The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

What Christianity Cost the Jews

Ross Shepard Kraemer

The first book-length study of what happened to Jews in the ancient Mediterranean diaspora once the Roman empire became Christian
Integrates relevant evidence from literary accounts written by non-Jews, legal materials, and archaeological data
Argues that the orthodox Christianization of the Roman Empire was harmful to all non-orthodox persons, including Christians

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

What Christianity Cost the Jews

Ross Shepard Kraemer

Description

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity examines the fate of Jews living in the Mediterranean Jewish diaspora after the Roman emperor Constantine threw his patronage to the emerging orthodox (Nicene) Christian churches.
By the fifth century, much of the rich material evidence for Greek and Latin-speaking Jews in the diaspora diminishes sharply. Ross Shepard Kraemer argues that this increasing absence of evidence is evidence of increasing absence of Jews themselves. Literary sources, late antique Roman laws, and archaeological remains illuminate how Christian bishops and emperors used a variety of tactics to coerce Jews into conversion: violence, threats of violence, deprivation of various legal rights, exclusion from imperial employment, and others. Unlike other non-orthodox Christians, Jews who resisted conversion were reluctantly tolerated, perhaps because of beliefs that Christ's return required their conversion. In response to these pressures, Jews leveraged political and social networks for legal protection, retaliated with their own acts of violence, and sometimes became Christians. Some may have emigrated to regions where imperial laws were more laxly enforced, or which were under control of non-orthodox (Arian) Christians. Increasingly, they embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them. The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity concludes that by the beginning of the seventh century, the orthodox Christianization of the Roman Empire had cost diaspora Jews--and all non-orthodox persons, including Christians--dearly.

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

What Christianity Cost the Jews

Ross Shepard Kraemer

Preface
Abbreviations

Chapter 1: The Absence of Evidence as the Evidence of Absence

Chapter 2: "Five hundred and forty souls were added to Christ"
The Letter of Severus of Minorca on the Conversion of the Jews, early 5th century?

Chapter 3: "You Shall Have Freedom from Care...During My Reign"
Letter 51, The Emperor Julian to the Collectivity of the Jews, March 1, 363 (perhaps spurious)

Chapter 4: "The Sect of the Jews is Prohibited by no law"
Th 16.8.9, Theodosios I, at Constantinople, Sept 23, 393
Valentinian, Gratian and Theodosios I (395)

Chapter 5: "Their synagogues shall remain in their accustomed peace"
CTh 16.8.12, Arkadios at Constantinople, June 17, 397
Honorius, Arkadios and Valentinian II, 395-408

Chapter 6: "No Synagogues shall be constructed from now on"
CTh 16.8.25 Theodosios II, at Constantinople, February 15, 423
Honorius and Theodosios II, 408-423

Chapter 7: "We deny to the Jews and to the pagani, the right to practice law and to serve in the state service."
Sirmondian Constitution 6, Galla Placidia in the name of 5 year old Valentinian, and Theodosios II, Summer
425
Theodosios II in his majority, 423-50

Chapter 8: "We do not grant that their synagogues shall stand, but want them to be converted in form to churches."
Novella 37, Justinian, August 1, 535
In the Aftermath of Theodosios in the East, 450-604

Chapter 9: "In what has been allowed to them, [the Jews] should not sustain any prejudice."
Gregory the Great, to Victor, bishop of Palermo, Letters Book 8. no. 25, June 598
In the Aftermath of Theodosios in the West, 450-604

Chapter 10: "Here rests Faustina, aged 14 years, 5 months...Two apostoli and two rebbites sang lamentations..."
Latin epitaph from Venosa, Italy, JIWE 1.86, Late 5th-early 6th century, The Price of (Christian) Orthodoxy

Epilogue
Bibliography
Indices

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

What Christianity Cost the Jews

Ross Shepard Kraemer

Author Information

Ross Shepard Kraemer is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University, where she specialized in early Christianity and other religions of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, including ancient Judaism. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and a B.A. from Smith College. Her many publications have focused particularly on gender and women's religions in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, and on aspects of Jews and Judaism in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora.