Late antique Jewish-Christian relations defy easy categorization, for the simple reason that the terms ‘‘Jew,’’ ‘‘Judaism,’’ ‘‘Christian,’’ and ‘‘Christianity’’ are equally difficult to define in relation to the period. Who was a Christian? Who was a Jew? The late antique world stretched from Persia to the Atlantic, from the northern European mountains to the arid African deserts. Each religious or ethnic community adopted its own ritual practices and theological frameworks that were affected by variations in geography, politics, culture, and history, and could vary greatly, even within the boundaries of a single city. Hence, there was no one prototypical late antique Christian or Jew, even though modern historians use those familiar terms ‘‘Jew’’ and ‘‘Christian,’’ ‘‘Judaism’’ and ‘‘Christianity,’’ as aids to describing what were in reality more complex phenomena. Jews and Christians accommodated themselves to their positions in society, their geographic location, and the surrounding cultures to such an extent that they were often not even recognizable as co-religionists to others who claimed also to be Jewish or Christian. Many scholars suggest that, while some Jews and some Gentiles did become Christians, the apparently monolithic or cohesive constructs ‘‘Judaism’’ and ‘‘Christianity’’ were developed only in the fourth century: they were not the product of first-century formative identities (Boyarin 2003: 78).
Jews existed, of course, before Christianity developed; but even they did not necessarily practice what we today call Judaism. To be a Jew in the period before the advent of Christianity meant to be a descendant of the Judean community, which was defined primarily as an ethnic group with a particular land, culture, cult, and history, not as a group set apart by its faith (Cohen 1999: 97-8). Affiliation by religious faith was a striking novelty introduced with the rise of Christianity, and carried with it a new category of identity (Schwartz 2001: 179-84; Boyarin 2003: 71). Prior to that, one’s identity had been based on one’s place of origin (e. g., Athens) or one’s ethnic group (e. g., Judean).
Not only were they not easily defined: neither Judaism nor Christianity emerges fully formed. Some have argued (Boyarin 2004: 10) that Judaism evolved out of biblical religion as a reaction to, or at least simultaneously with, the development of Christianity (which was itself, of course, a product of the same amalgam of biblical traditions). In relation to that earlier phase, historians have labeled various in-between groups as ‘‘Jewish Christians’’; but even that nomenclature can encompass a range of beliefs and practices. Those using the term refer by and large to ethnic Jews who believed that Jesus was their God’s Messiah, even though they continued to identify themselves as Judeans or were descendants of Judeans; but the term can also refer to Gentile-born believers in Jesus who chose to follow biblically based Jewish laws and rituals, such as sabbath, dietary restrictions, and sacrifice.
How we determine what is ‘‘Jewish’’ and what is ‘‘Christian’’ can vary, moreover, from situation to situation and from text to text. Many of the texts that we think of as ‘‘Christian’’ or even ‘‘Jewish Christian’’ may be better understood as thoroughly Jewish (if we define our category ‘‘Jew’’ by late antique standards). The authors of Revelation and the Ascension of Isaiah, for instance, clearly saw themselves as members of self-defined Jewish prophetic or priestly groups in the biblical tradition. They show as much concern for the prerogatives associated with that identity as they do for Jesus’ mission (Frankfurter 2003: 138). Moreover, even among those who profess faith in Jesus, we find differing theological interpretations of that faith. Jesus appears variously as a prophet, the Messiah, the Logos, or the Son of God. At times, those theological interpretations directly contradict one another. Finally, both Jews and Christians, as self-perceived heirs of biblical Israel, define themselves in terms of their relationship to God, the Holy One. Being holy or ‘‘owning’’ holiness, in some relation to the divine, often trumps any notion of Jewishness or Christianness.
So, when discussing Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity, we always have to ask, what kind of Jew or Christian are we dealing with? And while, to help us catalog our subjects, we can create lists of appropriate categories (follows Jewish law, believes Jesus was the Messiah, and so on), it is often better to observe how the subjects define themselves. Do they call themselves Jews or Christians? Priests or prophets? Do they label others as Jews or Christians? The often quoted gospel statement that the term ‘‘Christian’’ was first used at Antioch (Acts 11: 26) does not mean that from then on all who believed in Jesus understood themselves to be Christians, nor were they referred to as such by outsiders. Paul, for instance, rarely used the term ‘‘Christian,’’ and usually referred to his readers as ‘‘holy ones.’’ This notion of a holy people, once again, remains central to any discussion of Jewish-Christian relations in the late antique period. Even Aphrahat (Aphraates), a fourth-century Persian Christian, did not refer to himself or his readers just as Christians but, following Paul, labeled them ‘‘holy ones’’ as well. Likewise, those whom we might label ‘‘Jews’’ did not necessarily call themselves such, preferring ‘‘Judeans,’’ ‘‘Galileans,’’ ‘‘Israelites,’’ or even ‘‘holy seeds.’’ The Judeans whom we associate with the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, referred to themselves simply as the Yahad (the one community).
In the end, then, when discussing late antique Jewish-Christian relations, we have to sort out the similarities, differences, contacts, or influences between the many groups in Late Antiquity that claimed to be either Jewish or Christian, or that look Jewish or Christian from our modern vantage point. In addition, we have to investigate the various interactions (both harmonious and antagonistic) between those many groups. How did each define itself vis-a-vis other groups claiming the same or similar titles, lineage, history, or sacred space? Even when they constructed solid boundaries between themselves, which interactions continued and which were limited, avoided, or actively persecuted? What literary resources did they share, even unconsciously?
The literary and material culture of the late antique period enables us to answer those questions at least in part. The Mediterranean basin has supplied an abundance of archaeological remains, inscriptions, and artwork that attest to the lively culture that thrived in Late Antiquity, especially in its cities. Temples, synagogues, churches, and other buildings reveal traces of living communities. Inscriptions on walls, lintels, and mausoleums give us insight into the priorities of certain individuals, families, clans, and communities. Late antique Jews and Christians left written records of their lives, together with histories, theologies, philosophical musings, and stories (although many have been lost). Few of those records were written to answer the specific questions we are asking here: they were written for other purposes, thus making our task all the more difficult.
Among self-identifying Jews, we have the relatively early first-century writers Philo and Josephus, who attempted to delineate the various categories of contemporary Jews. The most comprehensive Jewish texts of the late antique period are, however, the rabbinic writings that record the ideals, theologies, and stories ofwhat started as a radical minority in the first century but became the dominant force among Jews by the end of the late antique period. We have little record of what else late antique Jews might have written. The rabbis, for their part, composed their various tractates for themselves alone. Each text in its way collects rabbinic musings on the meaning and application of the biblical texts they hold sacred. Together, they comprise a corpus of law, lore, history, and theology, and are presented as notes to an inside conversation among the rabbis and their students.
Christian writers, on the other hand, wrote for an external as well as an internal audience. They attempted to support the faith, practice, and increasingly distinctive culture of their followers; but they also desired to attract outsiders to their way of life and faith. They created texts in many more genres - histories, collections of sermons, apologiae, and rhetorical and exegetical works. Some Christian writers were even more precise in their motives. They felt theologically compelled to deal with the fact that most Jews or Judeans did not accept the coming ofJesus as the fulfillment of biblical messianic prophecy. That Jewish ‘‘failing’’ provoked a new literary genre, particularly among Christians who would later be deemed ‘‘orthodox.’’ No comparable genre exists within the late antique rabbinic corpus, although anti-Christian polemic (as well as polemic against nonrabbinic Jews) pervades the literature. The writers’ purpose, on both sides, was often to persuade the Christian (or Jewish) laity to segregate themselves, in both place and attitude, from whatever the writers considered non-Christian (or non-Jewish). Yet, even the Christian Adversus Judaeos texts, while theologically motivated, were grounded in biblical exegesis; and the exegetical character of all this literature, Jewish and Christian, suggests that the writers had far more in common than might seem allowed by the distinctions they attempt to assert. They were all scholars, members of a late antique elite, who shared a great concern for the correct interpretation of Scripture and especially for the intellectual pursuit of truth as revealed through God’s sacred Word. By the same token, their engagement in that literary exercise was one way, perhaps the primary way, of articulating their own senses of self (as compared with some competing ‘‘other’’). And, as I have already hinted, and shall explain further below, that competition was often couched in the language of holiness.
World History
