Greek and Jew: Philo and the Alexandrian Riots of 38-41 CE

Judaism, Spring, 2000 by Matthew B. Schwartz

So despite his devotion to the Bible and his observance of the commandments, atleastinsofar as he understood them, Philo remained outside the inner core of the rabbinic tradition, writing about Judaism almost as a foreigner. It is likely that the pious followers of the Judaean Pharisees may have seemed to Philo a bit extreme in their practice, unwilling or unable to appreciate the allegorical depths which he saw in Scripture. Yet Philo, although he wrote in the style of a Greek philosopher, could not be a Greek. He discussed Jewish topics and strongly rejected Greek mor[acute{e}]s in favor of Jewish practices. Philo's stance may not have been unusual in the upper social class milieu of Alexandrian Jewry. More so than the less privileged classes, they may have felt the pull of the Greek environment and mixed loyalty to their Jewish origins with a certain resentment and embarrassment at the restrictions it placed upon them. Within Philo's own close circle at least one person, his nephew, Tiberius Julius Alexan der, rejected Judaism in favor of a life in public affairs and a series of high imperial appointments.

Against Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius on the Riots of 38-41, probably the last two essays Philo wrote, maintain a philosophical even stoic approach to events. [9] He is filled with self-righteous anger at the people and forces who are acting so immoderately, so irrationally, so unphilosophically. The two essays provide our only eyewitness accounts of these fateful events. Characteristically Philo approaches them not as history but as philosophy. The essays are philosophical arguments centered in the idea that Heaven punishes the wicked and guards the Jewish people. Reading the Against Flaccus almost two thousand years later, the picture of what happened is notably incomplete. Philo speaks of an evil governor, beastly Alexandrians, and guiltless Jews. Yet we are led to ask if there was indeed only one dominant party among the Greeks or did some oppose the anti-Jewish violence? Were all the Jews loyal friends of Rome and good citizens of Alexandria? Did they all react as innocently and passively as Philo descri bes? Or were there, as is far more likely, divisions of opinion amongst them too. Certainly Philo's constant protestations of Jewish loyalty to Rome and the emperor stand out. Are they designed to portray objective fact or to win the sympathy of the Roman reader? Philo says so much less than he must have known. Did he lack the finer techniques of the historical writer? Was he presenting the Jews' case to the world in what he saw as the best possible light? Was he perhaps by his silence defending his own role, whatever it may have been, in those bloody events? The description of Flaccus' last days is also curious. Philo delights in depicting vividly Flaccus' suffering both physical and emotional. One may wonder what sources of information could have provided Philo with so much detail on such obscure private matters?

According to Philo, in 37 CE, the Jewish King Agrippa I, newly invested with a kingdom by the Emperor Gaius, stopped in Alexandria en route from Rome to Judaea. His presence was to be kept secret so that he could move on as quickly as possible. However, the unruly mob of the city, whom Philo differentiates from the more responsible citizens, learned of Agrippa's visit and, spurred by their hatred of Jews, publicly insulted him. They brought a local madman, a gentle enough fellow named Carabas, into the arena and made a parody of him as the king, hailing him as Maran, the Aramaic term for ruler. Then the mob began to call for images of the emperor to be placed in the synagogues of the Jews, a serious sacrilege.