ANAAEKTA BAATAAQN 26 L. W. BARNARD STUDIES IN CHURCH HISTORY AND PATRISTICS MATPIAPXIKON IAPYMA [ATEPIKQN MEAETQN @EZZAAONIKAANAAEKTA BAATAAQN EKAIAOMENA TIO WANArgTor K, XPHETOY ANALECTA VLATADON BDITED BY PANAYOTIS C. CHRISTOU 26 L. W. Baanarn, Studies in Church History and patristics Copyright: Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies Thessaloniki 1978PREFACE Recent study has underlined the importance of Judaism for an understanding of early Christianity. In particular the late Jean Cardinal Daniélou sought to show that early Christianity was characterized by the use of ideas drawn from Spatjudentum, i.e. the various types of Jud- aism in existence at the beginning of the Christian era. Scholars have disputed whether Daniélou’s abstraction “Jewish Christianity”, having a theological viewpoint of its own, ever existed. Nevertheless even if his methodological framework should prove to be untenable he has certainly demonstrated the strong influence of Jewish ideas, particu- larly Jewish apocalyptic, in the early Church. The first eight studies in this volume are concerned with various facets of late Judaism and early Christianity. I seek to demonstrate the strong influence of Jewish ideas in early Christianity in Egypt, Rome and Syria. Here I bring together the results of research which has oc- cupied many years. In study 9 I seek to defend the received account of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the second century bishop of Smyrna, against the view that this was a rewriting reflecting the interests of later centuries. Study 10 is concerned with Athenagoras’ treatise De Resurrectione. Athenagoras, the late second century apologist, was al- most unknown in Christian antiquity. However I believe that he was a thinker of great originality who made a distinctive contribution to early Christian thought. Studies 11 - 14 are concerned with fourth cen- tury topics. In study 11 I show that any attempt to find a precise phi- losophical origin for Arianism, the fourth century heresy, is fraught with uncertainty. Arius’ system was simply a philosophical dualism of its own kind decked out with an eclectic mixture of elements taken over from other thinkers. Studies 12 and 13 examine in detail Athanasius’ chequered relations with the Roman State, his disputed election as Archbishop of Alexandria and the circumstances surrounding the En- cyclical Letter of the Egyptian Bishops of the year 339. I doubt whether Athanasius’eventual goal was a dualistic separation of Church and State.6 His idea was probably cooperation between Church and State with the Bishops having freedom to decide Church matters and the Emperor having the right to maintain the peace of the Church and to defend its faith. Athanasius’ Jong struggle enabled this to become a fact in By- zantium. In Study 14 I reconsider the relations of Pope Julius, Marcel- lus of Ancyra and the Eastern Bishops and seek to show that Julius and the Western Bishops had more in common with the Eusebians than a cursory reading of the history of the years 337 - 343 would suggest. The tragedy of the Arian controversy was here repeated. Studies 15-17 concern Bede and Eusebius, the Jews and Iconoclasm, and Joseph Bing- ham, the doyen of eighteenth century English Patristic scholars. Finally Study 48 examines early Christian art as a form of apologetic. It remains to thank Miss D. Raper, Mrs. H. Walker and Mrs. E. Hart for typing a somewhat untidy manuscript produced in various stages at different times. I am also grateful to colleagues at Leeds with whom I have discussed many of the problems raised in this book. L.W.B.CONTENTS Preface 4. Hadrian and Judaism. ‘The Background of Judaism and Christianity in Egypt The Epistle of Barnabas in its Jewish setting. Justin Martyr’s Knowledge of Judaism. Justin Martyr's Eschatology. ‘The Church in Rome in the First Two Centuries AD. The Herosy of Tatian. Barly Syriac Christianity. In Defence of Pseudo - Pionius’ Account of Polycarp’s Martyrdom. 10. Athenagoras’ Treatise on the Resurrection. 44. The Antecedents of Arius. 12. Athanasius and the Roman State. 43. Two Notes on Athanasius, 44. Pope Julius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and the Council of Sardica - a Reconsideration. 45. Bede and Eusebius as Church Historians, 46. The Jews and the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy. 17. Joseph Bingham and the Early Church. 48. Barly Christian Art as Apologetic. Index 7 subjects PPV One we Page 5-6 9.26 27-51 52-106 107-418 119-130 131-180 181-193 194-223 224-244 262-288 289-314 812-328 829-340 341-353 354-372 373-386 387-401 402-615 41646 HADRIAN AND JUDAISM In the early years of the Roman Empire the Jews were an autho- rised minority group which enjoyed State protection against persecu- tion and the right to worship according to their own traditions. Rome, in Jewish eyes, was the champion of the oppressed and a bulwark a- gainst anti - semitism which was always ready to rear its ugly head. But within the pale of Judaism, even before A. D. 70, were Zealot extremists who were intent upon the overthrow of the Roman “yoke”. This fanaticism resulted in the great Jewish war of A. D. 66-70, s0 vividly described by Josephus, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. One consequence of the fall of the Holy City, the destruction of the Temple, and the downfall of the Jewish State, was the different relationship which now arose between the Jews and the Roman power. Hitherto the consideration shown to Jewish susceptibilities had been marked and there had never been any interference with the full exer- cise of the Jewish religion and practices. After A. D. 70 the Jews came to be regarded as a potential source of danger to the Empire and were to be watched closely. A notable mark of this changed relationship was the ordinance of Vespasian which required the Temple tax to be paid in support of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. Meanwhile Judaism, with its Holy City and cultus destroyed, en- tered upon a period of reconstruction in the great Rabbinical Schools of Jamnia, Lydda and Tiberias. The outstanding leader of the period immediately after A. D. 70 was Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai who sought to give Judaism a new emphasis and values. To his grief - stricken dis- ciple who feared that with the destruction of the Temple the future iniquities of Israel would have to go unpardoned he declared, ‘My son, do not weep; we have a means of atonement as effective as this. And what is it? It is deeds of loving kindness; as the prophet has put it; “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice”? (Hos. vi.6) *. Yet in the decades after * Sournal of Religious History 5 (1969) 285-98. 4. Jos. B. J. vii. 218; Dio Cass. 1xvi, 7 2. Aboth R, Nath, iv, p. 24,10 A. D. 70 men still dreamt of the restoration of the ruined Holy City and the re-building of the Temple* and not a few cherished thoughts of the overthrow of the Roman Power by force. Meanwhile the hand of Rome continued to lie heavy upon the Jews and their resurgent intel- lectual life, especially during the reign of Domitian, who exacted the fiscus iudaicus not only from Jews by race but also from proselytes; Roman citizens who adopted Judaism were especially sought out and punished 4, This Emperor even sent spies into Rabbinical academies ® to obtain incriminating evidence. The mantle of Johanan ben Zakkai now fell upon the Patriarch Gamaliel II who, as head of the Jamnia academy, sought to create legislation to relieve the pressure on his people. He put through economic reforms and enacted takkanot to improve relations between Jews and Gentiles; he visited one community after another in order to see for himself how the population was faring. His one fear was that the endless debate among various Rabbinical factions would result in the destruction of a coherent Judaism and accordingly he set, himself to establish unity. He fixed the Jewish liturgy, ordered its adoption ® and insisted that scholars should submit their decisions to the High Court at Jamnia. His work, bitterly opposed, marks a stage in the triumph of a resurgent Rabbinical Judaism. The reign of Nerva and the early years of that of Trajan brought some respite to the Jews. The former relaxed the rigours of the fiseus indaicus and, in Palestine, some features of an organized Jewish commu- nity life were revived. Poverty and economic depression were still wides- pread but an elaborate system of charity had been evolved 7; and in the larger settlements religious services were regularly held and Gamaliel’s liturgy used. The Shema was recited in the morning and evening and the Shemoneh Esre ® daily, from which we learn that the yearnings for the 3. Mishna Pes. x. 6; Taan. iv. 8; Tamid vii. 3, During the period A. D, 70 - 135 traditions concerning the Temple were collected zealously for it was believed that the restoration of Worship depended upon an authentic record of its ritual having been preserved. See L. FInketsrein The Jews, their History, Culture and Religion, Vol. I, New York, 1949, p. 148. The Mishna included a topography of the Temple (Mid- doth) and a description of the daily duties of the priests (Tamid). 4. Suer. Dom. xii. 2; Dio Cass. xvii. 14. 5. Sifre on Deut. xxiii. 3; cf. Baba Kamma 38a and Yerushalmi 4b. 6. Ber. iv. 3; Pes. x. 5. 7. 8. . Peak viii. 7 seq.; Tos. Git. v. 4 seq. - Ber. ii. 2,At re - building of the Temple were still strong; the supplications were in terms of the whole Jewish community. A highly - developed system of public instruction, in the synagogue schools, also existed. The restless and fanatical spirit of certain elements in the Jewish population, especially in the diaspora, could not however be absorbed in such pursuits and sought a political outlet. As early as the reign of Vespasian the Jewish temple at Leontopolis in Egypt had had to be closed in case it became a rallying centre for nationalist Jews. And dur- ing the reign of Trajan in A. D. 110, a clash took place betweon Jews and Greeks in Alexandria which resulted in each side sending envoys to state its case before the Emperor who, according to a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, came down on the side of the Jews - an indication of the influence they may have exerted in Court circles®. The Jewish hope of revolt against Rome and a restoration of the Temple took a starker form in the year 115 when Trajan was engaged in his Parthian war. Very little is known as to the circumstances which called forth the revolt but it appears to have been a concerted movement since it arose simul- taneously in Libya, Egypt and Cyrene”. In Alexandria, where a terrible conflict took place, the Jews were ultimately overcome but elsewhere in Egypt, under their elected King Lykyas", they laid waste whole districts terrorizing the inhabitants. The revolt was ultimately put down by one of Trajan’s ablest generals, Quintus Marcius Turbo, but not without much bloodshed. Other centres of Jewish disaffection were Cyprus and Mesopotamia; the latter revolt was quelled with great bar- barity by Lucius Quietus who, as a reward, was made procurator of Palestine!?. It is doubtful if Palestine itself engaged in the great rebel- lion as no circumstantial mention is given in our authorities. But minor skirmishes may have occurred. The accession of Hadrian may have brought some relief to the Jews. 9, See the present writer’s article in Church Quarterly Review, CLX, 1959, pp. 328 ff. 10. Dio Cass. 4xvili. 32. The diaspora communities maintained close contact with the Jewish Patriarchate in Palestine and this enabled plans to be concerted. A number of papyri now give isolated but vivid glimpses of the course of the war. 44. H. I. Bett Juden und Griechen im romischen Alecandreia, Leipzig, 1926, p. 8. 42. Bus. H. B., iv. 2; Dio Cass. xviii. 32. 48. Spart. Vita Hadr. v: “Lycia denique ac Palaestina rebelles animos effereb- and”, E. M. Swattwoop, “Palestine c. A. D. 115 - 448”, Historia XI, 1962, pp. 500 - 510. 342 The Emperor at once abandoned Trajan’s policy of territorial expansion along the eastern frontiers and proclaimed a policy of peace and unity in the one Roman world. This, coupled with Hadrian’s religious toleran- ce, appeared to bode well for the Jews" and in the first years of his reign they may have entertained hopes of a re - building of the Temple and the restoration of Jewish Worship which may be connected with a reference in Barn. xvi. 3 - %. According to a Rabbinic story the Roman government, in Hadrian’s day, actually granted authority to proceed with the building of the Temple but the Samaritans opposed the enter- prise. As a consequence the Emperor issued a decree that the new buil- ding should not be erected precisely on the site of the old Temple. The result was a gathering of Jewish extremist factions in the valley of Beth - Rimmon who were quieted by R. Joshua who told them the story of the lion and the stork; as the stork ought to be glad to have got its head uninjured out of the jaws of the lion, so they also ought to be glad if they were allowed to live in peace under a heathen government?®. We do not know if Hadrian had other dealings with the Jews be- fore the great revolt of A. D. 132-5. A Rabbinical story’ tells of the seven sons of Miriam who were brought before Caesar. They were con- demned and put to death and later Miriam threw herself from the roof and died. This story follows a traditional framework which is found in several other martyrdom stories® and is too uncertain to count as histo- rical evidence. Another tradition states that the celebrated Rabbi Jo- shua ben Chananiah, the pupil of Johanan ben Zakkai, held various con- versations with Hadrian concerning religious matters. The immediate cause of the second Jewish revolt is not in doubt as we shall see. Yet we may well ask why Hadrian, who was by temper- 44. For a Jewish reaction see the Jewish Sybil v. 46 seq. 45. See my article in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XLV, 1958, pp. 104 - 7. 46. Gon. R. 64. 8; Text and Latin translation in Volkmar, Judith, pp. 108 - 11; English translation Soncino, Midrash Rabba. The historical value of this notice is doubted by E. Scutrer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (revised edition by G. Vermos and F. Miller) Edinburgh 1973, I. p. 535. 17. Found in Talmud Babli Gittin 57b; Midrash Ekhah Rabbathi (on Lam. i. 16); Tanna debe Eliyyahu (Rabba c. 30); Yalkut (pericope Ki Thabo). Caesar’s name is given as Hadrian in Tanna and his name is mentioned in the context in Talmud Babli. 48. Cf. IV Mace. vii. £ seq.; the Martyrdom of Symphorosa and her seven sons; that of Felicitas and her seven sons. J. B. Licurroor, Apostolic Fathers, Part I, Vol. I, pp. 502 - 5,13 ament pacific, turned against the Jews. Was he at last goaded on by the astonishing spectacle of a minority group carrying on practices which offended against his idea of civilized behaviour? Or did he see Judaism as a fanatical nationalistic movement intent on destroying the Pax Romana and undermining his idea of Imperial Unity? The latter appears more probable to judge from the element of direct provocation in the assault which Hadrian launched against the Jews. This assault took the form of the promulgation of two provocative measures by the Emperor on his return from Egypt in A. D. 131 which are in striking contrast to his previous sagacious dealings with minority groups. The first was a general edict prohibiting circumcision, similar to the earlier prohibition of castration: moverunt ea tempestate et Iudaei bellum, quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia®. That this edict was not spe- cifically directed against the Jews is shown by the fact that Antoninus Pius subsequently allowed the Jews to circumcise their children while retaining the prohibition against non - Jews®. But Hadrian must have known that to forbid circumcision would affect the Jews most of all and would appear to them to be a direct interference with their religious practices. Hadrian’s action added fuel to the flames of disaffection which were burning strongly in many centres in Palestine and the diaspora. The second measure was the spark which set in motion the rebel- lion. Dio Cassius gives this account:‘At Jerusalem Hadrian founded a city in place of the one destroyed which he called Aelia Capitolina, and on the site of the temple of their God erected another temple to Zeus. For this reason the great and long - lived war broke out. For the Jews regarded it as a terrible outrage that aliens should settle in their city, and that foreign rites should be established in it. They kept quiet indeed so long as Hadrian was in Egypt and again in Syria, except in- sofar as they of design wrought less fitly the weapons commanded of them by the Romans, being forbidden by the Romans to carry arms. But when Hadrian was far away they rebelled openly’. It is clear, from this account, that the building of Aelia was begun before the outbreak of the revolt, most probably as a result of Hadrian's 19, Hist, Augusta, Vita Hadr. xiv. 2. 20, Modestinus, Digest xlviii. 8. 11. For evidence that other races within the Empire practised circumcision see the commentaries on Barn. ix. 6. A valuable discussion is given by B. M. Smautwoop, «The Legislation of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius against Circumcision», Latomus XVIII,1959, pp. 334 - 47; XX, 1964, pp. 93-6. 24. Dio, bxix. 12 seq.14 visit to the ruined site - now a Roman camp - during his journey from Antioch to Egypt in A. D. 130. The Emperor’s orders to re - build the city on the Roman plan, with a temple dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus on the site of the former Jewish temple, must rank as an act of supreme folly almost unsurpassed in the history of the Caesars. The fact that one who undoubtedly ranks as a supreme statesman, wise and farseeing, could launch a full-scale attack on Judaism and all that it stood for cannot be explained from his previous dealings with authorized groups. Schiirer* believes that Hadrian’s real motif was not hostility towards Judaism per se, as the rearing of magnificent buildings and the founding of cities was the work to which all the energies of his life were devoted. This is hard to accept in view of the element of direct provocation imp- licit in the desecration of the temple site. Certainly no Roman statesman could have devised a more certain method of denying the Jews a nationa- lity and a religion of their own. We must therefore believe, in the ab- sence of mitigating evidence, that Hadrian did not act purely from acs- thetic impulses with his eyes closed to any possible consequences; rather the founding of Aelia (and the proposal to erect a Roman temple) was a calculated and deliberate assault against the Jewish way of life. Such a folly is the one stain on the character of this most pacific, tolerant and rational of Emperors. The leaders of the revolt, which broke out in A. D. 132, were Simon bar Cosiba%, ‘Prince of Israel’; a priest Eleasar; and the venerable Rabbi Akiba*® who saw in the figure of Bar Cosiba a fulfilment of the Messianic 22, The coins and inscriptions prove that Hadrian was in Syria early in 430, in Egypt in Nov. 130 and again in Syria early in 134; see the evidence in E. Scud RER History of the Jewish people, Div. I, Vol. Tl, Edinburgh, 1890, p. 295, note 76 (Re- vised ed. 1978, I p. 544). His residence in Judaea is commemorated by coins bearing the inscription, adventui Augusti udaeae. See further W. F. Stivesprinc, «Hadrian in Palestine 129/130 AD», Journal of the American Oriental Society LIX, 1989, pp. 360 - 5. 28, Op. cit. p. 293 (repeated in revised edition p. 542). 24, This is undoubtedly his original name. See the Appendix where the bearing of the evidence from the Jndaean desert is discussed. 25, The Talmud records numerous journeys of Akiba into Mesopotamia to Ni bis and Nehardaea, where there were influential groups of Jews, and also into Ci cia and Cappadocia. While these traditions must not be accepted uncritically it seems probable that Jewish communities in the diaspora provided some support for the revolt. See P. Cannincron, The Early Christian Church, Vol. II, Cambridge, 1957, pp. 89 - 40.15 promise of Nu. xxiv. 17 ‘there shall go a star out of Jacob’. Akiba besto- wed on him the punning title Bar Cochhba, ‘son of the star’, and this title was alone known to later Christian writers. The revolt, spread rapidly throughout Palestine and took on the character of a guerilla campaign. The Jewish leaders realised that to face the Romans in a pitched battle would be to court certain disaster and so they wisely seized suitable strongholds and hiding places in widely separated places which they fortified. Underground passages and dens became caches for arms, as well as places of refuge for the hard pressed, and from them the insur- gents made devastating raids on the country - not. only against Roman outposts but also against any who failed to support their cause®*, The Christians, who could not recognize Bar Cosiba as Messiah, came in for particularly harsh treatment?’. Recent MS discoveries have shown that this guerilla activity was well organized. Bar Cosiba worked through a series of local commanders who had to obey his orders implicitly and his careful planning and know- ledge of the terrain brought immediate results. Jerusalem, which was besieged at the beginning of the revolt, soon fell into rebel hands and re- mained in their possession for three years, not two as had been previously thought. Bar Cosiba issued coins bearing on one side the name ‘Simon’ and on the other ‘the freedom of Jerusalem’; others bear the dates, ‘first year of the freedom of Israel’, ‘second year of the freedom of Israel’ with the name ‘Jerusalem’ added; and a recently found MS fragment bears the date ‘third year of the freedom of Jerusalem’ (i.c.A.D. 134-5)8, Only to- wards the close of the revolt did the Romans succeed in recapturing the city. According to Dio Cassius, who is on the whole a trustworthy writer, the reaction of the Roman government to the revolt was dilatory: “they held them of no account’. Palestine was after all only a very small part of the Empire and to the Romans the Jews a relatively insignifi- cant race. But when the revolt was seen to have had wider implications in Palestine and the diaspora the Romans acted promptly. Large bo- dies of troops were sent from other provinces to strengthen the regular 26. Dio Cassius Ixix. 12. 27, Justin Martyr, I Apol. xxi. 28. See Appendix 29, Ixix. 13.16 garrison which, under Tineius Rufus, Governor of Syria, had been unable to crush the rebels. During the course of the war troops were employed from the Third (Cyrenaic) and Tenth (Fretensis) legions and probably from the Third (Gallic), Tenth (Gemina), Sixth (Ferrata) and Sixteenth (Flavia Firma) legions*. The foremost generals became in- volved; even the Governor of Syria, Gaius Publicius Marcellus, marched to the rescue of his hard - pressed colleague®, although it seems that the supreme command of the operations remained with Rufus during the first two years or so of the war. Hadrian, however, on reviewing the Palestine campaign from An- tioch, became profoundly dissatisfied with the slow progress made against rebel hideouts and the heavy losses inflicted on his troops and accordingly he ordered the distinguished goneral, Sextus Minucius Faus- tinus Julius Severus, to come from Britain to take over supreme com- mand of the operations®; he arrived late in A. D. 133 or early 434, when- ce Hadrian returned to Rome. Severus slowly and surely crushed the revolt by reducing the rebel strongholds one by one. Dio Cassius gra- phically describes the last stages of this forlorn attempt to challenge the power of the Empire: But Severus risked not giving open battle against the enemy in any place, seeing their numbers and their fury. Therefore, cut- ting them off piecemeal by flying columns of greater strength un- der commanders of lower rank, intercepting also and depriving them of supplies, he was able by this method, a slower one indeed, yet one less perilous, to wear them down and so to crush them utterly. Very few in fact survived. Of their forts the fifty strongest were razed to the ground. Nine hundred and eighty - five of their best known villages were destroyed. Five hundred and eighty thousand were slaughtered in skirmish and in battle. Of those who perished by famine or disease no one can count the number. Thus the whole of Judaea became a desert, as indeed had been foretold to the Jews before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, whom these 80. See the information given in Schiirer, op. eit., p. 303, note 96 (Revised edit- ion pp. 547 - 8). 31. C. I, G. 4088 - 4. 82. Cf. Bus. H. £. iv. 6. Rabbinical authors testify that the chief enemy of the Jews during the war was ‘Rufus the tyrant’; cf. Bab. Tanith 29a. 33, C. I. L. vi. 152847 folk celebrate in their sacred rites, fell of its own accord into frag- ments. And wolves and hyaenas, many in number, roamed how- ling through their cities..." Jerusalem itself did not easily succumb. Its fate is not, described by Dio Cassius or Eusebius although Appian, a contemporary witness, states that in the end it was destroyed after a violent assault®. There appears to be an element of exaggeration in this statement as Jerusa- lem, from the Imperial point of view, was not an important fortification, and the Romans, with the building of Aelia in mind, would hardly go farther than was necessary in the destruction of the city. Schiirer** right- ly points out that the Mishnaic statement that Jerusalem was run over by the plough on the ninth Ab must refer to a ceremony at the original founding of Aelia before the outbreak of the revolt and not to a sign of the utter ruin of the city after its capture by the Romans*’, With Jeru- salem in Roman hands the rebels were forced to flee for their lives and Bar Cosiba and certain of his followers escaped to a stronghold at Be- ther, south - west of Jerusalem, the modern Khirbet - el - Yehoud, whe- re they put up a stubborn defence until A. D. 135. With the fall of Be- ther the ferocious struggle of three - and - a - half years came to an end although a few rebel elements may have held out longer in remoter hideouts. The recently found MS fragments from the mountain caves by the Dead Sea, containing Bar Cosiba’s dispatches, were probably hidden there by remnants of these fleeing insurgents. The exact whereabouts of Hadrian during the Jewish war are not quite certain and Jewish and Roman experts differ in their interpre- tations of the evidence. Schiirer, followed by many authorities, belie- ves that the Emperor was himself present at the seat of the war - at least during its most. critical year. This view seems unassailable as the inscriptions®® and Rabbinical evidence imply his presence. We need not, however, believe that Hadrian was long in the field against the 84, Inix, 13-14. 35. Appian, Syr. 4; cf. the similar opinion of Chrys. Ado, Iudaeos v. 14; Niceph. Callist. H. E. iii. 24; Jerome, Comm. in Ies. i. 5. 36. Op. cit., pp. 307 - 8 (Revised edition p. 551). 87, Mishna Tanith iv. 6; cf. Bab. Tanith 29a. A description of the ceremony is givon by Servius in a passage from Varro on Virgil Aen. v. 758. 38, C. 1. L. viii. 6706 = J. L. S. 1065; C. I. L. vi. 974. 39. Gittin 57a; Schtirer, op. cit. pp. 305 - 6 (Revised edition p. 550).48 Jews. The guerilla nature of the struggle required the use of a general, such as Severus, expert in that kind of warfare. Hadrian was apparent- ly content to leave the direction of the legions to him for the Emperor was back in Rome by 5 May 134%. It seems probable that Hadrian be- came weary of the Jewish war’s drain on Roman manpower and resour- ces and the desolation of a fruitful province; this is the purport of his omission of the introductory formula ‘I and the army are well’ in his mes- sage to the Senate. Hadrian may have had good cause to regret his astoni- shing provocation of a proud and independent race-a provocation at variance with the whole spirit of his achievement. In this, and in this alone, did his statesmanship fail during the seventeen years of his reign. Rome exerted a terrible vengeance on those of the insurgents who were captured alive. No mercy, on either side, had been given during the war; now no mercy was shown to the pitiful Jewish prisoners who were sold in large numbers in the slave markets of the Near East. It was said that a Jewish slave could be bought for the cost of a horse in the annual market at the Terebinth in Hebron and at Gaza men spoke of ‘Hadrian’s market? for centuries to come. Many Jews who could not be sold at Gaza perished from starvation on voyages to Egypt* - recal- ling the sufferings of European Jewry in this century. Of the fate of the rebel leaders we have no certain information apart. from late Rabbinical traditions which, however, may contain a nucleus of historical fact. According to one such tradition Rabbi Akiba was put to a martyr’s death by torture, his flesh being torn from his body with iron combs. During his sufferings he prayed the Shema and while lin- gering over the word Echad (Deut. vi. 4) he breathed out his spirit. Then sounded forth a Bath Qol saying, ‘Blessed art thou, R. Akiba, that thy soul departed with “Echad”’#. Bar Cosiba fared likewise; he was slain by a snake and his head brought to the Roman general. More certain is the treatment meted out to the Jewish population as a whole by Hadrian. He levied a heavier poll - tax on them and any Jews still left in Jerusalem were driven out and replaced by Roman colonists. No Jew was allowed to set foot in the city on pain of death 40. C. 1. G. 5906 4A, Jerome ad Zech. xi. 5; ad Jeremiah VI 18; Chron. Paschale (ed. Dindort) i. 474, 42, Bab. Ber. 61b. Cf. M. Beer, «An Ancient saying regarding Martyrdom in Hadrian’s Time», Zion 28, 1963, pp. 228 - 82 (in Hebrew).19 except on one day of the year when they were allowed to look on the city from afar. At the south gate of the city the figure of a swine is said to have been engraved“. The building of Aelia Capitolina now pro- ceeded apace. It was not without its stately buildings - a theatre, baths and two temples, The religious worship of the city centred on the cult of Jupiter Capitolinus to whom a temple was erected on the site of the former Jewish temple*®, In it was a statue of Hadrian if we may accept the evidence of Christian writers’. Another temple, dedicated to Astar- te, stood on the traditional site of the sepulchre of Christ.4? The new Roman city maintained an uneventful existence for at least a century and during this period the Christian Church, now under Gentile Bishops, ‘was unmolested. In honour of the victory Hadrian was greeted, for the second time in his life, as Imperator‘. Julius Severus received the triumphalia or- namenta® and other Roman leaders the usual awards. These however were but shallow words and deeds. The province of Judaea was a de- sert. The population and land had been decimated by the loss of more than half a million men in battle and almost a thousand villages destro- yed. Everywhere the sullen bereaved lurked with a fierce hatred burnt deep into their souls. Hadrian, the peacemaker, the realist, could not have regarded the Jewish war as a victory despite the hollow cries of acclaim. He was only to live, with his faculties failing, for three years more. For the Jews the war was a tragedy beyond measure. Almost all of the Jewish settlements had been wiped out; strife was everywhere in the land and, far worse, the teaching and practice of Judaism became a capital crime: ‘To whom does the verse Ex. xx. 6 “Of them that love me and keep my commandments” refer? said Rabbi Nathan. ‘To the inhabitants of the land of Israel who give up their lives for the religious commandments’.‘Why are you being taken to the execution block?” one is asked. ‘For circumcising my son’, he replies. ‘Why are you being cast 43, Tear. Ado. Jud. 13; Es. H. E. iv. 6. 44, Jerome, Chron. ad. ann. Abr. 2452. 45. Dio Cass. Ixix. 12. 46. Jerome, Comm. in Ies. ii. 9; ct. Cunys. Orat adv. Iudaeos, 9. 11. 47. Bus. Vit. Const. iii, 26. According to another version a sanctuary of Venus stood on the site of the Cross of Christ: cf. Jerome, Ep. 58 ad Paulinum iii. 48. C. I, L. vi. 975 and 976, 49. C. I. L. iii. 2880. Severus was probably the last general to receive these.20 into the flames? another is asked. ‘For studying torah,’ he replies. ‘Why are you being crucified?’ a third is asked.‘For eating unleavened bread [during Passover}, he replies. ‘Why have you been sentenced to get a hundred lashes?”, still another is asked. ‘For conducting the ceremony of Palms [during the Feast of Booths)’, he replies®, A Jewish authority gives it as his considered opinion that had Had- rian remained much longer on the throne it is very doubtful if Palestine Jewry could have recovered from the blows it had received". In the event the cessation of the conflict only increased the exodus from the country of those who had escaped being slaughtered or sold as slaves — an exodus which the protests of the Rabbis could not stem. After A. D. 135 the number of Jewish settlements, even in Galilee, declined and the number of refugees in Babylonia became so numerous that an at- tempt was made to establish there a court independent of Palestinian authority®. Total disintegration was only prevented by the repeal of Hadrian’s edicts by the new Emperor, Antoninus Pius, and by a change in the Imperial policy towards the Jews - which now became less ho- stile. Rome abolished such measures as were consonant with her securi- ty and prestige although still forbidding the Jews to make proselytes or to enter Jerusalem. Another factor, of even greater importance, was the survival of Rabbinism in the land. There were still scholars in Pa- lestine and the extinction of their political hopes in A.D 135 caused them to redouble their efforts to salvage Jewish life from the ruin of war. As happened after the catastrophe of A. D. 70 they did not fail and at Tiberias in Galilee they set up a Rabbinical centre similar to that which had previously existed at Jamnia. Gradually the Rabbis attempt- ed the reconstruction of a stable Judaism. Akiba’s disciples, particular- ly Meir, Judah ben Ilai, Simeon ben Yohai, the new patriarch, Simeon ben Gamaliel, and many others, re - animated the study of the torah and gave the people a civilized heart and mind. Not only prayer but study was exalted to a pre - eminent place in the life of the people and once again the Jews took heart and arose, with the torah in their hands, from the dark river of death. However, this achievement was bought at a cost. Prior to A. D. 50. Mekilta Bahodesh. vi. II, p. 247. 54. J. Goupin, The Jews, Their History, Culture and Retigion (ed. L. Finkelstein), Vol. I, p. 155 52. Ber. 63a2 70 Judaism was not solely Pharisaic but embraced hellenistic and se- ctarian thought. In the years between A. D. 70 and the outbreak of the second Jewish war in A. D. 132 Rabbinism gained the upper hand although hellenistic Judaism was still to an extent alive. After A. D. 135 Pharisaic Rabbinism was alone supreme and hellenistic Judaism which, under exponents such as Philo, had sought to bridge the gulf between the Greek and Jewish worlds, slowly disappeared. Judaism thus became a sharply defined faith and practice and the Jews stran- gers in a non - Jewish world. To a Gentile writer it would seem that this alone has enabled the Jews to preserve their identity through vicis- situdes and dangers which would have broken many another race less tenacious in purpose. Hadrian failed to grasp that a nationalist religious faith is an inner strength which outer circumstances cannot destroy. It was as impossible to bring the Jews within the sphere of an Imperial world order as it is to bring the indigenous Africans of our own time into “Western civilisation”. It has sometimes been said by Christians that the fruit of develo- ped Rabbinism has been legalism. This ad hoe judgement needs qua- lification as the following shows: What is meant by the verse (Ps. xviii. 31), “The word of the Lord purifies?”, said a third century teacher. The commandments were given only to purify the hearts of men. For does it really mat- ter to the Hély One, blessed be He, whether one prepares the food one way or another? Or does it matter to Him if one eats ritually unclean or clean foods? Surely it docs not, but the commandments were given for one purpose only - to purify the hearts of men®, Appendix THE SECOND JEWISH REVOLT AND THE DISCOVERIES BY THE DEAD SEA On 21 January 1952 the French archaeologist, Fr de Vaux, follo- wing on some hard bargaining, made his way with Bedouin guides to a group of caves in the Wady Murabbaat ten or eleven miles south of Khirbet Qumran where many MSS discoveries had been made since 88. Gen. R. 44, quoted by J. Goxpsn, op. cit. p. 15922 41947. These caves have yielded a rich haul of MSS fragments and coins which mostly date from the period just before and during the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (A. D. 132-5), whereas the latest of the MSS found at Qumran are from the period just after the First Jewish Revolt. The Murabbaat finds afford new source material for the history of the Second Revolt which supplements what is already known from Christian and Rabbinical sources. To these may be added the discovery of literary and archaeological material at Nahal Hever and Nahal Zéelim in 1959 - 64. (a) The Leader of the Revolt The leader of the revolt is usually called by Christian writers Cochba or Bar-Cochba. In Eus. Chron. and Jerome, ad. ann. Abr. 2149, the form of the name is Chochebas; so also in Orosius vii. 13. Justin I Apol. xxxi has Barchochebas (Bapywyé8as) (cf. Eus. H. E. iv. 8 with Eus. HE, iv. 6). Jerome. Adv. Rufin. iii 31, has Barcochabas. Rabbinical authorities refer to him as Bar Coziba or Ben Coziba (see Derenbourg, Histoire de la Palestine, p. 423). Both of these names are designations, the Christian one distinguishing him as the star, or the son of the star, with reference to Nu, xxiv. 17 which passage R. Akiba applied to him in a messianic sense [cf. Jer. Taantth iv. fol. 68d: ‘R. Simon ben Jochai said: R. Akiba my teacher expounded the passage: There shall go a star out of Jacob (Nu. xxiv. 17) as follows: “There goes cozb’a out from Ja- cob”. When R. Akiba saw Bar Cosiba he said, This is the King Messiah. Then said to him R. Jochanan ben Torta: Akiba, the grass will grow out of thy jaw bone, and yet the Son of David will not have come’]. The Rabbinic designation is a name either derived from the leader’s father (i. e. the Son of Coziba) or from his home cozb’a (i. e. the man of Coziba); Or it could be a pun, ‘son of a deceiver’ perhaps invented by the leaders’ opponents (Schiirer, Revised edition p. 543). It seems probable that the designation Cochba or Bar -Cochba was chosen on account of its similarity to Bar Cosiba; certainly it became generally used as the Christian writers alone knew it. The coins unearthed prior to the Murabbaat finds have preserved the proper name of two men, Simon and Eleasar. It is universally agreed that the former is Bar - Cochba and that he issued certain coins during the period of the revolt. Those minted in the first year, ie. A.D. 132 - 3, have the inscription ‘Simon, Prince of Israel’, while those minted in the second year have only the name ‘Simon’. On some coins the figure of a23 star appears over that of a temple. Beside the group of coins associated with Simon others have been found, from the first year, with the in- scription ‘Eleasar the Priest’ but after the second year there are no fur- ther Eleasar coins. It may thus be plausibly inferred that there were two men originally at the head of the rebellion, Simon and Eleasar the Priest, but that after about a year Bar - Cochba alone directed operati- ons. Who this Eleasar was is uncertain; late Rabbinical traditions (Mi- drash on Echa ii. 2; Gittin 57a) refer to one R. Eleasar of Modein who was the uncle of Bar Cosiba, but it is uncertain if this man is ‘Eleasar the Priest? of the coins. Moreover we do not know if Eleasar the Priest was also regarded as a Messiah; cf. the references in the earlier Qumran texts to the two Messiahs of Aaron and Israel who are to come in the escha- tological future (IQp ix. II; CDC vi. 10, vii. 23, xiii. 20, xiv. 19). Thus it will be seen that prior to the Murabbaat discoveries the ori- ginal name of the leader of the revolt remained uncertain, our only real evidence being the Rabbinical designations Bar Coziba or BenCoziba which are somewhat late and may, in any case, bea pun; moreover the designa- tion Bar - Cochba clearly depends upon the messianic application and is unlikely to have been an original name. The finds of 1952 and 1959 - 60 have radically altered the picture and have provided actual contempo- rary evidence of the name of the leader of the Jewish Revolt. Several texts in Mishnaic Hebrew found at Murabbaat in 1952 call him Simon bar Cosiba (/srael Exploration Journal X1, 1961, pp. 44 - 50); two let- ters bearing his name are believed by the excavators to be original let- ters from him addressed to a lieutenant called Yeshua ben Galgola. From another group of caves has come other MS material related to the Wady Murabbaat finds and this has produced a letter addressed to Simon bar Cosiba stating that the Romans had moved their camp. To this contemporary evidence must now be added the discovery of the actual dispatches sent from the leader’s headquarters during the revolt, which were made public in 1960 by General Y. Yadin. These orders were found in caves near the Dead Sea where apparently remnants of the rebels took refuge after the final crushing of the revolt in A.D. 135. The dispatches were addressed to local commanders and from references in them to harvests and buildings it is clear that they had been written before the recipients withdrew to the barren wasteland to the west of the Dead Sea. According to General Yadin seven of the ten letters al- ready opened were written in Aramaic and begin with the words ‘from24 Simon bar Cosiba’. Two other letters were written in Greek and one of them mentions the name Bar Cosiba (Xwa(@a). The conclusion to be drawn from these contemporary finds is that, the name of the leader of the revolt was Simon bar Cosiba. It appears most unlikely that this originally meant ‘son of the deceiver’ or ‘son of a lie’, as his enemies later averred (cf. also Jerome, Adv. Rufin iii. 24, ‘ut ille Barchochabas, auctor seditionis Iudaicae, stipulam in ore suc- censam anhelitu ventilabat, ut flammas evomere putaretur’). Since Bar Cosiba or Ben Cosiba is the prevailing form in the mouths of those who esteemed him highly, such as R. Akiba, this cannot be the meaning. Ac- cordingly I adhere to the view that his original name derived from his father (‘son of Cosiba’) or from his home (‘man of Cosiba’) but that it was given a messianic application by the Jews during the revolt which be- came generally known to later Christians. It, was this later messianic aspect of the revolt which prevented Christians from joining it - save by apostasy from their own Messiah. Hence they were roughly treated by Bar Cosiba; cf. Justin I Apol. i. 31:‘For in the recent Jewish war, Bar- chochebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews’ ordered Christians alone, if they did not deny that Jesus was the Christ and blaspheme, to be led off to terrible punishments’. Cf. also the Armenian of Eus. Chronicon (ed. Schoene ii. 168 seq. ad. ann. Abr. 2149): ‘Qui dux rebellionis Iudae- orum erat Chochebas, multos e Christianis diversis suppliciis affecit, quia nolebant procedere cum illo ad pugnam contra Romanos’. Another of the 1959 - 60 finds has confirmed the inscription found on the coins, ‘Simon, Prince of Israel’, which belongs to the first year of the revolt. This was a letter written on a wooden slat which was headed ‘Simon bar Cosiba, Prince over Israel’; it ordered the arrest of one Tah- nun ben Ishmael, and the confiscation of his wheat. (b) The Nature of the Revolt The rebels were at first very successful and quickly made themsel- ves masters of Jerusalem, which was a Roman camp rather than a for- tified city. The. coins found during the last century confirm this for they bear on one side the name Simon and on the other the superscription “lecheruth Jeruschalem’, i.e.‘the freedom of Jerusalem’. There are further coins which bear the date ‘First Year of the Freedom of Israel’ or ‘Second Year of the Freedom of Israel’, with the name ‘Jerusalem’, which may have been minted by the city itself in its own name (see E. Schitrer, op.25 cit, Div. I, Vol. II, Appendix IV). The Murabbaat MSS discoveries have now provided further evidence of this dating: a tiny papyrus scrap deal- ing with a sale of real estate bears the date ‘First Year of the Freedom of Israel’. Twelve contracts concerned with the renting of fields and gua- ranteed by the authority of Bar Cosiba are dated the following year. And, significantly, of four fragmentary documents dealing with real estate transactions one is dated ‘Third Year of the Freedom of Jerusalem’,i.e. A. D. 134-5, and another bears the date‘Third Year of the Freedom of Israel’, These texts, composed in Mishnaic Hebrew, prove that Jerusa- lem was still in rebel hands in the third year of the revolt. The recaptu- re of the city by the Romans mentioned by Appian, Syr. 50, ‘The great city of Jerusalaem which Ptolemy the first king of Egypt captured, and Vespasian destroyed when it had been settled again, and Hadrian once more in my lifetime’, must therefore have occurred not earlier than A.D. 135. ‘The new finds give information on the guerilla activity which for- med so large a part of the revolt. We know from Dio Cassius Ixix. 12 (cf. Jerome, Chronicon, ad. ann. Abr. 2448) that open conflict was as far as possible avoided but that the rebels, from their dens in the moun- tains, made devastating raids against any who did not support their cause. The finds of 1959-60 contain Bar Cosiba’s orders to two local commanders, Yehonathan bar Bayah and Masbala ben Shimon. These, with other letters, are in different handwriting indicating that they were dictated to different scribes. The signatures on certain of the letters appear to be those of Bar Cosiba’s adjutants. The orders were terse and brisk. One said: ‘Whatever Elisha says, do’. Another said that a certain Eliezer ben Mattah should be sent to the writer before the Sabbath. Other letters called for the arrest of individuals and the requisitioning of grain as well as for the punishment of certain persons who had re- paired their houses. The local commanders were frequently cautioned that they would be punished for disobedience to orders. The tone of these letters corresponds to what is already known of Bar Cosiba’s cha- racter as a stern and relentless commander. The papyri found in 1959 - 60 were in a bundle tied with rope made from palm fronds, and were tucked inside a goatskin with some beads, a mirror, a comb and other articles which may have belonged to the wife of one of the local rebel commanders. These finds show that the second Jewish Revolt, under 54. M. Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 3326 Simon bar Cosiba, was a well organised guerilla campaign backed up by an elaborate administration*, One interesting fact to emerge from the finds is that Bar Cosiba’s army contained not only orthodox Jews but Gentiles on whom Sabbath observance was enjoined. However like so many such guerilla campaigns in history Bar Cosiba’s reign as “Pre- sident” of Israel was short lived. Worn down by superior Roman for- ces he made his last stand at Bethar where he died in the siege of the fifth Macedonica and the eleventh Claudia legions. 55. A detailed account of the finds is given by P. Benorr, J. T. Muuix, and R. de Vaux, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 11: Les Grottes de Murabba't, and Il, Oxford 1961. The Editors date the beginning of the era of Liberation in Tishri or Nisan A. D, 134 and show that Bar Cosiba took over the highly efficient, Roman civil organisation and continued to administer it. Jewish farmers became his tenants and paid their rents to Bar Cosiba’s treasury. The leader insisted on sabbath obser- vance and intended Mishnaic Hebrew to be the official language of his kingdom. See further Y. Yapin, Finds from the Bar - Kokhba period in the Cave of the Letters, 1963; Y. Muswonzn, Jewish Coins in the Second Temple Period, 1967; B. KANAEL, “ Notes on Dates used during the Bar Kokhba Revolt”, Israel Exploration Journal XX1, 1974, pp. 39-46; J. A. Fitzuver, “The Bar Cochba Period”, Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament, 1971, pp. 305 - 54,2* THE BACKGROUND OF JUDAISM AND CHRISTIA- NITY IN EGYPT. 4, GRAECO-ROMAN EGYPT Curistianity first appeared in Egypt as one of many oriental influences which were sweeping over the Graeco - Roman world. The hellenization of the orient which had been effected through the medium of the Greek language, literature and beliefs was to be followed by a none the less widespread penetration of Greek culture by a religion which had its origins in tho life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In Alexandria the ground had long been prepared for this event. Contacts between Egypt and the Greek world probably go back to the dawn of recorded history. The Minoan - Mycenaean civilization of Crete, which decipherment of the Linear A and B scripts has shown to have been an early forerunner of the later Greek civilization, was much indebted to Egyptian influences, forming as it did an early link between the Orient and Europe. And in the age of Greek commercial expansion trading contacts with Egypt increased as the Mediterranean sea was opened to traffic on a scale not hitherto realized; in Periclean Athens the foreign trader became a familiar sight as he plied his wares in the market places. In the train of this commercial expansion, which was to prove of great significance to the Greek world, came the intro- duction into Hellas of Egyptian deities such as Isis and Amon; the fame of the latter caused Pindar to write a celebrated poem in his honour and an Athenian ship regularly plied between the Piraeus and Cyrene carrying Greeks to Amon’s Sahara shrine. Moreover educated Greeks of this and later periods travelled widely in the Orient, the most famous being the illustrious Plato who visited Egypt and the West before establishing his school in the grove of the Academy at Athens. These contacts between Egypt and Hellas were, however, ephemeral and some- what superficial, and nothing like a religious syncretism took place on either Greek or Egyptian soil. The clearminded Greeks, with their de- * Church Quarterly Review 16% (1968) 300-309; 428-441,28 votion to the anthropomorphic deities of Homer, were not minded to adopt. officially the Egyptian pantheon into their systems. Although the period of Periclean Athens was, in a sense, an age of doubt the words of Xenophanes still expressed what the majority of men felt: ‘Since all men’s thoughts have been shaped by Homer from the beginning’. It was left to Hellas itself to carry the splendour of its genius to the Orient, which it accomplished through the endeavours of the Mace- donian Alexander the Great - one of the greatest warriors in the history of the world. Alexander as a youth had been tutored by Aristotle at the Macedonian court, learning under the great philosopher’s guidance the masterpieces of Greek literature and receiving a grounding in the na- tural sciences, Aristotle's special field of study. As the youth grew up he became infused with the vision of the Hellenistic ideal. Alexander became the first to transcend national boundaries and to see, albeit imperfectly, that mankind is potentially one great family in which each person has rights of his own. Well could Sir William Tarn, the great historian of the Hellenistic age, write: ‘Man as a political animal, a fra- ction of the polis or self - governing city - state, had ended with Ari- stotle; with Alexander begins man as an individual’, To this great vision was wedded consummate military skill. From the time when he came to supreme power at the early age of twenty in 336 B.C. Alexander began to plan a campaign against Asia which his victory over the Persian army at Issus brought within his grasp. Before long the Phoenician seaports were captured and Egypt, which had long been a Persian province, fell an easy prey to his army. Alexander then returned to Asia and, marching along the Fertile Crescent, entered Babylon. The Nile and the Tigris - Euphrates valley, the homes of the two oldest. civilizations known to man, were in his hands by 330 B.C., an outstanding feat of arms which is not without its lessons for the modern military mind. In Alexander’s great campaigns the West and the East were brought into contact in a way never before realised in history. The founding of the Egyptian city of Alexandria dates from this period. Four centuries earlier a centre for Greek merchants had been established at Naukratis? in the Nile delta, but as this was solely a trading outpost it is unlikely that any fusion of Greek and Egyptian religious beliefs took place—certainly the objects on the Naukratis site 4, Hellenistic Civilisation (3rd edition. 1952). 2, Literally ‘mistress of the ships’,29 yield no evidence of Egyptian influence upon the Greek cults brought in by the traders. Zeus, Apollo, and Hera remained strangers from afar. However, after the Persian conquest of Egypt the Nile Valley became more open to travellers from other countries, although these contacts, valuable though they were, did not bring Hellas and Egypt into anything like the close political association which was accomplished through A- Jexander’s conquest and the settlement of Egypt under a Macedonian government. This effected an entirely new relationship between the two countries, and the way became open for Hellenistic civilization to make that deeper impact on the Egyptian mind which it accomplished under the rule of the Ptolemies. Alexandria, founded in 332 B.C. and designed by the great ar- chitect Deinocrates on the Greek rectangular plan, now rose to importan- ce, eventually attaining the position of the greatest city of the Helle- nistic world and a focus for its commerce and trade. One third of Rome’s wheat was shipped from its harbour, which also linked the Mediter- ranean with the east. Oblong in shape, the city occupied a narrow strip of land between the sea and Lake Mareotis, which was itself joined by a canal to the mouth of the Nile. This was the cause of Strabo’s cele- brated remark that the city was shaped like a cloak worn by the Mace- donian cavalry. The Ptolemies spared no expense or energy in embar- king upon a gigantic building programme which even today, with our knowledge of large - scale building techniques, impresses the mind. One third of the city was occupied with Royal palaces and open public grounds, while the wide streets, which were used by wheeled vehicles, were flanked with noble collonades. The entrance to the harbour was guarded by a giant lighthouse tower, a descendant of the ancient Sum- merian ziggurat, which bore the inscription, ‘To the saviour gods’. 400 feet high, the tower stood as a guide to shipping for some 1,600 years from the time of its erection c. 250 B.C.*. It is not improbable that it later gave to Arab architects the design of the Minaret. The Royal Museum possessed a great library, lecture halls, exhibition rooms, and living quarters for the scientists and philosophers employed by the Sta- te. Some distance away stood the gymnasia, baths, concert halls and 3. In Mommsen’s striking phrase ‘a monarchical creation ex nihilo’, 4. The little island of Pharos, on which the lighthouse stood, was well known to Greek mariners. Ullyses and his friends were detained there for many weary days by contrary winds (Odyss. iv. 354).30 market places which, however, were dwarfed by the vast temple of Sarapis, who had been adopted as the state—deity of the city. Such en- thusiasm did the great city engender that one dialogue claimed that Ale- xandria was the world, the whole earth her city—land, and other cities only her villages. Exaggerated as such a eulogy undoubtedly is, we gain an indication of her wealth and magnificence under Ptolemy IT from Callixenus’ account of the King’s magnificent festival procession, which in splendour outshines even the processions of the Egyptian Old King- dom. It is sad to reflect that little of this illustrious past now remains, for the buildings which made Alexandria such a fine city have disap- peared or dwindled into the sands. The spirit of the city, however, re- mains to this day Greek rather than Egyptian, although the population is now rapidly decreasing. Alexandria, during the period before and after the turn of the Chri- stian era, became the centre of the intellectual life of the Graeco - Ro- man world. There arose in the city a remarkable group of scientists who, with a priest of the Muses al their head, lived and worked together at the Museum under the patronage of the Ptolemies. Their freedom from worldly cares was the cause of Timon the Sceptic’s sarcastic remark that the group were ‘fatted fowls in a coop’. This was the first scientific institution wholly dedicated to research known to have been suppor- ted by a state, and it numbered among its alumni such great names as Euclid the mathematician and Eratosthenes the astronomer 5. The city also becaine the greatest centre of medical research in the ancient world, Herophilus’ medical school being especially famous for its anatomical research on the nervous system. This, like our own, was essentially an age of specialists - an age of discovery and invention when a new world was opening before the inquiring mind - an age which has a good claim to rank as one of the most creative known in the history of scientific re- search. Unfortunately, to a great extent, the inventions of the Helle- nistic Greeks were wasted, with the exception of a few obvious ones such as the screw and the toothed wheel. The theoretical and the practical had not yet been wedded together - that did not happen until the In- 5. The pre-eminence of Alexandria in astronomical research continued into ‘the Christian era. Thus the Gentile Churches of Palestine and Southern Syria depend- ed on the Egyptian metropolis for guidance in regard to the calendar - the beginning of the custom whereby the Bishop of Alexandria issued ‘Festal Epistles’ on the Feast of the Epiphany informing the Church at large when the Pascha would fall. P. Car- ninoton: The Early Christian Church, Vol. ii, p. 384.3t dustrial Revolution -and, in any case, the Greeks had a prejudice against the mechanical crafts; their method was to think things through to a logical conclusion rather than to grasp the practical applications of scientific discovery. ‘The art and sculpture of Graeco-Roman Egypt did not reacha high level. The classical restraint had gone, and a certain theatricalism pervades Alexandrian grave reliefs, which are not otherwise conspi- cuous for their elegance. The Egyptian metropolis was more of a col- lecting centre for sculpture, although it was here that the practice arose of putting on statues’ hair in stucco. The city’s real strength lay in other directions: in mosaic work, which it may have invented, and in cameo - cutting. The wonderful floor mosaic of Alexander charging the Persian King at Issus, which has been put together from pieces of a floor pave- ment discovered at Pompeii §, is a witness to Alexandria’s pre - eminen- ce in this art. The study of language and literature made advances in the Helle- nistic period. The older river - valley civilizations had known great libraries furnished with staffs of scholars, but these institutions were eclipsed by the vast library of the Ptolemies at Alexandria which con- tained, at the beginning of the Christian era, about 700,000 rolls, many imported from other countries 7; unfortunately this library has perished and we only know of its existence from the evidence of later writers. Of the six librarians who cover the great period four were philologists, which is perhaps an indication of the basis of the Alexandrian intellectual achievement. The most famous figure associated with the library, ho- wever, was the philosopher and poet Callimachus, who was the first to catalogue the papyrus rolls and to introduce their division into se- ctions. The copies of the rolls produced by the Alexandrian scholars became the standard editions of the Graeco - Roman world, and through them knowledge of the Greek classics reached Europe, their wide dis- semination being helped by the fact that papyrus, the world’s writing material, became a state monopoly under Ptolemy II. These learned Alexandrian circles also produced notable writers and poets such as 6. It was originally native to Alexandria. Now in the National Museum, Naples. 7. 200,000 volumes were brought from Pergamum and presented by Mark An- thony to Cleopatra; Greek and Hebrew copies of the Old Testament were available (Terr. Apol. xviii). Other Egyptian temples had collections of sacred books although not on this scale. Private Libraries were usual in Alexandria.32 Aratus, whose versions of the Ages of the World in his Phaenomena became widely known. The characteristic Alexandrian poetical form, as far as we can judge, was the idyll. Philosophy, out of which Ionian science had at first arisen, was not prominent in early Alexandria. Only later did it rise to pre - eminence, although then, as at Athens, it had a long history; it was still being taught in A.D. 640 when the Arabs con- quered Egypt and may have continued until A.D. 972, when Greek learning began to be taught in Arabic. Christianity did not make its first appearance in Egyptin vacuo. The new faith could flourish and gain converts only in a suitable milieu; and this was at first the Hellenistic Judaism of the diaspora’, However, Christianity was soon to come into contact with the indigenous popu- lation, and we must briefly sketch the form which its religion took. The Macedonian conquest of Egypt and the foundation of Alexandria placed the Greeks in an entirely new relationship with the native religion, for it meant that the Greeks were no longer visitors to Egypt but inhabi- tants of the country with a footing in almost every profession and oc- cupation. From this there came a general identification of the Egyptian deities with those of Hellas, which was based on the earlier comparative list drawn up by Herodotus. The Greeks, who were impressed by the immense antiquity of the native religion and consistently over - valued its importance®, found no difficulty in entering Egyptian temples to make their offerings at the shrines". And the Egyptian side reciprocated, for Egyptian theologians, from the Pyramid age, had held conflicting beliefs side by side and in the Hellenistic age saw no objection to the identification of their own deities with those of the Greeks. The result was a religious syncretism especially marked in the country areas, al- though it is questionable how deep a fusion really occured. Always the intensely conservative age - old native religion was the dominant par- tner playing a vital part in the lives of ordinary people throughout the Graeco - Roman period. The Olympian deities in fact only retained their vitality through their identification with Egyptian deities or because 8. The influence of the University of Alexandria on early Christian thought was distant and indirect. Furthermore the apostles of Greek culture did not pay much attention to indigenous practices, although a few, like Chaoremon, studied the Egyptian monuments. Cf. C. Bra, The Christian Platonists of Alecandria, p. 2. 9. This reverenceis found as far back as Paro, Timaeus 22 - 4, and in AnteroTLe’s treatise On Philosophy, Frag. 8, 6-8. See W. Jazcen, Aristotle (1984) pp. 128 - 9. 40. Greek youths even made offerings to the crocodile god of the Fayyam.33 of their connection with the religious festivals which had been a promi- nent feature of Egyptian life from the time of the Old Kingdom4, The situation was somewhat different in Alexandria itself. The cosmopolitan population of the city was drawn from every quarter of the Greek world and further afield - Indian emissaries from the Budd- hist. King Asoka arriving as early as the reign of Ptolemy II*. The city became in effect a collection of politeumata based upon race each ob- serving its own ancestral customs; the Greek was the most, important of these and approximated closely to the polis or city - state of the Greek mainland. One of the results of its chequered history and geographical position was that Hellas, unlike Egypt, had never possessed a national religion based on the supremacy of a single deity - in fact the deity as- sociated with each polis was supreme over the inhabitants of that city - state alone. From this it naturally followed that the Greek population of Alexandria, diverse as it was in origins, could not be expected to permit the adoption of any one Hellenic deity as supreme over the city. Moreover as we have noted the intellectual element in the Alexandrian population was of great moment, and the swift rise of the scientific method caused a widespread scepticism as to the existence and efficacy of the traditional deities. In a situation such as this the superficial e- quation of Greek and Egyptian gods made elsewhere in the country was unlikely to find much acceptance. Furthermore the attitude of the Pto- Jemies was all important, for they had their chief residence in Alexan- dria and regarded themselves as the successors of the ancient Pharaohs. Endued with the ownership of most of the land, they possessed unli- mited power over the lives of their subjects". On these rulers fell the problem of the religion of the new city, and Ptolemy I brilliantly sol- ved it by introducing an official cult acceptable to Greek and Egyptian alike. AA. HL. Bett, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology xxxiv (1948) p. 89 - 97. 42, The intercourse between the early Buddhist Kings and the Ptolemies is Fevealed on a rock tablet found at Girnar in Gujerat which contains the edicts of Asoka: “And the Greek King (Yoni - raja) besides, by whom the Chapta (Egy ptian) Kings Ptolemaios and Gonkakenos (Antigonus Gonatas) have been induced to allow that both here and in foreign countries everywhere the people may follow the doc trine of the religion of Devanipya wheresoever it reacheth”. Prinsep, Indian Anti- quities II, p. 20. Indian influence on Western thought was mediated via Persia and Asia Minor. R. Mcu. Witson, The Gnostic Problem (1958), p. 60. 43. Although they granted Alexandria and two other Nile cities the right to manage their own affairs.34 ‘The supreme deity of this new cult was Sarapis, who literally came into existence through the investigations of a group of priests and phi- losophers appointed by Ptolemy; in Sir William Tarn’s words, “the only god ever successfully made by men”. The exact origin of this deity has been the subject of much learned discussion; identification with the Mesopotamian ‘Shar - apsi has been suggested and a thorough search has been made for possible Asiatic antecedents in view of the statements of Plutarch and Tacitus that his giant cult statue was imported into Alexandria from Sinope where it had been a representation of Hades. Tt seems however that we should follow U. Wilcken"® and H. I. Bell” in seeing in the new deity a hellenized form of the Egyptian god Osara- pis; confirmation of this may be found in the location of the Sarapeum in the Egyptian Rhacotis quarter of Alexandria!®, Furthermore we know that the Apis bull had long been worshipped at Memphis, where it was identified after death with Osiris: and, as the compound Osarapis had been worshipped in the neighbourhood of Memphis before Alexandria was founded, it seems probable that the priests and philosophers of Ptolemy cleverly hellenized the local indigenous deity by representing him as a bearded man of ideal beauty akin to the Greek Zeus. In this way Sarapis became a deity suitable to the intellectual climate of the times. Egyptians saw in the god a likeness to Osiris and Apis while the Greeks equated him with Zeus; the compound designation Zeus - Sa- rapis came into frequent use. The new state - deity did not remain an exclusive Alexandrian possession but spread throughout Egypt. Ho- wever, his greatest success was won in other lands” as the patron saint of the Ptolemaic empire, rather than in his native country. The reason for this lies in the fact that for the native population the new state god 1h. De Iside et Osiride xxviii. 15. Hist, iv. 83. 16. Urkunden der Ptolemaerzeit (altere Funde), Berlin - Leipzig (1927), Vol. 1, pp. 7-95. 17. Cults and Creeds in Graeco - Roman Egypt (1953), p. 19. 48. The temple closure of Sarapis has been discovered. A. Rowe, Ann. Serv, Suppl. 2 (Cairo 1946), gives a detailed account of the finding of ten foundation pla- ques bearing inscriptions in hieroglyphic and Greek. Cf. Journal of Egyptian Archaco- logy xxxiv, p. 140. 19. The Oxyrhynchus papyri contain invitations to banquets of “the Lord Sa- rapis”, 20. Apollonius, an Egyptian priest, introduced Sarapis to Delos before 300 G.35 was the official ruler of the universe seated on a high throne, as in the temple representations, rather than a domestic hearth deity near to their everyday lives and needs. The Alexandrian triad was completed by Sarapis’ consort Isis and by Harpocrates, deities which were distin- ctively Egyptian; in particular Harpocrates took on more human fea- tures as time went by and was eventually adopted as one of the house- hold gods of the fellahin. Many other identifications of Greek and Egyp- tian deities were made at Alexandria, but to judge by the coin types these were in the main academic exercises. From time immemorial the Egyptian Pharaohs" had been deified, for the Egyptian King was essentially the focus of the nation’s well - being on whom depended its survival from year to year. It was there- fore no innovation that one result of the Macedonian conquest should have been the cult - deification of Alexander the Great, which certain- ly occured at Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy II and continued until the advent of Christianity. The Ptolemies themselves were accorded divine honours as “saviours”, although not, until the reign of Eurgetes H does the King call himself “a god”. One fact which enabled the Greek Kings to accept such honours was the loyalty of the native priests®, which was readily given in return for the Ptolemies’ patronage of the national religion. On the temple walls the Greek Kings are represented clad in the garments which the ancient Egyptian Kings wore when worshipping the gods. Yet this cult of kingship, which in practice re- sembled the homage paid to the English Royal Family, differed from the ancient Egyptian conception of the Pharaoh. In the Pyramid Age and later the King per se was divine; in the Graeco - Roman period the recognition of the divine right of rulers depended on the material power and standing of the Kings themselves whose real function was philan- thropia - the well - being of the subjects under their rule. This principle was extended to personages other than royalty. Hippocrates was wor- shipped in medical schools throughout the Greek world; Diogenes was 24. In the Old Kingdom not only the Pharaoh but sometimes other men were deified after death on the merits of their achievements. Later the Greeks identified the divine Imhotep, the sage and physician, with Asklepios, the god of healing. Amenophis, the son of Hapu the minister of Amenophis III, was also defied. See P. Oxy. xi. 1381 and W. R. Dawson, “Amenophis the son of Hapu”, Aegyptus vii (1926), pp. 143 - 88, H. I. Brut, Quits and Creeds op. cit. p. II. 22. See the Decree of Canopus and the proclamation on the Rosetta stone; P. D, Scorr - Moncrizre, Paganism and Christianity in Egypt (1913), p, 4.36 accorded divine honours at Athens in 229 B.C.; in the Roman period not only Augustus, who became in Egypt Zeus Eleutherios Sebastos®, but also Roman Governors were worshipped. This was a marked de- cline from the Classical Age of Greece which recognized so clearly the difference between gods and men. Christianity was later to come into contact with these cults, and it is perhaps not without significance that John’s Gospel, in which the divine origin and nature of Jesus is most uncompromisingly asserted, became in the second century of the Chri- stian era the most widely read of the Gospels in Egypt. The attempt of the Ptolemies to forge a new Egyptian state reli- gion was a noble attempt to find a religious basis acceptable to Greek and Egyptian alike. However, at the beginning of the Christian era the Hellenization of the country, with three centuries of effort behind, had not succeeded in making any great change. The Greeks, although wil- ling to worship the native deities, never really understood the spirit of the Egyptian religion and no inner fusion had taken place. In time the inertia and intense conservatism of the land, symbolized by the enor- mous pyramids of Gizeh, played their inevitable réle and the imported elements in the deities and in the population tended to disappear, a fact observed by Livy when he wrote: “The Macedonians who have colonies at Alexandria in Egypt, at Seleucia and Babylon and at other places scattered over the world have degenerated into Syrians, Parthians and Egyptians”*. By the third century of the christian era the descendants of the Greek colonists, except to a limited extent in Alexandria, had been absorbed by the native population and the indigenous deities had reas- sumed their old position ousting the Greek equivalents who shared their worship. A clear illustration of this is to be seen in the persistence of Osiris worship with that of Anubis and Horus*, who remained gods 28. Corpus Papyrorum Raineri (C. Wessety, Vienna 1895), 1,224. In an oath from Oxyrhynchus to be dated ¢. 30 B. C, Augustus is described as cdg &x cod, P. Ory. xii, 1453, ii, 2%, XXVIII. 17. 25, Tho magical papyri show their popularity in 2 - 3rd cents A. D. Osiris even figures on Greek tombstones of this period. Sammelbuch Griechischer (ed. F. PREI- sicxe and E. Kressune) I, 3449. The Egyptians, who had long been adepts at the art, introduced religio - magical practices to both Jews and Grecks. The Egyptians in particular drew their material from many sources. Cf. the 4th cent. Coptic text: “Hail God of Abraham, hail, God of Isaac, hail, God of Jacob, Jesus Christ, Holy Ghost, Son of the father, who is among the Seven and in the Seven”. Papyri Graecae Mogicae, K. Preisendanz (1928 - 31) iv, 1230-5, and Bell, Cults and Creeds, p. 73.37 of power long after the spread of Christianity in Egypt. Yet at the time of the coming of Christianity Graeco - Roman state - worship was a force in Alexandria itself and with Greek philosophy formed a challen- ge to the new faith which was later to be met through the labours of Origen, one of the few great minds that Christendom has known. Ho- wever not far below the surface there lay the intensely conservative Egyptian civilisation - Alexandria was never typical of Egypt as a who- le® - which was preserved by the country population and in the temples, always the strongholds of nationalism. Indeed the favour extended to the Greek element in the population by the Roman government only caused the native population to fall back upon its own way of life. The Roman inclination to look upon the country as a granary to be exploi- ted in the interests of a stable corn supply for the city of Rome also strengthened nationalistic feeling. The conservatism of the land was also to an extent the product of its geographical position, situated as it was in a narrow valley cut off by stretches of desert on the east and west from the outer world and assisted, in the Graeco - Roman period, by the persistence of the native Egyptian language, demotic, which was later to revive as Coptic?”. Christianity was not uninfluenced by indige- nous beliefs which ranged from monotheism to the grosser forms of magic and theurgy, when it came into contact with them in Middle and Upper Egypt in the second and following centuries A.D. 2. THE JEWISH DIASPORA When we consider dispassionately and objectively the spread of For the introduction of magical practices into Christianity see Hermas, Mand. ii, This may explain how the grosser forms of Gnosticism became allied with Christiani- ty in Egypt. 26. c. 100 B. C., however, the Egyptian metropolis exercised a great attraction for the country populace. So Ps - Aristeas, 109 - 11: “The country folk by migrating to the town (i. e. Alexandria) and making a long stay there brought agriculture to a low ebb, And so the King, to prevent them making a stay, ordered that their visits should not exceed twenty days...and he appointed judges with their subordinates in every nome, that so the farmers and their agents might not, while money - mak- ing in the city, reduce the granaries of the city, I mean the proceeds of agriculture”. (tr. H. Sr. Jonw Taackenay). 27, Magic appears to have played a part in the evolution of Coptic for some of the carlist examples of the use of this language occur in magical texts. W. E. Crum, Journal of Eeyptian Archaeology xxviii (1942) Pp. 20 - 31,