CHAPTER VIII

JEWS IN PTOLEMAIC EGYPT

Greek civilization was essentially urban. The city-state, or polis, was its highest governmental achievement. When, therefore, under Alexander and Ptolemy, Egypt was to be transferred wholly within the sphere of Greek culture, it was by means of a polis that this was to be effected.

The same was still more largely true for the other parts of Alexander’s empire. In Asia and Syria the “Successors” were busy founding, wherever convenient, cities diversely named. However, in these regions they were merely continuing, in a somewhat accelerated fashion, a practice begun long before. In Egypt, on the contrary, it was plain that a modification of that policy was necessary. There was, to be sure, an ancient Greek city at one of the western mouths of the Nile, the city of Naucratis. But that had been founded as an emporium, and due care was taken that it should be essentially nothing more, that it should acquire no supporting territory in Egypt. And however important and wealthy Naucratis became, it remained confined to its foreign trade for its subsistence.[101] Besides, it had considerably dwindled in 330 B.C.E., so that its claims could never have been seriously considered by Alexander, in comparison with his desire to found a new city and in comparison with the much superior location of Alexandria.

It is not likely that Alexander himself completed the plans for the organization of the city. That was left to Ptolemy, and it was accomplished with a modification of the Greek system that illustrates both the wariness and the foresight of this most astute of Alexander’s officers.

The essential part of the polis was its organization as a commonwealth, _i.e._ as a group of citizens, each of whom had a necessary function to perform in the state. From time immemorial the administration of affairs was assigned to a boulē, or senate, the actual executives being little more than committees of the boulē; but at all times an essential element of the constitution was the confirmation, real or constructive, of all acts of the boulē by the dēmos, or mass of citizens. The manner in which the boulē was selected, as well as the extent to which the check exercised by the dēmos was real, determined the measure of democracy each polis obtained. However, even in cities which, like Sparta, were in theory permanent camps, the same view was held of the necessity of these parts and of their respective functions, so that everywhere, in legal contemplation, sovereignty resided in the dēmos.[102]

It must not be supposed that all men who lived within the walls of the city were members of the dēmos. That is a conception of democracy wholly alien to ancient ideas. The participation of the individual in the state was a privilege, acquired in the first instance by birth. Side by side with the citizens was the slave, who was wholly devoid of legal rights, and the metic, or resident foreigner, who had, as a result of a direct compact with the state, acquired the right of residence and personal protection upon the payment of certain specified taxes.

The privilege of citizenship was a complex of rights, to which were attached certain very definite and sharply emphasized obligations. What those rights were depended upon the constitution of the given polis. Where they were fullest, as at Athens, they included voting in the public assembly, the holding of public office, service on the jury, and a claim for certain personal privileges, such as admission to the dramatic performances at the Dionysiac festivals. In other states they were not quite so extensive, but the obligations were everywhere the same, _i.e._ payment of taxes and military service. The state was in the habit of remitting from time to time certain or all of these taxes and other compulsory services, so that we may say that various grades of citizens and metics generally existed.

Now Naucratis was just such a polis as this. So were the various Apameas, Antiochias, Seleucias, Laodiceas, established in Asia and Syria. It is true that the boulē and dēmos of these cities were the merest shadows; and actually the despotism of the monarch was as undoubted as it had been in Persian times. But the shadows were at least a concession to the Hellenic spirit, and as such were immensely treasured; nor can it be denied that as long as they remained the remembrance of free institutions remained as well. At Pergamon, which the Attalids created, no public act was done except as the deliberate choice of senate and people.[103]

But when Ptolemy constituted Alexandria, he deliberately departed from this plan. As has been said, Naucratis had boulē and dēmos and all the other appurtenances of a well-regulated polis. So had Ptolemais somewhat later; and many years later, when the emperor Hadrian founded an Antinois in memory of his dead minion, he likewise made it a full and complete Greek city. In Alexandria, on the other hand, there is no trace, till late in Roman times, of a boulē; and of a dēmos as little. In the great mass of Greek papyri that have come from Egypt there is nowhere any indication that a senate ever met, or a people ever assembled, to parody the deliberations of the Athenian ecclesia. In other words Alexandria was much less a polis than it was a royal residence, _i.e._ the site of the king’s palace amidst a more densely gathered group of his subjects.[104]

In externals Alexandria was every inch a city. It had the high walls, which, as Alcaeus tells us, do _not_ constitute a state. It had the tribe and deme, or district division, and it had its various grades of citizens, determined by the duties and imposts to which they were subjected.

Of its tribe and district division we know some details. There were probably five tribes, each of which consisted of twelve demes, or districts, which in turn had twelve phratries, or wards. The tribes were known by the first five letters of the Greek alphabet. In the absence of even formal political rights, this division can have been made simply in the interests of the census and the police. The obligations to pay taxes and perform military service were very real ones, and their proper enforcement necessitated some such organization of the city.[105]

Different classes of citizenship were at once created by the establishment of special taxes and special exemptions. The peculiar Greek fiscal arrangement known as the liturgy, which made the performance of certain services to the state a means of compounding for taxes, was also in vogue. We have records of certain of these classes of citizens, or inhabitants, and it is at least probable that there were other classes of which we know nothing.

First of all, there were the Macedones, or Macedonians. These form a specially privileged group, whose residence was probably by no means confined to Alexandria. Just what their privileges were we do not know, but that they lay chiefly in fiscal exemptions of one sort or another, is almost certain.

Then there were the Alexandreis, or Alexandrians. We know that there were at least two groups—those that were enrolled in a given tribe, or deme, and those not so enrolled. We can only conjecture the purpose of this division, and one conjecture will be mentioned later.

Besides these, there were other men whose legal right to residence was unquestioned. They were variously designated. We find Persians, Jews, and other nationalities, qualified with the phrase τῆς ἐπιγονῆς, which means literally “of the descent,” but the exact force of which is unknown. This classification procured for those so termed certain very much valued exemptions. Native Egyptians also were present, paying a special poll-tax, and no doubt a very large number of metics and transient foreigners. Greek publicists regarded the presence of a large number of metics and foreign merchants as a sign of great prosperity.[106] We may be sure that no burdensome restrictions made the settling of these classes difficult at Alexandria.

Were the Jews in Alexandria citizens? A great many heated controversies have been fought on this subject, some of which would surely not have been entered into if a clearer analysis had been available of what constituted Alexandrian “citizenship.” As we have seen, the question can only be framed thus: Did the Jews of that city appear on the census books as “Alexandreis,” with or without the deme and tribe adjective after them, or were they classified as Jews, and did they form a distinct fiscal class by themselves?

The denial of their citizenship is principally based upon distrust of Josephus, who asserts it. But distrust of Josephus may be carried to an extravagant degree. Modern writers with pronounced bias may, of course, be disregarded, but saner investigators have equally allowed themselves to be guided by disinclination to credit Josephus, and have come to the conclusion that the Jews were not citizens of Alexandria.

There were of course very many Jews in Alexandria who were not legally Alexandrians. Josephus’ assertion did not and could not mean that every Jew in the city was, by the very fact of his residence, an Alexandrian. Nowhere in the ancient world could citizenship be acquired except by birth or by special decree. Jews who emigrated from Palestine to Alexandria, and were permitted to remain there, were metics, and became Alexandrians only if they were specially awarded that designation. But that was just as true for a foreign Greek or a foreign Macedonian, since at Alexandria “Macedonian” was a class of citizenship, not an ethnic term. Those who assisted in the founding of the city were undoubtedly classified either as “Macedones” or “Alexandreis,” and the tradition that Jews were among them is based upon other authority than Josephus. It is not enough, therefore, if one desires to refute Josephus, to show that there were Jews in Egypt who were not “Alexandreis.” Undoubtedly there were thousands of them. But if, in the papyri, we do find Jews among the “Macedones” and others among the “Alexandreis,” the statements of Josephus on the subject are strikingly confirmed, for he says no more than that there were Jews in both these categories.[107]

Of the two classes of Alexandrians, those enrolled in demes and those not so enrolled, it is likely that the Jewish “Alexandreis” belonged to the latter class. The former either paid a special district tax, or, more likely, were charged with the performance of certain district duties, either religious in their nature, such as the burying of the pauper dead, or of police character. When Alexandrians were constituted, not registered in demes, the purpose can only have been to secure exemption from these local duties, and the example quoted would of itself indicate why the Jews may have been so exempted.

It was not, however, merely in Alexandria that the Jews settled, precisely as it was not merely in Greek cities that Greeks were to be found. That part of Egypt which lay outside the definite civic communities as they were founded from time to time, was organized in nomes, in large agricultural districts containing many villages or even cities. In every instance, however, the administrative unit was the nome.

These nomes had themselves a history of immemorial antiquity. Some of them were surely in boundary coincident with the petty nationalities that antedated the first dynasties. The mass of the population in them had practically always been peasant-serfs, and continued to be so. Beside them, in the villages and towns, there lived in Greek times motley groups of men, whose legal status was determined in a number of ways. Some were citizens of Alexandria, Ptolemais, etc., and merely resident in the nome. Others enjoyed certain military and fiscal privileges, which involved the right of residence. But in all circumstances, in the elaborate financial organization of Egypt every resident had certain precise dues to pay, and was marked by a certain designation.

The military and other settlers whom the Greeks found in Egypt, whether they were Persians, Jews, Syrians, or Babylonians, retained their status, _i.e._ they paid taxes and performed services differing from those of the native Egyptians in part, although no doubt certain taxes were levied upon all. The foreigners whom Ptolemy invited or brought into Egypt must have been settled either in the cities or the nomes, and were given a definite fiscal status. And besides all these various grades, there were metics—a term which may have included emancipated slaves, and of course slaves as well—in huge numbers. There can be little doubt that Jews were to be found in all classes, from the highly privileged nobility of “Macedones” to the slaves.[108]

In most large Greek cities metics of foreign birth or ancestry existed. There were Phoenicians and Egyptians in Athens in very early times. But they were all, together with non-Athenian Greeks, gathered into the general group of metics, and no one group ever became numerically so preponderant that a special class had to be legally constituted of them. In Egypt, however, the general term metic was rarely used. For the nome organization of the country it seemed scarcely applicable. Instead, those foreigners who had acquired legal residence and other rights were known by their national name. So there was a group of Egyptian residents known as Ἰουδαῖοι, as “Jews,” which was in their case a legal designation, whereas, when the “Macedones,” “Alexandreis,” etc., of the same nationality were referred to as Ἰουδαῖοι, the term was merely descriptive.

We do not know whether the Ἰουδαîοι that had no other classification were more numerous or less numerous than those who had. But it was shortly found advisable to organize the Jewish metics to the extent of superadding upon their own cult-organizations certain royal officers responsible to the king. Of these the chief was the ethnarch, and it is evident that the ethnarch would assume an importance in proportion to the number under his jurisdiction. The right to have an ethnarch seems to have been a prized privilege and was not confined to the Jews. What the relation of the later alabarch[109] was to the ethnarch is not clear. The two terms may perhaps designate the same office.

But a complete understanding of the condition of the Jews in Egypt and Alexandria necessitates some account of the synagogue organization.

There is no reason to question the Jewish tradition that the synagogue was Exilic or pre-Exilic in origin. In fact, it is not easily conceivable that it could have been otherwise. Worship was a social act in the ancient world, and properly to be performed in concert. It was inevitable therefore that just as soon as the Jews were removed from those places where the ancestral and traditional ritual was performed without any conscious organization for that purpose, they would combine themselves in groups in order to satisfy the strongly marked religious emotion that characterized them.

Corporate organization, based upon the performance in common of some religious act, characterized the whole ancient world. The state was itself a large corporation of this kind, and the local divisions rapidly assumed, or always possessed, the same form. Obviously members of the same nationality residing in a foreign city would be specially prone to organize themselves into such corporations, and as a rule make the religious bond, which seems to have been a formal requisite, the common worship of one of their own gods. The merchants of Citium at Athens formed a guild for the worship of the Cyprian Aphrodite. It was in this way that Egyptian merchants and artisans made Isis known to the Roman world.[110]

It has been said that the state itself was such a corporation, of which the formal basis was the common performance of a certain ritual act. When new states were founded or new men admitted into old states, a great deal was made of the act. It follows therefore that when Jews were admitted into the newly founded civic communities of Asia, as we know they were, some relation would have to be entered upon between themselves and the religious basis of the state. In most cases, special exemption from participation in these religious acts seems to have been sought and obtained.

In Egypt the conflict between the exclusive worship of Jehovah and the less intolerant worship of the Nile-gods had been in existence for centuries before the Greeks. The pre-Greek Jewish immigrants were perhaps not of the sort that sought to accentuate the conflict, though friction was unavoidable. At the Greek conquest, it must be remembered, no great disposition was shown by the first Ptolemies to accept the native institutions or the native gods. The new god of Alexandria, the mighty Sarapis, was not, as has been generally supposed, a composite of Osiris and Apis, but an out and out Greek god, imported from his obscure shrine in direct opposition to the indigenous gods.[111] Membership in the civic communities, or residence in the country districts, can have involved no obligation to share the ritual localized there. Every group of foreigners might freely disregard it, and maintain unimpaired their own ancestral forms.

We accordingly find Jewish synagogues—in the sense of cult-organizations, each having its own meeting-house, schola, or proseucha, and organized with magistrates and council, like miniature states—not only in Alexandria but in insignificant little towns of Upper and Lower Egypt.[112] Nor was the legal basis of such organization wanting, _i.e._ the corporate personality, since we find these synagogues enjoying the rights of property and subject to the imposts levied upon it.[113] The extent of each synagogue was limited by the physical capacity of the schola. There must have been in Alexandria very many of them.

Who were members of them? The various classes of Jews in the city and country were divided by social and legal lines. In the synagogue social distinctions cannot have disappeared, but there can be no doubt that in many, if not in all, there would be found Jews representing every class of the community. In other parts of the Greek world it was no strange thing to see citizens, metics, foreigners, slaves, claiming membership in the same cult-organization, and jointly worshiping a native or foreign god. The synagogue likewise contained among its members nobles and slaves. The tendency for the wealthier classes to become completely Hellenized, and so completely to abandon the synagogue, did not show itself prominently for some time.

We may readily suppose that the native Egyptians regarded all the foreign invaders with scarcely discriminating hatred. In most cases, when Greeks and Jews dwelt in the nomes, they were both exempt from local dues, and both paid the same special tax. What the attitude of the Egyptians was to their Greek and Macedonian masters, we have no need to conjecture.[114] As under Persian rule, they rose in bloody riots; and after a century of Greek domination, they were so far successful that a complete change in the policy of the Ptolemies was effected. The house had very rapidly degenerated—a process perhaps hastened by the Egyptian custom of brother and sister marriage, which they adopted. From the weaker kings of the close of the third century B.C.E., the Egyptian priests received a complete surrender. Continuity with the Pharaohs was consciously sought. The ancient titles in a modified form were adopted in Greek as well as Egyptian for the rulers. The hieroglyphics represented Ptolemy as the living god, sprung from Ra, just as they had done for Amen-hem-et thousands of years before.[115]

But a Hellenizing process had gone on as well as an Egyptizing process. The irresistible attractions of Greek culture had converted even the fiercest nationalists into Greeks outwardly, and in the horde of Greek names that the papyri exhibit we have sometimes far to seek, if we wish to discover unmistakably Greek stock. Intermarriage and concubinage must have given Egypt a large mixed-blood population, which no doubt called itself Greek. Evidences of Greek aloofness on the subject of marriage have been sought in the denial of connubium by the city of Ptolemais to foreigners.[116] But that applied to foreign Greeks as well, and was a common regulation in most Greek cities.

The Hellenizing process affected the Jews even more. In Alexandria the Jewish community had begun to show signs of the most active intellectual growth, and the results of that growth, naturally enough, wore a Greek dress. But that process had been active in Palestine as well, where the consequences were somewhat more important. It is there that we shall turn for a study of the first conflicts between Judaism and Hellenism.