hurled them down headlong from the wall.
(2 Maccabees 6:10).
“Eleazar, one of the scribes in high position, a man now advanced in age and of noble presence, was being forced to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh. But he, welcoming death with honor rather than life with pollution, went up to the rack of his own accord, spitting out the flesh, 20as all ought to go who have the courage to refuse things that it is not right to taste, even for the natural love of life...When he was about to die under the blows, he groaned aloud and said: 'It is clear to the Lord in his holy knowledge that, though I might have been saved from death, I am enduring terrible sufferings in my body under this beating, but in my soul I am glad to suffer these things because I fear him.'”
(2 Maccabees 6:18-30).
“It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, ‘What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.’”
“The king fell into a rage, and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, ‘The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song that bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, “And he will have compassion on his servants.”’”
(2 Maccabees 7:1-6).

The Diaspora

To what extent Roman magistrates in the Diaspora, such as Governor Flaccus, found it "useful" to allow practice of the Mosaic religion may be discovered by reading Philo's "Against Flaccus:"

Against Apion
Flavius Josephus

Against Flaccus
Philo Judaeus

Embassy to Gaius
Philo Judaeus

True Doctrine
Celsus

“The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman’s reasoning with a man’s courage, and said to them, 'I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.'

“Antiochus felt that he was being treated with contempt, and he was suspicious of her reproachful tone. The youngest brother being still alive, Antiochus not only appealed to him in words, but promised with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable if he would turn from the ways of his ancestors, and that he would take him for his Friend and entrust him with public affairs. Since the young man would not listen to him at all, the king called the mother to him and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. After much urging on his part, she undertook to persuade her son. But, leaning close to him, she spoke in their native language as follows, deriding the cruel tyrant: 'My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life, and have taken care of you. I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. And in the same way the human race came into being. Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.'”
(2 Maccabees 7:20-29).

Caligula

From Julius Caesar on, the Roman Emperors were acclaimed as gods by their flatterers. Too impatient to wait for a post mortem apotheosis, Caligula demanded divine honors during his life-time. He wanted to install a giant statue of himself in the guise of Olympian Zeus in the temple at Jerusalem.

“Now Caius Caesar did so grossly abuse the fortune he had arrived at, as to take himself to be a God, and to desire to be so called also, and to cut off those of the greatest nobility out of his country. He also extended his impiety as far as the Jews. Accordingly, he sent Petronius with an army to Jerusalem, to place his statues in the temple, and commanded him that, in case the Jews would not admit of them, he should slay those that opposed it, and carry all the rest of the nation into captivity: but God concerned himself with these his commands."
(Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book 2, Chapter 10.1).

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 41 A.D.

It is very interesting to see how the Jews resisted this attempted profanation. Exemplifying the principle of non-violent resistance, they gathered together and staged a peaceful demonstration. A little leaven leavens the whole loaf; was this a reflection of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who preached non-violent resistance? In any case, Caligula soon lay dead by an assassin's hand.

“3. But now the Jews got together in great numbers with their wives and children into that plain that was by Ptolemais, and made supplication to Petronius, first for their laws, and, in the next place, for themselves. So he was prevailed upon by the multitude of the supplicants, and by their supplications, and left his army and the statues at Ptolemais, and then went forward into Galilee, and called together the multitude and all the men of note to Tiberias, and showed them the power of the Romans, and the threatenings of Caesar; and, besides this, proved that their petition was unreasonable, because while all the nations in subjection to them had placed the images of Caesar in their several cities, among the rest of their gods, for them alone to oppose it, was almost like the behavior of revolters, and was injurious to Caesar.
“4. And when they insisted on their law, and the custom of their country, and how it was not only not permitted them to make either an image of God, or indeed of a man, and to put it in any despicable part of their country, much less in the temple itself, Petronius replied, 'And am not I also,' said he, 'bound to keep the law of my own Lord? For if I transgress it, and spare you, it is but just that I perish; while he that sent me, and not I, will commence a war against you; for I am under command as well as you.' Hereupon the whole multitude cried out that they were ready to suffer for their law. Petronius then quieted them, and said to them, 'Will you then make war against Caesar?' The Jews said, 'We offer sacrifices twice every day for Caesar, and for the Roman people;' but that if he would place the images among them, he must first sacrifice the whole Jewish nation; and that they were ready to expose themselves, together with their children and wives, to be slain. At this Petronius was astonished, and pitied them, on account of the inexpressible sense of religion the men were under, and that courage of theirs which made them ready to die for it; so they were dismissed without success."
(Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book 2, Chapter 10.3-4).

End Times

It's a shame the Jews did not continue with this approach, because the path of violent resistance meant death to all who took it:

"Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." (Matthew 26:52).

There's an obscure passage in the Talmud which indicates the Rabbis got the message, but did not heed it. Rabbi Eliezer had to defend himself against charges of heresy. He was no Christian, but on one important point he was, it would seem, a fellow-traveller:

"Said R. Akiba to him, 'Master, wilt thou permit me to say one thing of what thou hast taught me?' He replied, 'Say it.' 'Master,' said he, 'perhaps some of the teaching of the Minim had been transmitted to thee and thou didst approve of it and because of that thou wast arrested?'

"He exclaimed: 'Akiba thou hast reminded me.' I was once walking in the upper-market of Sepphoris when I came across one [of the disciples of Jesus the Nazarene] Jacob of Kefar-Sekaniah by name, who said to me: It is written in your Torah, Thou shalt not bring the hire of a harlot … into the house of the Lord thy God. May such money be applied to the erection of a retiring place for the High Priest? To which I made no reply. Said he to me: Thus was I taught [by Jesus the Nazarene], 'For of the hire of a harlot hath she gathered them and unto the hire of a harlot shall they return.' [Micah 1:7] they came from a place of filth, let them go to a place of filth. Those words pleased me very much, and that is why I was arrested for apostasy; for thereby I transgressed the scriptural words, Remove thy way far from her — which refers to minuth — and come not nigh to the door of her house, — which refers to the ruling power.'" (Babylon Talmud, Abodah Zarah, 17a).

Though the passage is admittedly obscure and perhaps garbled, is there not a reminiscence of the debates which must have accompanied the decision to cease the daily sacrifices on behalf of the emperor and Rome? This was a declaration of war. But how to avoid it? The Romans contributed money to the temple. Rome is a harlot; on this point all are agreed: see the Book of Revelation. The identification of paganism with harlotry is an Old Testament commonplace. Is this monetary contribution not therefore the wages of harlotry? But James (whether any James we know or an unknown Christian of this name) did not shrink from accepting the implications of the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's verdict on paying taxes to Caesar. Jesus showed the path of peace, which still remained open, but was not taken. The path chosen instead was military confrontation, leading in the end to national disaster, dispersal and dispossession at the hands of the pagan Romans.

The sooner the illusion of pagan toleration is debunked the better. Why are atheists so dependent upon an illusion? Isn't it better to face the full light of truth with open eyes?

Answering Bart Ehrman

70 A.D.

That the first and second Jewish revolts were holy wars on the native side cannot be overlooked. That their suppression, on the pagan Roman side, was something other than imperial business-as-usual cannot be overlooked either. The pagan Romans perceived Christianity as an existential threat:

"Titus is said, after calling a council, to have first deliberated whether he should destroy the temple, a structure of such extraordinary work. For it seemed good to some that a sacred edifice, distinguished above all human achievements, ought not to be destroyed, inasmuch as, if preserved, it would furnish an evidence of Roman moderation, but, if destroyed, would serve for a perpetual proof of Roman cruelty. But on the opposite side, others and Titus himself thought that the temple ought specially to be overthrown, in order that the religion of the Jews and of the Christians might more thoroughly be subverted; for that these religions, although contrary to each other, had nevertheless proceeded from the same authors; that the Christians had sprung up from among the Jews; and that, if the root were extirpated, the offshoot would speedily perish." (Sulpitius Severus, Sacred History, Book 2, Chapter 30).

If this understanding is correct, then the loss of Jewish national existence was collateral damage from an effort by the pagan Romans to extirpate Christianity. That's an awful shame if true, but of course the Christians never asked to be extirpated. The visceral hostility of the Talmud toward the 'minim' is understandable given that these people nearly got them all killed.