JUDAISM: ITS DIFFUSION AND LIMITS
This is from Harnack's Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries .
Very dense, but worth a close look!
Their numbers were greatest in Syria. The large number of Jews in Antioch is particularly striking. next to that in Egypt (in all the nomes as far as Upper Egypt),For the diffusion of Jews in S. Arabia, cp. Philostorgius's important evidence (H.E., iii. 4). The local population, he avers, οὐκ ὀλίγον πλῆθος Ἰουδαίων ἀναπέφυρται. Rome, and the provinces of Asia Minor Philo, Legat. 33: Ἰουδαῖοι καθ᾽ ἑκάστην πόλιν εἰσὶ παμπληθεῖς Ἀσίας τε καὶ Συρίας (“The Jews abound in every city of Asia and Syria”). The word “every” (ἑκάστην) is confirmed by a number of special testimonies, e.g. for Cilicia by Epiphanius (Hær., xxx. 11), who says of the “apostle” sent by the Jewish patriarch to collect the Jewish taxes in Cilicia: ὃς ἀνελθὼν ἐκεῖσε ἀπὸ ἑκάστης πόλεως τῆς Κιλικίας τὰ ἐπιδέκατα κτλ εἰσέπραττεν (“On his arrival there he proceeded to lift the tithes, etc., from every city in Cilicia”). On the spread of Judaism in Phrygia and the adjoining provinces (even into the districts of the interior), see Ramsay's two great works, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, and The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, along with his essay in the Expositor (January 1902) on “The Jews in the Græco-Asiatic Cities.” Wherever any considerable number of inscriptions are found in these regions, some of them are always Jewish. The rô1e played by the Jewish element in Pisidian Antioch is shown by Acts 14:44-50. Acts xiii.; (Ἰουδαῖοι παρώτρυναν τὰς σεβομένας γυναῖκας τὰς ἐυσχήμονας καὶ τοὺς πρώτους τῆς πόλεως). And the significance of the Jewish element in Smyrna comes out conspicuously in the martyrdom of Polycarp and of Pionius; on the day of a Jewish festival the appearance of the streets was quite changed. ''The diffusion and importance of the Jews in Asia Minor are attested among other things by the attempt made during the reign of Augustus, by the Ionian cities, apparently after joint counsel, to compel their Jewish fellow-townsmen to abandon their faith or else to assume the full burdens of citizenship” (Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. pp. 489 f., Eng. trans. Provinces, ii. 163). The extent to which they had made their way into all the local conditions is made particularly clear by the evidence bearing on the sphere last named, where, as on the north coast of the Black Sea, Judaism also played some part in the blending of religions (e.g., the cult of “The most high God,” and of the God called “Sabbatistes”). The same holds true of Syria, though the evidence here is not taken so plainly from direct testimony, but drawn indirectly from the historical presuppositions of Christian gnosticism. Cp. also the remarks of Epiphanius (Hær., lxxx. l) upon the cult of Παντοκράτωρ. In Africa, along the coast-line, from the proconsular province to Mauretania, Jews were numerous. See Monceaux, “les colonies juives dans l’Afrique romaine” (Rev. des Études juives, 1902); and Leclerq, L’Afrique chrétienne (1904), I. pp. 36 f. We have evidence for Jewish communities at Carthage, Naro, Hadrumetum, Utica, Hippo, Simittu, Volubilis, Cirta, Auzia, Sitifis, Cæsarea, Tipasa, and Oea, etc. At Lyons, in the time of Irenæus, To all appearance, therefore, he knew no Jewish Christians at first hand. they do not seem to have abounded; but in southern Gaul, as later sources indicate, their numbers cannot have been small, whilst in Spain, as is obvious from the resolutions of the synod of Elvira (c. 300 A.D.), they were both populous and powerful. Finally, we may assume that in Italy—apart from Rome and Southern Italy, where they were widely spread—they were not exactly numerous under the early empire, although even in Upper Italy at that period individual synagogues were in existence. This feature was due to the history of Italian civilization, and it is corroborated by the fact that, beyond Rome and Southern Italy, early Jewish inscriptions are scanty and uncertain. “The Jews were the first to exemplify that kind of patriotism which the Parsees, the Armenians, and to some extent the modern Greeks were to display in later ages, viz. a patriotism of extraordinary warmth, but not attached to any one locality, a patriotism of traders who wandered up and down the world and everywhere hailed each other as brethren, a patriotism which aimed at forming not great, compact states but small, autonomous communities under the ægis of other states.”
Very dense, but worth a close look!
Their numbers were greatest in Syria. The large number of Jews in Antioch is particularly striking. next to that in Egypt (in all the nomes as far as Upper Egypt),For the diffusion of Jews in S. Arabia, cp. Philostorgius's important evidence (H.E., iii. 4). The local population, he avers, οὐκ ὀλίγον πλῆθος Ἰουδαίων ἀναπέφυρται. Rome, and the provinces of Asia Minor Philo, Legat. 33: Ἰουδαῖοι καθ᾽ ἑκάστην πόλιν εἰσὶ παμπληθεῖς Ἀσίας τε καὶ Συρίας (“The Jews abound in every city of Asia and Syria”). The word “every” (ἑκάστην) is confirmed by a number of special testimonies, e.g. for Cilicia by Epiphanius (Hær., xxx. 11), who says of the “apostle” sent by the Jewish patriarch to collect the Jewish taxes in Cilicia: ὃς ἀνελθὼν ἐκεῖσε ἀπὸ ἑκάστης πόλεως τῆς Κιλικίας τὰ ἐπιδέκατα κτλ εἰσέπραττεν (“On his arrival there he proceeded to lift the tithes, etc., from every city in Cilicia”). On the spread of Judaism in Phrygia and the adjoining provinces (even into the districts of the interior), see Ramsay's two great works, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, and The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, along with his essay in the Expositor (January 1902) on “The Jews in the Græco-Asiatic Cities.” Wherever any considerable number of inscriptions are found in these regions, some of them are always Jewish. The rô1e played by the Jewish element in Pisidian Antioch is shown by Acts 14:44-50. Acts xiii.; (Ἰουδαῖοι παρώτρυναν τὰς σεβομένας γυναῖκας τὰς ἐυσχήμονας καὶ τοὺς πρώτους τῆς πόλεως). And the significance of the Jewish element in Smyrna comes out conspicuously in the martyrdom of Polycarp and of Pionius; on the day of a Jewish festival the appearance of the streets was quite changed. ''The diffusion and importance of the Jews in Asia Minor are attested among other things by the attempt made during the reign of Augustus, by the Ionian cities, apparently after joint counsel, to compel their Jewish fellow-townsmen to abandon their faith or else to assume the full burdens of citizenship” (Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. pp. 489 f., Eng. trans. Provinces, ii. 163). The extent to which they had made their way into all the local conditions is made particularly clear by the evidence bearing on the sphere last named, where, as on the north coast of the Black Sea, Judaism also played some part in the blending of religions (e.g., the cult of “The most high God,” and of the God called “Sabbatistes”). The same holds true of Syria, though the evidence here is not taken so plainly from direct testimony, but drawn indirectly from the historical presuppositions of Christian gnosticism. Cp. also the remarks of Epiphanius (Hær., lxxx. l) upon the cult of Παντοκράτωρ. In Africa, along the coast-line, from the proconsular province to Mauretania, Jews were numerous. See Monceaux, “les colonies juives dans l’Afrique romaine” (Rev. des Études juives, 1902); and Leclerq, L’Afrique chrétienne (1904), I. pp. 36 f. We have evidence for Jewish communities at Carthage, Naro, Hadrumetum, Utica, Hippo, Simittu, Volubilis, Cirta, Auzia, Sitifis, Cæsarea, Tipasa, and Oea, etc. At Lyons, in the time of Irenæus, To all appearance, therefore, he knew no Jewish Christians at first hand. they do not seem to have abounded; but in southern Gaul, as later sources indicate, their numbers cannot have been small, whilst in Spain, as is obvious from the resolutions of the synod of Elvira (c. 300 A.D.), they were both populous and powerful. Finally, we may assume that in Italy—apart from Rome and Southern Italy, where they were widely spread—they were not exactly numerous under the early empire, although even in Upper Italy at that period individual synagogues were in existence. This feature was due to the history of Italian civilization, and it is corroborated by the fact that, beyond Rome and Southern Italy, early Jewish inscriptions are scanty and uncertain. “The Jews were the first to exemplify that kind of patriotism which the Parsees, the Armenians, and to some extent the modern Greeks were to display in later ages, viz. a patriotism of extraordinary warmth, but not attached to any one locality, a patriotism of traders who wandered up and down the world and everywhere hailed each other as brethren, a patriotism which aimed at forming not great, compact states but small, autonomous communities under the ægis of other states.”
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