The Way of the Rabbi
Whatever daughter
religions might spin off from old Judaism, the parent religion
itself had
inevitably to refashion itself for the new era. After the disaster
of 135 AD, a number of Jews retreated into asceticism,
banning meat and wine altogether, since sacrifice in the temple
was no longer possible. Others lost themselves in mysticism, attempting
to reach the "celestial throne" via their imagination (the apostle Paul
would have understood!) – the forerunners of the
later "Kabala".
But for all
their suffering, most Jews were not ready to bastardise their
traditional creed by infusing it with the dying godman mythology.
The vacuum was filled by"Rabbinic Judaism", the
inheritor of the Pharisee tradition.
"The rabbis,
a smallish group (perhaps a hundred or so in the whole
Roman empire) of religious specialists descended from the Pharisees,
gradually enhanced their status and developed a specifically
Jewish way of arguing, which marked them off quite dramatically
from both Christians and Romans."
– Keith Hopkins,
A World Full of Gods, p234.
In Palestine
itself, where the Jews were now a minority, what remained of
traditional
Judaism turned inward. No longer could its priests use the "temple
magic" once used to summon divine favour, no longer could
Judaism be proselytised.
The Rabbis
became "clericalised" –
obsessed with cultic rules as a practical substitute
for the lost temple. They peopled the air itself with beneficent
and malign spirits. A Jewish "code to live by" - the Mitzvoth (the
forerunner of monastic rules) detailed no fewer
than 613 rules, governing every pious moment from waking to sleeping,
to keep the Jew on the right side of an all-seeing God.
"His
rising from his bed, his manner of putting on the different articles
of dress, the disposition of his fringed tallith, his phylacteries
on his head and arms, his ablutions, his meals, even the calls of
nature were subjected to scrupulous rules – both reminding
him that he was of a peculiar race, and perpetually reducing
him
to ask the advice of the Wise Men, which alone could set at rest
the trembling and scrupulous conscience."
– Milman, History of the Jews, p165.
Within a few generations Judaism would be codified anew, into a
portable (albeit confining) religion which could accompany
and – fatally – identify this pseudo-race in their wanderings
in the centuries ahead. By the close of the fifth century, the total
population of Jews would be half of what it had been at the beginning
of the Christian era (see, Cantor, ibid).
The Jewish
people – dispersed but bonded by an exclusive
faith, uniquely among "peoples" – established
enclaves in every major city from India to Spain, from Arabia
to
Britain. Capitalising upon this network of safe havens,
and with a filial presence in every major resource, from African
ivory to Germanic slaves, the Jews threw themselves into the commerce
of the ancient world.
Jewish merchants
traversed with impunity the hostile frontiers between Rome and
Persia, sailed
the sea lanes from the chilly rivers of Germany to the balmy seas
off the Horn of Africa. The Jews became dealers in amber and
fur,
gold and silver, slave-traders and money-lenders. But they were
also dealers in superstition as well as produce:
"The
empire swarmed with Jewish wonder-workers, mathematicians, astrologers,
or whatever other name or office they assumed or received
from their
trembling hearers."
– MiIlman, History of the Jews, p158.
Levies on their new wealth paid for a programme of synagogue building,
and in turn, the synagogues strengthened the bonds of the
Jewish
communities. Rarely assimilating into their host cultures, convinced
they were especially favoured by the deity (and thus strengthened
in their faith), the heady mix of piety and mercantilism rewarded
the Jews with an unparalleled financial success – and an
unequalled and universal opprobrium.
In the mid-years
of the second century, the centre of commercial/religious Judaism
lay on an axis between Palestine and Babylon. The light
hand of Rome allowed the displaced Jews of Siria Palestinia to re-establish their ancestral faith, complete with religious
police
and a self-appointed hierarchy, with a new corporate headquarters
at Tiberias, in Galilee. At its head stood a "CEO" in the guise of an hereditary Patriarch of the West,
the recipient of tithes which had once gone to the Temple. Every
synagogue
was visited by legates of the Patriarch – they were called ‘Apostles’! –
who collected contributions.
As a high
dignitary of the Empire, the Illustrious
Patriarch shared
the status and privileges enjoyed by Rome's consuls, top military
commanders and chief ministers. One provincial governor of Palestine
learned the hard way the folly of insulting the
Patriarch, who out-ranked him in the official hierarchy. He was
executed by the ferocious Christian
Emperor
Theodosius
I.
Lamented the Christian
writer Origen:
"Even now, when the Jews are under the dominion of Rome,
and pay the didrachm, how great, by the permission of Caesar,
is the power of their Ethnarch!
I myself have been a witness
that it is little less than that of a king."
– Milman,
History of the Jews, p149.
The Patriarch ultimately controlled his far-flung corporation by
the power to censure. The issue of an anathema, an excommunication
from the chosen people or a curse, could confer social death. After
the fearful cost of rebellions, delinquency was not tolerated. The
Jews settled down to business.
During the
reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161), and under a
wary Roman eye,
Jewish schools of the Law were allowed to re-open.
The Jewish scribes
began codifying God’s ineffable word at the very time Christian
scribes were furiously at work writing and revising their own holy
stories.
Across the
Persian (Parthian) frontier, another hierarch, the so-called
Prince of the Captivity, had also furnished
himself with a fabulously appointed ecclesiastic court, financed
by the
Jews of Persia. Here in Parthia, prestigious centres of Judaism
flourished:
"It was Babylonia,
with great academies in Sura, Puapeditha, Nehardea, Mehoza and
Nersh, active from 200 C.E. until the Arab Conquest (c. 640 C.E.),
which fashioned that marvellous structure of Jewish law called
the Talmud."
– Albert
H. Friedlander, This People Israel: The Meaning of Jewish Existence
Yet soon after
the ascension of Marcus Aurelius (161) Parthia advanced into
Roman Syria and
destroyed an entire legion (XXII Deiotariana) at Elegeia, on the
Armenian frontier. For the second time in a century, Rome was
drawn
into a costly and protracted conflict over a wide area in the east – Syria,
Armenia, Cappadocia, Mesopotamia and Media.
The five year war ended
in a painful triumph for Rome. Returning troops were to bring plague
into the heart of the Empire and in the long term, the withdrawal
of legions to fight in the east was to fatally weaken the Danubian
front. But, with the capture of Ctesiphon, once again Mesopotamian
Jews were brought under the dominion of Rome. Unfortunately for
them, they threw in their lot with a rebellious Roman commander,
Avidius Cassius, which set the normally tolerant Marcus Aurelius
against them.
As a result
of a power struggle between the two pontiffs in
the 3rd century – very reminiscent of the conflict between
Rome and Constantinople – the Babylonian Jews became subordinate
to the Western patriarch (business merger?)
Pagan Rome,
wearied by recurring rebellions of the Jews, came to regard them
with suspicion and disdain– but the Christian
Empire which was to follow refined this contempt into a bloody
hatred.
Though tolerated for their commercial usefulness the Jews would
ever-after face the murderous intent of those who were "Loving
Servants of the Lord."
Copyright © 2004
by Kenneth Humphreys.
Copying is freely permitted, provided credit is given to the author
and no material herein is sold for profit.
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