Jewish history (late antiquity)

The history of the Jews in late antiquity spans the period from the end of the 1st century to the conquest of Palestine by the Arabs in the 7th century. The canonization of the Tanakh , the Hebrew Bible , and the collection and writing of the various Jewish teaching traditions in both Talmudim and in numerous responses fall during this period . This "classical" epoch of Jewish history, led by the rabbis , was from the dispersion of the Jews in the Persian and Roman Empire , from the rise of Christianity determined to be the state religion of this empire (391) and other factors.

Diaspora

Since the Babylonian exile there were large Jewish communities in many metropolises of the Orient and in the entire Mediterranean area : especially in Babylon, Antioch , Alexandria and Rome . They consisted of the Jews displaced and deported by the exiles and uprisings, along with proselytes and converts . They formed the Jewish diaspora without a homeland, but recognized the Jerusalem temple as a religious center until 70 .

Babylon has again been the refuge of many persecuted Jews since the last Jewish uprisings. There, an exile represented the autonomous Jewish colony against the rulers of the Parthians and the subsequent New Persian Sassanids , the arch enemies of Rome in the east. The Jews were sometimes subjected to persecution: partly for religious reasons (especially in the early days of the Sassanid Empire, when Zoroastrian priests could exert influence over the great king ), but later mainly for political reasons, as there were sometimes attacks by Jews on Zoroastrian priests or they were on the defeated side in the battles for the throne. Nevertheless, the Jews continued to support the Persians during the Roman-Persian wars ; the Jewish communities in Persia (especially in Mesopotamia) then flourished, and the Babylonian Talmud finally emerged in Sura and Pumbedita . The Jews in Persia also took part in anti-Christian measures of the great kings, which resulted from the development of Christianity in the Roman Empire, where Christianity was promoted since the 4th century and was finally elevated to the status of the state religion (see below).

In the Roman Empire, Emperor Antoninus Pius lifted most of his predecessor Hadrian's religious prohibitions against the Jews in the 2nd century AD and allowed circumcision , Sabbath rest, houses of teaching and the ordination of scribes. Emperor Caracalla granted the citizens of the provinces Roman citizenship in 212; Jews were thus allowed to hold administrative posts, but also had to take part in military service.

In late antiquity their degradation began by Constantine I and under the influence of the now privileged Christian Church. Judaism was allowed ( religio licita ), but it was dependent on the benevolence and legislation of Christian rulers. Theodosius II issued 417 and 423 intermarriage and mission bans and other restrictions. Justinian I persecuted heretics, Samaritans (who rose up in 529, see Julian ben Sabar ) and Jews, and banned the Mazzen for Passover, Hebrew Bible readings and the Mishnah lessons. His Corpus Iuris Civilis became authoritative for the following canon and constitutional law of the Middle Ages .

Nevertheless, the policy of the emperors varied: Constantine I, for example, confirmed the rights of the Jewish communities and now also allowed Jews to be elected to the community councils. At the same time, Jews were prohibited from attacking Jews who had converted to Christianity. The Vita of Constantine by Eusebius of Caesarea contains texts that assume the emperor to have a sharp anti-Jewish point of view, but it is not always clear to what extent these writings were subsequently "edited". Theodosius I , who made Christianity the state religion, explicitly forbade marriage between Christians and Jews. On the other hand, Theodosius also tried to exercise his protective function against the Jews, as the episode of the synagogue fire at Kallinikos shows, from which Theodosius was prevented from doing so by Ambrosius of Milan . The attempt of the last pagan emperor Julian to strengthen Judaism and thus weaken Christianity remained practically without consequences .

During the course of the 5th century, the situation for Jews in the Roman Empire deteriorated, although protective laws were still being passed for them. For the west, after the time of Valentinian III. hardly any reliable sources are available, unlike for the largely Greek-speaking east of the empire.

During the reign of Justinian I , the legal provisions were tightened. But there were also Jewish reactions, such as the uprising movement of the Samaritans . Nevertheless, several Jewish communities flourished during this time.

Finally, in the 7th century, Jews helped the Persians conquer Jerusalem in 614 and carried out pogroms against Christians (for historical context, see Roman-Persian Wars ). The reaction followed after the victory of Ostrom: Emperor Herakleios partially ordered compulsory baptisms; Similar, almost simultaneous measures in the Merovingian Empire should not go unmentioned .

Nevertheless, it should not be overlooked that the life of Jews and Christians in the Christian Roman Empire was not only determined by permanent opposition to one another. However, it was made more difficult by the sometimes extremely hateful and sharp tone that can be seen in many Christian writings: Jews were defamed as murderers of God, creating a lasting enemy image, although a certain anti-Semitism was also cultivated in some pagan texts. On the other hand, the Jews insisted on their cultural identity (and sometimes resorted to violence), which they were ultimately able to preserve.

Consolidation after the temple loss

The unification, reorganization and consolidation of Judaism after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 is largely the work of the Pharisee Jochanan ben Sakkai . According to Talmudic traditions, he is said to have won the leadership of the Tannaites - the moderate tendency among the Pharisees - around 40 as Hillel's youngest student . According to legend, he was smuggled out of the besieged Jerusalem in a coffin during the Jewish War in order to escape the death penalty of the Zealots and to face the Romans.

They gave him permission to found a house of study ( beth midrash ) in Jawne - near today's Tel Aviv . He developed this into a center of Palestinian Judaism, which after the loss of power of the Sadducees took over the tasks of the Sanhedrin . In doing so, he preserved the continuity of all Israelite religious jurisdiction. With the help of the cult-critical prophecy of Amos and Hosea , he tried to convince his fellow believers that the end of the temple cult did not mean the end of Judaism.

He simplified the Halacha (the applicable religious regulations according to the oral interpretation of the commandments of the Torah ) in order to make them achievable under the changed conditions, and introduced new rites instead of the no longer practicable pilgrimage festivals. The reconciliation with God previously achieved through sacrifices in the central shrine has been replaced by the sanctification of everyday life. Since all members of the congregation took over the ritual washing of hands before dinner, services could now take place without the involvement of the priests. Sakkai tightened their entry requirements, so that they forfeited their dominant position for Jewish worship; on the other hand, they were no longer allowed to serve only in the temple, but also in the synagogues . Their task was limited to giving the Aaronic Blessing . With this Sakkai achieved the leadership of the moderate Pharisees over the other currents of Judaism.

Under his successor Gamaliel II , also a pupil of Hillel, the teachers of Jawne also became representatives of the Jewish people towards the Romans as “princes” (Hebrew nasi ). A major achievement of Gamaliel was the establishment of the Jewish prayer liturgy. The inclusion of the “heretic curse” in the eighteen daily supplication - There is no hope for the slanderers, and let all malevolent perish in a moment! - was directed against Christianity, among other things, which began to establish itself as the state religion in the Roman Empire. This measure was intended as a self-defense against Judaism, which was threatened by internal ordeals and external persecution: In order to survive as Jews, strict exclusion of all people of different faiths was deemed necessary. At the same time, the Pharisees of that time remained open to the mission of the nations .

Gamaliel, however, was too moderate for his followers; he was temporarily ousted by a descendant of Ezra , the young Eleazar ben Azariah . This reintroduced priestly traditions and thus strengthened restorative tendencies and renewed hopes of the Jews for national liberation from foreign rule. During this time doctrinal disputes between the schools of Hillel and Shammai , which were later collected in the Mishnah.

Origin of the Jewish Holy Scriptures

Mishnah

By 100 the now leading Pharisees had already canonized the Tanakh and excluded from Judaism all deviating tendencies: above all Hellenism , Gnosticism and Christianity . In addition, their various teaching houses had from around 100 BC. Began to collect the oral interpretations of the Torah ( Halacha ) and to fix them in writing.

Of these various codifications, the Mishnah of the Tannaites prevailed until around 300 AD and became the second normative sacred script alongside the Torah. As a result, the rabbis achieved cohesion and uniform religious practice among the still existing Jewish communities in Palestine and in the diaspora , but also a flexible interpretation of the Torah that was appropriate to the situation. Historians see this as a decisive condition for the survival of Judaism in a hostile environment since the loss of the temple and state.

Talmud

The Amoraeans had continued to comment on the Torah orally and to compile it. The Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds arose from their activities in Galilee and Babylon at the same time . In it the Mishnah were united with the Gemara up to 500 . In addition, there were further midrashim (free sermons of the Torah) for the Torah and the Jewish annual festivals ( megillot ).

In Babylon, the exilarch, documented since the 2nd century , represented the autonomous diaspora communities since 628 (extermination and expulsion of the Jews from Medina by Mohammed ) also vis-à-vis the Islamic caliphate . In addition, there were the school heads of the teaching houses, the Gaons : They created an extensive literature on responses on questions of Torah interpretation and everyday practice of religion. This was also codified up to around 1050 ( Halachot doled ).

Karaites and Masoretes

The Karaites represented the sole validity of the Torah against the oriented Talmudic Judaism since the 750th Then the rabbis began again to study Hebrew and to systematize the Jewish teachings. Saadia Gaon (882–942), the Gaon of Sura, wrote the first Jewish religious philosophy on this: doctrines and reasons for knowledge .

In order to protect the text of the Tanakh from misinterpretation and arbitrariness, the Masoretes also fixed the vocalization of the Tanakh in the Masoretic text after the consonant text until around 1050 . In addition, speculative literature about God and the angels deepened the turn to Jewish mysticism. The apocryphal Sefer Jezira , a first draft of a mysticism of letters, derived from the progenitor Abraham , served as the basis of the Kabbalah .

Islam and Judaism

The Islam was founded in the early 7th century by Mohammed on the Arabian Peninsula founded. Centuries earlier, numerous Jewish communities had been scattered across Arabia, so that even at that time various forms of Judaism were known to the settled population and also to the Bedouin tribes. Judaism was particularly widespread in southern Arabia , where Jewish groups and proselytes were frequent. Old South Arabic inscriptions, some of which were not discovered until the 1950s, attest to the reports of pre-Islamic Christian writers about Jewish missionary activities and the persecution of Christians , particularly in Najran under Yusuf Dhu Nuwas , the (converted) Jewish king of Himyar . The divine name Rahman (“Merciful”), without any additional attribute, appears several times in these inscriptions and indicates Jewish origin.

During the years that Mohammed spent in Yathrib , he came into contact with the Jewish tribes who lived in the oases of this area in numerous positive and negative ways, which undoubtedly resulted in the strict form of monotheism he proclaimed and the rejection of the Christian doctrine of faith promoted by Jesus as Son of God . Although most of the stories in the Bible can be found in the Koran and the legally binding form of Islam is based on regulations set out in the Bible and the Talmud , the genuinely Arabic character of the Koran cannot be overemphasized, as Islam was founded by Muhammad and was spread. Most eschatological ideas are also based on the common Judeo-Christian tradition, even if they were transmitted by Christian monks . In a hadith , Muhammad's wife Aisha is said to have heard the tradition of the punishment in the grave of two old women in Medina . After Jerusalem was accepted as the site of the Last Judgment , other Jewish elements were added to these beliefs.

Many stories from the Qisas al-Anbiyāʾ , the "prophetic legends", go back to Kab al-Ahbar, an Islamic convert of Jewish origin who accompanied the Caliph Omar on his journey to Jerusalem, or to Wahb ibn Munabbih , also a convert or son of a Jewish convert. Hadith literature, including legends, shows an astonishing knowledge of Halacha and Aggadah as recorded in the Talmud and Midrashim . As in Judaism, there was initially resistance in Islam to the writing of the statements and doctrinal sayings that were transmitted through the Isnad chain of tradition . The caliph Omar disapproved of the written fixation of the Sunnah with the words: Do you want a (written) “mathnat” like the “mathnat” ( aram. For Mishnah ) of the Jews?

A clear dependence of Islamic teachings and methods on Judaism cannot be postulated in all cases. The fundamental similarity of Judaism and Islam, both of which are based on religious laws that are reflected in principles, methods and the respective legal conception, led to parallel developments in later centuries. The Geonim , the directors of the two famous Talmudic Academies of Surah and Pumbedita , received innumerable questions about conduct in legal and social matters; Tens of thousands of their responses have been preserved. The same practice prevailed among the Muslim muftis , a category of lawyers from whom any Muslim could solicit a fatwa , a legal judgment based on religious law. Both fatwa and responsen were legally binding. It is difficult to decide whether this legal literature was developed independently in both religions or as a result of mutual influence.

Islamic culture, inheriting the legacy of the ancient Greeks and Hellenism , had a profound influence on some aspects of Jewish thought and science. After the Greek and Jewish cultures had existed separately for centuries, the works of Greek philosophers and scientists returned to the perspective of Jewish thinkers and scholars through Arabic translations (partly from earlier translations into Syrian ). In this way Saadia Gaon , Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides got to know the works of Aristotle , Plato and Neoplatonism .

See also

• History of the Jews

swell

• Julius Höxter : Source texts on Jewish history and literature . Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-198-8 .

literature

• Klaus Bringmann : History of the Jews in Antiquity. From the Babylonian exile to the Arab conquest . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-608-94138-X .
• Alexander Demandt : History of Late Antiquity. The Roman Empire from Diocletian to Justinian AD 284-565. Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44107-6 , p. 400 ff.
• Ignaz Goldziher : Muhammadan Studies. Two volumes, Halle 1889–1890.
• Richard L. Kalmin: Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006.
• Nicholas de Lange: Jews in the Age of Justinian. In: Michael Maas (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian. Oxford University Press, Cambridge 2005, pp. 401-426.
• Karl Leo Noethlichs : The Jews in the Christian Roman Empire (4th – 6th centuries). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001 (Study books History and Culture of the Old World), ISBN 3-05-003431-9 .
• Aharon Oppenheimer: Jewish history in Hellenistic-Roman times. Paths of research: from the old to the new Schürer (= writings of the historical college . Colloquia 44). Munich 1999, XII, 275 pp. ISBN 978-3-486-56414-3 ( digitized version ).
• Shmuel Safrai: The Age of the Mishnah and the Talmud (70-640). In: Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (ed.): History of the Jewish people. From the beginning to the present. Volume 1: From the beginning to the 7th century. Beck, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-406-07221-6 .
• Peter Schäfer : History of the Jews in antiquity. The Jews of Palestine from Alexander the Great to the Arab conquest. 2nd, reviewed edition, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-82523-366-2 (= UTB 3366).
• Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (ed.): History of the Jewish people - from the beginnings to the present. (Authorized translation by Siegfried Schmitz). 5th expanded edition. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-55918-2 .

Remarks

1. ↑ See Josef Wiesehöfer : The ancient Persia. actual Ed., Düsseldorf 2005, p. 287 ff.
2. ↑ Cf. Karl Leo Noethlichs: The position of the Jews in Constantinian society. in: Alexander Demandt / Josef Engemann (eds.), Konstantin der Große , Mainz 2007, p. 228 ff.
3. ↑ See Hartmut Leppin : Theodosius the Great. Darmstadt 2003, p. 121 f. and 139 ff.
4. ↑ See Klaus Rosen : Julian. Emperor, God and haters of Christians. Stuttgart 2006, p. 316 ff., 328 ff.
5. ↑ In summary Noethlichs: The Jews in the Christian Roman Empire.
6. ↑ See de Lange: Jews in the Age of Justinian. summarized on p. 420 f.
7. ↑ Cf. Elliot Horowitz: The Vengeance of the Jews Was Stronger Than Their Avarice: Modern Historians and the Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614 ( Memento of January 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) , published in: Jewish Social Studies Volume 4, Number 2 .
8. ^ Walter E. Kaegi: Heraclius. Cambridge 2003, p. 216 ff.
9. ↑ Cf. Z. Yavetz: Enmity against Jews in antiquity. Munich 1997.
10. ↑ Cf. for example Elliot Horowitz: Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Princeton 2006, p. 228 ff.
11. ↑ Monika Grübel: Judentum, DuMont, Cologne 1997, p. 42
12. ^ Encyclopedia Judaica , Vol. 9, pp. 102-105.