1 Earliest Rome

12. R E L I G I O U S G R O U P S
12.6 The Jews
This section moves from texts by non-Jews which are sympathetic to Judaism
to Jewish claims about Roman privileges for the Jews, especially in Rome, and
on to evidence from the Jewish catacombs in Rome. We also give three texts
from elsewhere (Asia Minor, Alexandria and Palestine) that illuminate the tela-
tions between Jews and their neighbours. There are further texts on Judaism in
other chapters: 4.14 features the synagogues at Dura Europus and Ostia, and
11.8 is devoted to the negative image of the Jews among some Romans.
See further: Vol. 1, 267-8, 270, 275-6, 280, 298, 304, 309; Schürer
(1973-87); M. Stern (1974-84) for texts by non-Jews, with translations and
commentaries; Lieu, North and Rajak (1992)*.
12.6a Identification of the Jewish god with Jupiter
The hostile stance towards Judaism of certain writers examined earlier (11.8)
was matched by the positive stance of others. Various writers, both Roman and
Greek, were sufficiently interested in Judaism to discuss it within their own
terms of reference. In this passage Augustine quotes Varro's discussion of the
Jewish god as part of his attack on the foolish identifications by the gentiles of:
this god with Saturn and Jupiter (an identification also made in 11.8a); see also
more generally 1.1a.
Augustine, The Harmony of the Evangelists 1.22.30; Varro, Cardauns fr. 16; M. Stern
(1974_84) no.72b
Some say that he is Saturn, I think because of the sanctification of the sabbath in
that they assign that day to Saturn. But their own Varro (and they can find none of their
people more learned than he) thought that the god of the Jews was Jupiter, judging that it
makes no difference by what name he is invoked, so long as the same thing is understood;
he was daunted, I believe, by his sublimity. For because the Romans customarily worship
nothing superior to Jupiter, as is sufficiently clearly arrested by their Capitolium, 1
and
consider him to be king of all the gods, when he observed that the Jews worshipped a
supreme god, he could not imagine that he was anything other than Jupiter.
320
1. Temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minera. Ci. Vol. I, Map 1 no.25.
12.6b Incorporation of Judaism into Greek thought
Many Greek writers of the Roman empire treated Jewish teaching as compara­
ble with Greek philosophy. Here Galen, a philosopher and doctor (writing in
Rome, A.D. 165-75) appeals to Moses alongside Plato and other Greek
philosophers in his discussion of the design of the human body - in this pas­
sage an explanation of the unvarying length of the eyelashes.