Subject: JUICE History 4: Era of Constantine
Date:    Wed, 1 Apr 1998 00:44:47 +0000
To:      "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

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From:          JUICE Administration <juice@virtual.co.il>
To:            Contemporary Jewish History  <history@virtual.co.il>
Subject:       JUICE History 4
X-To:          history@wzo.org.il

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                  World Zionist Organization     
                Jewish University in CyberspacE
          juice@wzo.org.il         birnbaum@wzo.org.il 
                     http://www.wzo.org.il 
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Course: Medieval Jewish History
Lecture:  4/12
Lecturer: Prof. Howard Adelman 

III.  Changing Attitudes Between Judaism and Christianity in the Roman
Empire

Christian attitudes towards Judaism developed slowly over a period of
many centuries.  In this lecture we will examine the period in which
Christian went from a defensive religion barely tolerated in the Roman
empire to being the dominant religion.  Christian religious zeal,
however, had to be continuously modified based on the responsibilities
of maintaining an empire, an empire that was divided internally along
doctrinal lines which involved many competing interpretations of
Christianity, that was divided internally along political and military
lines with centers in the west, either Rome or Ravenna, and in the
east, Constantinople, and that was threatened by external threats of
invasion that ultimately did serious damage to the empire.  The major
source of information known about this period of Jewish history
consists of the traces left in Roman law as preserved in Catholic
canon law at a much later date.

A. Defensive Christianity:  The Council of Elvira
(See the text in J. R. Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World, no. 19)

One of the most important documents that shows the nature of the early
relations between Jews and Christians was prepared in the south of
Spain in about the year 300 by the Council of Elvira, the first
national church council in Europe to legislate concerning the Jews. 
It should be remembered that Elvira was a city on the periphery of the
Roman empire at a time before Christianity was tolerated.  Little else
is known about Jewish life in Spain at this time.  Later legends will
try to show that Jews had lived in Spain since before the time of
Christ. The following four provisions of the many Elvira canons
applied to the Jews: (Marcus, no. 19)

1.  Christians cannot marry Jews or pagans unless they converted to
Christianity.  The penalty was to deny the Christian communion for
five years.

2.  Jews cannot bless Christian crops.  A Christian who had a Jew
bless his crops would be excommunicated.

3.  Christians cannot eat with Jews or the food of Jews. The penalty 
called for the Christian abstaining from communion until he changed
his ways.

4.  A married Christian man cannot have sexual relations with a Jewish
or pagan woman.  The penalty for doing so entailed a loss of communion
for five years.

These rules show a defensive church trying to protect Christians from
social interactions with Jews. Jews and Christians had close relations
and there seems to have been little intrinsic enmity between them.
There was also little difference in the mind of the Christians between
a Jewish and a Christian blessing.  The main concern of these laws was
Christian unity and the effect that the Jews had upon Christian life. 
The purpose, therefore, was not to restrict Jews, only to enhance
Christian identity.

These observations about the legislation of Elvira concerning the Jews are
amplified when we examine other aspects of the legislation.  About
half the canons of Elvira dealt with sexual matters and the attempt to
define Christian self-identity.  In particular it attempted to assert
the power of the clergy as an elite group with stricter standards of
behavior.  These edicts contained the first effort to prohibit
clerical marriage, requiring the higher clergy to divorce their wives
and regular clergy to maintain marital abstinence. Clergy who
committed fornication were denied communion. Clergy could not live in
the same building with female servants, unless they were close
relatives.  There were also attempts to limit the participation of
unreformed prostitutes in communion and attempts to stop sexual
relations with young boys (See Brundage, Laws, Sex, and Christian
Society in Medieval Europe, pp. 69-73). Thus legislation concerning
Jews constituted one aspect of the process of Christian self
definition. We shall see regularly throughout this course that major
legislation concerning Jews was a frequent component of major turns in
Christian self-definition, especially provisions involving sexual
relations.  The actual laws from Elvira themselves will be repeated at
many Church councils in the future.  As late as 731, Pope Gregory III
will refer to one of the decisions of Elvira when dealing with a case
of adultery between a Christian man and a Jewish woman.

B. The Emperor Constantine and his Sons

The year 313 marks a turning point in the history of European Christianity
when the Emperor Constantine, who lived from 274 to 337 and who ruled from
306 to 337, began to tolerate Christianity.  Often this is referred to as
his "conversion." However, he did not become a Christian himself until his
deathbed.  In 312, on October 28, at the Battle of Milvian Bridge near Rome,
some of his troops went out to battle with Christian symbols on their
shields and, depending on the account, he either had a vision of his mother
who had become a Christian or of the sign of the cross in the sky before the
battle.  In Milan Constantine proclaimed equal rights for all religions and
restored the property taken from Christians.  Christianity was not yet the
religion of the state or its leaders. Nevertheless, Constantine is seen as
the first emperor to issue laws limiting the rights of Jews as citizens,
rights which had been granted to them, despite the added burden of holding
curial office, in 212. It is not clear whether he actually issued the
following edicts reported in his name or whether others did so without his
knowledge, perhaps after his death.  Most of these, six out of his seven,
are found in the Theodosian Code (CTh) of Theodosius II from 438 (see below)
and the dating and formulation of many of them is still subject to much
scholarly discussion.

1.  In 325 it was ruled that Easter was now to be celebrated on a Sunday and
not to coincide or to be determined by Passover.  " . . . it appeared an
unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should
follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with
enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of
soul. .  . . Let us have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd;
for we have received from our Savior a different way. . . . "  (Marcus, no. 20)
 
3.  In 329 and 335 it was ruled that Jews would be punished with death by
burning if they attacked a person who converted to Christianity. [(CTh
16:8:1; CJ 1:9:3)] (Marcus, no. 1)

4.  Beginning in 335, Jews could not convert slaves to Judaism, but they
could still own them.  The penalty for converting a slave was the loss of
the slave. (335: CTh 16:8:5)

These laws show that Jews were converting from Judaism to Christianity,
perhaps due to the victory of Christianity.  The difference now was that
Christianity had the power of the state to protect its converts and to stop
conversion to Judaism.  The polemical relationship between two competing
sects had now been altered with the assumption of the power of the state by
the church.  The church still saw Judaism as a threat, used harsh language
against it, such as "nefarious sect," and  with political power, acted
against it, enacting and enforcing laws against Judaism.  These laws show
that the Jews had not yet submitted and were actively fighting against
Christianity.

In 325 the Council of Nicea was the first ecumenical council of the Church.
It was called by Constantine after he assumed control over the east as well
as the west primarily to deal with questions about the nature of Jesus'
divinity and to respond to the Arian heresy of Arius, an Alexandrian who
denied that Jesus was divine.  With every attempt to define Christianity
comes a distancing from Judaism and at Nicea the concern was focused on
separating the celebration of Easter from the observance of Passover.  This
means that until this time the Christians still relied upon the Jewish
calendar, further evidence of the lack of separation between Judaism and
Christianity.

A continued  exemption provided to rabbis and Jewish religious leaders from
the curial offices showed  respect to rabbis, synagogues, and perhaps even
the members of the Sanhedrin in Palestine. In a period when the Romans were
trying to limit the exemptions of Christian clergymen, the continued
recognition of the rights of Jewish religious leaders shows that the
motivation for the Roman policy was mixed.

A review of subsequent legislation shows the gradual development of specific
features of legislation concerning the Jews.  Several historians have
recently argued that this legislation shows the considerable power that Jews
continued to wield well after the rise of Christianity and the threats that
Christianity saw Judaism offering.  These rules do not come out of bad
relations between Jews and Christians (what we would now be called,
erroneously, antisemitism) but rather were enacted because relations were
good and the authorities wanted to separate the two peoples.  

After the death of Constantine in 337, his three sons, Constantinus,
Constantius, and Constans, ruled variously--and with much confusion in the
history books because of the similarities in their names-- in the east and
the west from 337 to 361.  Two edicts concerning the Jews are attributed to
one or the other of them from around the year 339.  The key features of this
policy towards the Jews included: (CTh 16:8:6 and 16:9:2; Cod. Just. 1:10:1)

1. Relations, including but not limited to marriage, were forbidden between
Jewish men and Christian women.   The penalty for doing so was death, a
major disincentive (16:8:6). It is clear from the text of the law, that
Christian women were marrying Jewish men. (Marcus, no. 1)

2.  Jewish slaveholding was also forbidden in order to prevent Jews from
converting slaves to Judaism.  If the slave purchased was a pagan, the Jew
would lose the slave; if it was Christian the Jew would lose all property;
if the slave were circumcised, the owner would be killed.  This was a major
economic blow to the Jews as well as the expansion of Judaism. ( 16:9:1 )
(Marcus, no. 1)

In 341 at the Council of Antioch it was ruled that Christians could not
celebrate Passover with Jews or take unleavened bread from Jews. It is
highly significant that also in Antioch the Church father John Chrysostum
also preached against Christians, including women, who attended the
synagogue for oaths, cures, and the celebration of Passover. Chrysostum
singled out women and slaves as being particularly susceptible to Judaizing.
Thus, as in Elvira, it is clear that Judaism continued to attract Christians
in Antioch, either as converts or as Judaizing Christians. Chrysostum's
sermons, delivered in the church, were aimed at creating distance between
Jews and Christians.  "Many I know, respect the Jews and think that their
present way of life is a venerable one.  This is why I hasten to uproot and
tear out this deadly opinion."  The mirror image of Christian views such as
these are seen in rabbinic literature from this period.  The Palestinian
Talmud, Berakhot 8, contains an extensive discussion about whether Jews
should respond with amen to the blessings of non-Israelites who use the name
of the Lord.  Clearly Jews were aware of high level of non-Jewish interest
in Judaism such that the prayers of non-Jews may have been sufficiently
similar to those of the Jews.  Christian Councils would repeat the
admonitions against Christians celebrating festivals and the sabbath with
Jews at least well into the seventh century, for example, in 465 at Wannes,
they ruled against  Christians eating at Jewish meals; in 506 they ruled
similarly at Agde especially because Jews would not eat the food of
Christians; in 538 at Orleans they ruled against Christians celebrating the
sabbath and festivals with Jews; a prohibition repeated also in 583 at Macon
and 626 at Clichy.

In 361 edicts attributed to the Council of Laodicea, in Asia Minor, ruled
that Christians must work and study the Gospels on Saturday, they cannot
take gifts of food from Jews, or celebrate feasts with them, especially
eating unleavened bread.  Again it seems that the greatest concern with
Judaism on the part of Christian leaders was the attraction that it held for
Christians.

C. Julian the Apostate

In 361, the emperor, Julian, the apostate, a nephew of Constantine, tried to
turn the empire back from Christianity to paganism.  Julian sided with the
Jews, seeing them as an ally both against Christianity and  Persia.  He
lightened their curial burdens, stopped the fiscus judaicus taxes on the
Jews in the diaspora, and apparently tried to have the Temple rebuilt in
Jerusalem.  According to the Palestinian Christian historian Salamanius
Hermias Sozomenus who wrote about a century later, after the workmen had
removed the ruins of the Temple destroyed in 70 and dug the ground for the
foundation, there was a violent earthquake.  When the workmen returned to
their task,  a massive fire arose from the ground.  When the workmen again
returned to their work, they saw in the sky overhead the sign of the cross,
proving to some, at least according to the historian, that the project was
not pleasing to God because Christ had prophesied its destruction. Julian
was soon assassinated and thus construction stopped on the third Temple in
Jerusalem.  Afterwards the unconfirmed report was circulated by Ambrose of
Milan that during Julian's reign the Jews had burned churches in Damascus,
Ashkelon, Beirut, Gaza, and Alexandria (Marcus, no. 2).

This episode shows that the Jews still wielded considerable power in the
Christian world.  They were perceived as the natural ally of any enemy of
Christianity.  The greatest fear seems to have been that the Temple would be
rebuilt, both falsifying the prophecies of Christ and empowering the Jews
religiously, politically, and socially. Marcel Simon (Verus Israel, p. 229)
wrote that the reign of Julian was a turning point in the rise of
anti-Jewishness in minds of some Christian writers who reacted hostiley to
the gains made by the Jews under Julian.

D. The Jews and the Christian Roman Emperors until the end of the Empire

Julian's Christian successors in the West, Jovian, Valentinian I, and
Valens, extended the toleration of Jews for at least another 20 years. In
particular in 368 synagogues were protected from the imposition of
"hospitality duty" for soldiers and officials. However, in 383 the emperor
Gratian repealed the exemption that rabbis--or perhaps some Jewish men-- had
enjoyed from the curial offices.  This edict was issued in Milan and may
have been influenced either by the bishop Ambrose's negative attitude toward
the Jews (see below) or a general desire to strengthen the curial offices
for financial reasons, a provision which also applied to Christian clerics
who had to provide substitutes to fulfill curial duties. Gratian also passed
a law prohibiting Christians from participating in pagan, Jewish, and
Manichaean worship and, in 384 along with Theodosius in the east, attempted
to limit Jews from owning Christian slaves or from converting slaves or
themselves.  Such slaves, however, had to be redeemed by Christians before
they could go free.

In the East, Theodosius I was the emperor from 379 to 395 and, although he
is often credited with establishing Nicene Christianity as the official
Roman religion, he demonstrated a fair approach toward Judaism  in two decrees:

1. In 388, in the name of law and order, he ordered a synagogue that had
been destroyed by Christians in Callinicium on the Euphrates in Mesopotamia
to be rebuilt with Christian money.  Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, in the
name of faith, protested against this justifying the burning because
synagogues are "a home of unbelief, a house of impiety, a receptacle of
folly, which God himself has condemned. . ." It was at this point that he
felt it necessary to charge that during the reign of Julian Jews had burned
down Churches.  It seems that his call for the burning of synagogues might
not have stood on its own.  His concern, in addition to the threat posed by
the synagogue, and perhaps its attraction to Christians, was the victory
that the Jews would feel over Christianity by having the synagogue rebuilt
with Christian funds. Ambrose was not successful in his written plea and in
person tried to persuade Theodosius by not offering the mass in his presence
until the emperor would change his mind.  Theodosius finally yielded
(Marcus, no. 21).

2.  Again in 393, Theodosius asserted that Judaism was not prohibited by any
law and opposed any attempts that had been made to destroy synagogues.

Nevertheless, Theodosius issued other decrees concerning Jews, often in
conjunction with the emperors of the West, Valentinian II and Arcadius, that
indicate a deeper interference on the part of Christian emperors into the
workings of the Jewish community.

1. First, in 388, he promulgated an interdiction against mixed marriages
between Christians and Jews.  This included both marriages between Jewish
men and Christian women and between Christian men and Jewish women.  The
penalty was the same as for those who committed adultery, which at this time
was not only expropriation of property but death. It is important to note
that mixed-marriage was now seen as a crime against the state.

2. In 392 Theodosius was asked by the Jews to intervene in an internecine
quarrel between Jewish judges and Jewish Primates, probably leaders such as
Archisynagogue and Patersynagogue  who were under the authority of the
Patriarch in the land of Israel. He upheld the right of the Jewish Primates
to excommunicate Jews and he rejected the authority of Jewish judges to
readmit the rejected Jews into the community against the wishes of the
Primates.  While seeming to assert the authority of Jewish leaders to
excommunicate, this edict undermined the authority of Jewish judges and
Jewish communal legal autonomy because ultimately internal matters of
self-rule were resolved by the Roman emperor.  

3. In 393 Theodosius meddled in Jewish marital law by imposing Roman
imperial legislation that ruled that Jews could not follow their own customs
and laws in marriage, singling out in particular Jewish polygynous unions.
Other aspects of Jewish marriage practice affected by this ruling must have
included Jewish levirate unions (a childless widow with her late husband's
brother) and the less restrictive degrees of consanguinity followed by the
Jews.  It remains to be seen to what extent this decree influenced the
marital practices of the Jews.  

In the year 395, on the death of Theodosius, the Roman empire was divided
between his sons Arcadius, who from 396-408 ruled the East from
Constantinople, and Honorius, who from 396-423 ruled the West from Ravenna
in Italy.  Both emperors issued decrees that protected Jews, even expanding
their rights and privileges, but also indicating that there were pressures
among the people mounting against the Jews.

Honorius allowed Jewish converts to Christianity to return to Judaism and
Jews to own Christian slaves; he protected synagogues and permitted Jewish
celebration of the sabbath.  At the same time, he did try for a while, from
399-404, to limit the ability of the Jews to support the Patriarch in
Jerusalem but this was more a result of East-West tensions and his desire to
keep funds from the West from supporting the East. He also tried to enforce
all laws against the Jews, especially those connected with the curial
offices, and limited their ability to perform other imperial governmental
services. In some of Honorius' laws Jews were associated with proselytizing
Christians to Judaism and influencing Christian heresies, demonstrating the
abiding image of influence that the Jews maintained in the Christian world.

Arcadius passed laws defending the Jewish Patriarch in Jerusalem from
insult, preventing Jews from converting to Christianity for economic
reasons, protecting synagogues, and giving Jewish clergy the same rights as
Christian clergy.  He also tried to make Jews subject to Roman civil law.

In 408 Theodosius II (b. 401), became the emperor of the east on the death
of his father Arcadius.  He ruled until 450 and during his rule, in 410,
Rome was briefly captured by the Goths, German tribes, led by Alaric, a
Visigoth. Theodosius II issued several decrees concerning the Jews.

-In 415 he ruled against new synagogues being built.  He also forbade
Christians from destroying old synagogues and allowed them to be replaced if
they were destroyed. If the Church instigated the attack, it had to provide
a new building.

-In 415 or 425 or 429, depending on the historian, the authority of the
Patriarchate of Jerusalem,  at the time  Gamaliel VI or VII, came to an end.
Eliminating a major source of both symbolic authority and political power
among the Jews.  This period,  when the Palestinian Talmud was redacted, is
conventionally depicted as one of deprivation in Palestine. Such a dismal
characterization, however, has been questioned by historians such as Jeremy
Cohen in light of the flourishing of rabbinic courts at this time, the
spectacular synagogues that were built in Tiberias, Beth Alpha, Beth Shaan,
Meiron, Khirbet Shema, and Capernaum, and the continuation of rabbinic
creativity seen in works such as Leviticus Rabba and Pesikta de Rav Kahana.
The Jews, hardly submissive, also burned Jesus, instead of the usual Haman,
in effigy during Purim, a practice which Theodosius II prohibited.

-In 438 Theodosius II issued what became known as the Theodosian code, the
earliest collection of Roman laws. It, and subsequent additions called
Novellae, was promulgated both in the East and in the West, staying in force
until the sixth century when it was replaced by the Justinian Code in the
East and Brevium in the West. Some of it, however, was preserved as part of
Canon Law.  

-In 439 Theodosius II forbade Jews from holding offices of honor, ruled
again against synagogue building; threatened death for converting slaves to
Judaism; and forced Jews to take the curial offices. His tone, more hostile
than his predecessors, reflects the power and influence of the Jews who
still had the power to excommunicate and, as members of a tolerated and
protected religion, enjoyed a position in society much better than that of
heretics, who were persecuted (Marcus, no. 1).

In 455 the Vandals took Rome, and 476 marked the final sack of Rome and the
end of the Western Roman Empire. Then in 493 Theoderic, an Arian Visigoth,
conquered Italy, Provence, and northern Spain, and became the emperor of the
Western Roman Empire.  At this time there were Jews on the Italian peninsula
in Naples, Genoa, Milan, Ravenna, and Rome, as well as in North Africa,
Spain, and Gaul. Theoderic  allowed the Jews their own laws and judges,
ownership of slaves, remodeling of synagogues, and the carrying of arms.  He
protected the Jews against forced conversions, destruction of synagogues by
mobs, including in Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and Genoa, showing the rise of mob
violence against the Jews and the protection afforded them by the emperor.
The violence, however, may not have been the result of a differential
between the Jews and the Christians but a situation in which the Jews still
felt that they could  insult Christians, in one case by mocking the rite of
baptism by pushing each other in a river.  Because Jews enjoyed the
protection of the emperor, the Christians had to pay to rebuild destroyed
synagogues. The reasons for the good treatment of the Jews by the Visigoths
in the West are unclear.  But the may include the fact that in the West,
where there were no Greek merchants to compete with the Jews, the ruling
Arian minority  needed Jewish support.

>From 527 to 565 the emperor Justinian  produced another major code of Roman
law, primarily for the East, which tried to reduce the legal protection of
Jews and the independence of Judaism. Jews could not be witnesses against
Christians unless their testimony was corroborated by a Christian. In 553,
at the instigation of Jews, Justinian issued Novella 146.  Some Jews had
been quarreling whether the sacred books should be studied only in Hebrew or
also in a Greek translation.  He meddled in Jewish internal affairs and
ruled on the side of those who wanted Greek or Latin translations,
compelling the Jews to use the biblical translations of the Septuagint or
Aquila in the synagogue. He ruled against the "Deuterosis" of the Jews,
probably either midrash or the  Mishnah, in his serious attempt to fight
rabbinic Judaism.  Piyyut, the extensive religious poetry of the traditional
prayerbook was considered by some later medieval rabbis, wrongly, as an
innovative way adopted for Jews to continue the study of rabbinic
interpretations after their study had been banned by the Romans. One of the
flaws in this persecution hypothesis is that piyyut existed before the edict
of Justinian. It seems that some rabbis advanced the persecution hypothesis
because they were  intent on removing these piyyutim from the service.
Justinian like some of his predecessors also meddled in Jewish internal
matters by demanding that Jews believe in angels and in resurrection and
against Jewish polygyny, a liberty available to Jewish men but not
Christians (See Marcus, no. 1).

>From 602-610 Phocas tried to forcibly convert the Jews of Byzantium, as did
his successor, Heraclius from 610-641.  During the latter's reign, the
Persians conquered parts of the Eastern Roman Empire.  In 614 Jerusalem
fell, perhaps with Jewish help and Christians may have been harassed with
Jewish assistance.  In 629 Heraclius retook Jerusalem, perhaps also with
Jewish support.  Finally, in 636 the Muslims took Jerusalem till 1099, lost
the city for about a century and then held it until 1917.


For Further Reading:

J. Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogues
B. Bachrach, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe

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