Produced by MFR and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)










WORKS OF ISRAEL ZANGWILL


ESSAYS:

    CHOSEN PEOPLES
    THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITIES
    ITALIAN FANTASIES
    WITHOUT PREJUDICE
    THE WAR FOR THE WORLD
    THE VOICE OF JERUSALEM


NOVELS:

    CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO
    DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO
    GHETTO TRAGEDIES
    GHETTO COMEDIES
    THE CELIBATES’ CLUB
    THE GREY WIG: STORIES AND NOVELETTES
    THE KING OF SCHNORRERS
    THE MANTLE OF ELIJAH
    THE MASTER
    THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER (WITH LOUIS COWEN)
    JINNY THE CARRIER


PLAYS:

    THE MELTING POT: A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS
    THE NEXT RELIGION: A PLAY IN THREE ACTS
    PLASTER SAINTS: A HIGH COMEDY IN THREE MOVEMENTS
    THE WAR GOD: A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS
    THE COCKPIT: ROMANTIC DRAMA IN THREE ACTS
    THE FORCING HOUSE: TRAGI-COMEDY IN FOUR ACTS


POEMS:

    BLIND CHILDREN


_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_

Cloth 2/- net. Paper 1/- net.


The Arthur Davis Memorial Lectures:


CHOSEN PEOPLES

By ISRAEL ZANGWILL

_Second Impression_

With a Foreword by the Rt. Hon. Sir HERBERT SAMUEL, M.A., High
Commissioner of Palestine


WHAT THE WORLD OWES TO THE PHARISEES

By the REV. R. TRAVERS HERFORD, B.A.

With a Foreword by General Sir JOHN MONASH, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.C.L.


POETRY AND RELIGION

By ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A., D.D.

Reader in Rabbinic at the University of Cambridge

With a Foreword by Sir ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH, M.A., D.Litt.


SPINOZA AND TIME

By S. ALEXANDER, M.A., LL.D., F.B.A.

Hon. Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford; Professor of Philosophy in the
University of Manchester

With an Afterword by VISCOUNT HALDANE, O.M., F.R.S.




THE STATUS OF THE JEWS IN EGYPT

    Being the Fifth “Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture” delivered before
    the Jewish Historical Society at University College on Sunday,
    April 30, 1922
    --------------
    Iyar 2, 5682

[Illustration]




[Illustration: FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT HEBREW PAPYRUS—THE OLDEST IN THE
WORLD—DISCOVERED BY PROFESSOR FLINDERS PETRIE.

For translation see Appendix.]




                              THE STATUS OF
                            THE JEWS IN EGYPT

                                   BY
                          W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE
                      D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.B.A.
          _Edwards Professor of Egyptology, University College_

                           WITH A FOREWORD BY
                     Sir PHILIP SASSOON, Bart., M.P.

                    LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
                  RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1

                          _All rights reserved_

                        _First published in 1922_




NOTE


The Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture was founded in 1917, under the auspices
of the Jewish Historical Society of England, by his collaborators in
the translation of “The Service of the Synagogue,” with the object of
fostering Hebraic thought and learning in honour of an unworldly scholar.
The Lecture is to be given annually in the anniversary week of his death,
and the lectureship is to be open to men or women of any race or creed,
who are to have absolute liberty in the treatment of their subject.




FOREWORD

By Sir PHILIP SASSOON, Bart., M.P.


I thank the Society for the honour they have done me in asking me to
preside upon so interesting an occasion. Professor Petrie needs no
introduction; and I can but express the gratitude of the meeting to
him for coming to lecture on an absorbing topic. We should have to go
very far to find a more eminent Egyptologist. He is not limited to
a discussion and criticism of other men’s discoveries; he is a most
successful excavator himself. He has with his own hands unearthed many
objects of the deepest interest to all students of the remote Egyptian
past. He has been engaged in this work for forty years, during thirty
of which he has occupied the distinguished position of Professor of
Egyptology at this University, where he has spoken with peculiar
authority on the significance of his own and other men’s discoveries,
and has interpreted them to laymen such as myself. The late Arthur
Davis, in whose memory these lectures are held, was a type of that rare
and valuable man who, while engaged in business, is yet inspired by a
studious ambition. He was a man above the average, who taught the lesson
to the average man of affairs that the delights of learning are open to
all those who are able to make use of the opportunities they can find and
create. Such men are an honour to any cultured community.




The Status of the Jews in Egypt


In considering the history of any people, one of the main elements is
that of their status. What were their abilities and how were they shown?
What permanent mark did they make on their period? How did they stand
in reference to their neighbours, in the same country and in other
countries? There are now Jews in Lemberg and Jews in Paris; but how
entirely differently we regard them, because of their status. How utterly
diverse is the mark left on the world by the men of mind, by Isaiah or
Aristotle, compared with the energies of patriots, like the Maccabees
or Sulla. Mere existence matters nothing to the present or the future;
it is the energizing influence of fresh thoughts or organization that
alone gives value to any people. Various races at present who think a
great deal of themselves have never added a single idea or capability
to the rest of the world, their status is simply that of incapable
dependence upon the civilization of others. Regarding then the dominant
importance of status, it seemed that it would be useful to focus together
the various fragments of views that have been gained as to the position
occupied by the Jewish race in Egypt at different periods.

We may glance first at the earlier relations of Semites with Egypt. The
second prehistoric civilization was of Eastern origin; and judging by the
strong analogies of the Egyptian language with Semitic speech, it seems
probable that this prehistoric age was dominated by a race which later
developed into the historic Semites.

Coming into recorded history, we can now realize, from recent
discoveries, how the VIIth and VIIIth Egyptian dynasties which overthrew
the earlier pyramid builders were Syrian kings ruling over Egypt. Their
personal names are preserved in some reigns on the great list of kings
at Abydos,[1] and their status is recorded by a cylinder of one of
these kings[2]—Khondy—bearing a figure of a flounced Syrian before him,
and an Egyptian in the background. The king himself has his name in a
cartouche and wears the crown of Upper Egypt; so he did not rule only
over the Delta, and his name being at Abydos points to control of the
whole country. As to the language, the names of these kings appear to
be Semitic, as Telulu the exalted, Shema the high, Neby the prophet.
All of this accords closely with the recent publications of Professor
Albert Clay[3] on the importance of a north Syrian kingdom, as the real
centre of the Semitic peoples, rather than Arabia, which he regards as a
backwater, where an early type has remained undisturbed. His appeal to
the Semitic names in early Babylonia shows that they are quite as early
as—or earlier than—the Sumerian.

This Semitic conquest of Egypt had a close parallel in the Hyksos
invasion of Egypt. The Hyksos or “princes of the desert,” as they call
themselves, were nomadic Semites who pushed down into Egypt during the
weak condition of the country in the XIVth dynasty. Even during the
XIIth dynasty there had been small bodies of Semites coming in, as shown
by the celebrated scene at Beni Hasan, where Absha heads a party of 37
Amu;[4] or on a scarab of User-Khepesh, who was the guardian of 110
Amu.[5] At last a flood of nomads, probably driven south by a famine
period of drought, burst into the country, much like the Arab invasion
of the age of Islam. After plundering the country they settled down,
as earlier invaders had done, by adopting the system which they had
found there, and becoming kings of Egypt, who restored and enlarged the
temples and encouraged learning.[6] They continued, however, attached to
their earlier life; and the remains of one king—Khyan—being found as far
apart as Crete and Baghdad, indicates that they kept up a wide trade,
if not an extensive rule.[7] The title adopted by that king, “embracing
territories,” shows that he probably ruled Syria as well as Egypt, like
the Syrian King Khondy in the VIIIth dynasty.

It is the nature of the Hyksos rule that enables us to realize the actual
setting of the first stage of Jewish history. It is as one of the late
waves of nomadic Hyksos that the account of Abraham must be viewed.
Wandering round the Syrian desert, as the Hyksos had done, drifting
up and down the ridge of hill pastures of Palestine, passing in and
out of Egypt as necessity led, the life in the Patriarchal narratives
gives the picture of the life of the “shepherd kings,” the “princes of
the desert.” The status of these Hebrew wanderers was just that of the
people among whom they came in Egypt, the ruling caste of the country,
who sat upon the more industrious but less independent Egyptians. They
would naturally be received with the affability, and on the easy terms,
which are represented. That this was taken in the course of the Hyksos
rule is shown by the king having adapted himself to Egyptian feeling, and
its being unsuitable to let pure nomads come in to the cultivated Delta,
because the shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians. Hence, though
on perfectly good terms, it was preferred to keep these fresh nomads on
the border, in the Wady Tumilat, rather than revive the antagonism of the
agriculturalist. The story of Joseph falls into place most naturally in
Egypt, where even under purely Egyptian kings the highest positions could
be held by Pa-khar or Nehesi, “the Syrian” or “the negro.” That this was
during a Semitic rule is suggested by the tide of Joseph being _Abrekh_,
the _Abarakku_ minister of state of Babylonia.[8]

The great change of status took place when the Hyksos were expelled,
and any remnant of those tribes had to become serfs if they were
tolerated at all. It seems highly probable that at this time a part
of the Israelites were swept back into Palestine with the retreating
waves of defeated Hyksos. It is not only probable, but it is indicated
by the defeat of “people of Israel” in Palestine by Merneptah (recorded
on his triumphal stele)[9], at a time when the Israelites whom we know
of seem to have still been in Egypt. Of the latter portion—with whom
we are here concerned—we have only accounts of their serfdom; yet a
stray light of a different kind has lately shown that other positions
were open to them. On a large family tablet of a chief of cavalry under
Rameses II, that is during the age of oppression, the Egyptians are shown
worshipping the various gods of the country. The surprise comes where the
servants have put their names on the blank edges of the tablet, headed
by the “scribe engraver” called Yehu-naam or “Yehu-speaks”;[10] just
the converse order of the most familiar phrase, “Thus saith the Lord.”
This seems unmistakably to refer to a worshipper of Yehu or Yahveh, and
hence an Israelite. Though this is only a single name, it implies a great
deal. It shows that an Israelite during the oppression was not only an
unskilled labourer, but might be one of the most highly skilled artisans,
understanding hieroglyphics, and an artist able to draw and engrave all
the figures of the gods. This puts an especial point on the commandment
against making graven images, if Israelites were actually engaged in
that trade. Further, this man was employed as far south as the Fayum,
and thus a hundred miles from the tolerated “Jewry” of the Wady Tumilat.
The freedom which the Israelites undoubtedly had under the Hyksos makes
it likely that many may have taken up different crafts, and have been
scattered about in the country as demand and opportunity led them.

Those who remained in a servile position were not in the least in the
condition of being separately bought and sold like cattle, as in American
slavery. They were organized in regular families, with their scribes
or “officers” of themselves, under the “commanders of tribute” of the
Egyptians.[11] In short, their labour was a sort of tribal tax which they
had to render, and for which their own headmen were responsible. How and
when the individual worked was the affair of his own family and clan, and
could not be dictated by the Egyptian so long as the total output was
maintained. This is an important part of the status of labour, whether
its system is autonomous or is an individual slavery. It seems that the
status was that of a tribe heavily taxed for labour, but left to follow
its own arrangements. This could only be carried out where there was a
solid block of the Israelite population, as in the land of Goshen, the
Wady Tumilat. It does not therefore imply any special tax or disability
upon those who—like the sculptor just named—had entered on various trades
and work scattered in the country. Probably they were gradually lost to
sight in mixture with the general population.

During the age of the Judges there was a continuous decadence in Egypt,
so that on both sides it is improbable that trade led to any Jewish
settlements. The rise of the Jewish kingdom, and the regular horse
trade established by Solomon, together with his marriage to the royal
family of Tanis, Zoan, and consequent connection with the royal family
Bubastis,[12] must have led to some mercantile establishments. Still
greater familiarity with Egypt came during the increasing troubles of
the close of the Jewish kingdom. About seventy years before the fall of
Jerusalem the new Saite King, Psamtek, had established a great frontier
fort on the road to Palestine, at Tahpanhes; this was a settlement of
Greek troops, and hence open to foreign residents.[13] Whenever there
was trouble in Judæa, especially from Assyria, this fortress would be the
natural asylum of any refugees, and Greek and Jew first mixed here and
learned each other’s ways. The results of this mixture are evident in the
reference to five cities speaking the language of Canaan, and swearing by
the Lord of Hosts, and in the address of Jeremiah to the Jews which dwelt
in the land of Egypt, which dwell at Migdol, the desert frontier, and at
Tahpanhes, the Delta frontier, and at Noph, Memphis, and in the country
of Pathros, Upper Egypt,[14] calling their attention to the desolation
of Jerusalem and exhorting them therefore to give up burning incense to
other gods in the land of Egypt, where they had gone to dwell already,
more than ten years before the fall of Jerusalem. Their reply that they
had prospered when they sacrificed to the queen of heaven was met by the
prophecy that Pharaoh-Hophra should be given into the hand of his enemies
and into the hand of them that seek his life.[15] The meaning of this lay
in the politics of Egypt. Hophra was of the party that favoured Greeks
and foreigners; but there was a strong Nationalist party of Egyptians
who would exclude foreigners, and they sought the life of Hophra, and
finally dethroned and murdered him. This led to the exclusive policy
which restricted foreign residence under Amasis. This declaration was
therefore a warning against trusting to the continuance of the open
policy, under which Egypt had been a refuge to the Jews. The fugitive
remnant of the royal family and court had found what seemed a safe refuge
at Tahpanhes, where the palace-fort had been assigned to them in the
Greek camp by Hophra. There Jeremiah had buried stones in the outside
platform before the entry of Pharaoh’s house, and the fort is still
called “The palace of the Jew’s daughter.” Their patron, however, was to
fall, and the open policy with him, and Amasis was—twenty years later—to
revive the Nationalist control. He closed down all the Greek settlements
and garrisons, only leaving one treaty-port to Greek trade—that of
Naukratis;[16] and they paid for this Nationalist movement by falling
into the power of Persia in the next generation.

The Persian conquest in 525 B.C. threw open the whole country to
influences from all quarters. The series of heads of foreigners found at
Memphis shows how the Babylonian traders of the old Sumerian race flocked
in, with Indians, Kurds, and a multitude of Scythian Cossacks, besides
the ruling race of Persia itself.[17] The picture of this age of Jewish
settlement has been preserved in the papyri of Elephantine;[18] and what
took place there was assuredly exceeded by the less remote settlements
in the rest of Egypt. We find mention of a Jew living at Abydos, which
was not a centre of trade. Not only was there a Jewish colony at the
Cataract, but one large and prosperous enough to build a temple to Yaho.
This temple was older than the Persian invasion, and such a footing is
unlikely to have been a new concession by the Nationalists; it probably
dates from the time of Hophra’s foreign policy before 570.

The description of the parts which were destroyed later shows that there
were five stone doorways, implying that the walls were of brick, like
most buildings in Egypt. There were stone columns, bronze fittings to
the doors, and a roof of cedar. The vessels of the temple service were
of gold and silver. The restorations that have been proposed are rather
too extensive for a temple placed in an existing town. Probably, there
was a continuous high wall around, a large entrance gate opening on an
outer court, from that another gate leading to an inner court, at the
back of which was the colonnade of the temple front; the other three
doorways named would be that of the temple and those leading to the
store-rooms and priests’ dwellings. Though neither the place nor the size
of community would allow of a great building, it is seen that the quality
of the structure implies that the Jewish residents were on a level with
the Egyptians.

Though this temple was destroyed in 411 B.C. by the enmity of the
Egyptian priests of Khnum, and the cupidity of the Persian governor
Widarnag, yet the parties were so nearly equal that before 408 the
governor and all his accomplices had perished by violence, and, in
revenge, by 405 Yedeniyeh bar Gamariyeh, a principal Jew of Elephantine,
had to flee to Thebes, where he was killed.

Regarding the relations of Egyptians to Jews, it is notable that
proselytes were not uncommon. Ashor, an Egyptian, married a Jewess, and
took the name of Nathan; Hoshea was a son of an Egyptian, Pedu-khnum;
Hadadnuri the Babylonian had a son named Yathom, and grandson Melkiel.

Some matters of status which have been attributed to Babylonian
influence may equally well—and more probably—be simple acceptance of
the Egyptian laws. In the census for payment of the temple tax of two
shekels—presumably from householders—at least one in eight are women,
apparently holding independent property. Since in Egypt inherited
property was held by women rather than by men, this was according to
native law. In marriage contracts either party could stand up in the
congregation and denounce the marriage at any time, on payment of a fixed
penalty. This was likewise the case in Christian Coptic marriages, as
stated by a contract.[19] Hence it must be regarded as the Egyptian law,
to which the Jews conformed by necessity or habit.

Thus it appears that the status of the Jewish colonies in Egypt was
at least equal to that of any other foreigners, and that they had
assimilated native custom and law. The ideas of these settlers at
the Cataract, and probably of those elsewhere, were derived from the
habits of thought of the monarchy, quite apart from the Babylonian
particularism. There was no objection to taking an oath by the goddess of
the Cataract, for a legal declaration, like any Egyptian. This is akin
to the later Egyptian Judaism, which sought reconciliation with Gentile
principles, as in the Alexandrian school of Philo, and was entirely
opposed to the bitterly anti-Gentile school which was developed in the
Captivity.

It is evident that there was no hesitation in establishing temple worship
at the Cataract, and probably also in the other cities that “called
on the name of Yahveh,” as a substitute for the destroyed temple of
Jerusalem. This is in accord with the establishing of the temple by
Oniah some three centuries later. There was not yet the dogma that no
temple could be legitimate outside of Jerusalem: that view seems to
have been a development of the Babylonian party, probably in connection
with their rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem on the Return from
Captivity. A rival temple would probably have been illegitimate at any
time; but if the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, or in the heretical
hands of the Hellenic party, then it was looked on as more important
to maintain the worship, rather than to abandon it because its true
centre was unattainable. This was in accord with Western Judaism, which
would subordinate the letter of the law to keeping the spirit of it; in
contrast to Babylonian Judaism, which by concentrating on the letter of
the law forgot the more important value of it, and thus “tithed mint,
anise and cummin, and omitted the weightier matters of the law.”

That the settlement at the Cataract was not very exceptional is shown not
only by the reference to a Jewish resident of Abydos[20]—purely a centre
of Egyptian religion—but also by a discovery this year of a rock tomb
of early date which had been re-used about the fifth century B.C.[21]
and inscribed with long documents in Aramaic, equal to over fifty feet
of writing. M. Giron came to examine them, but they are so far damaged
that it would need a longer study than he could spare to transcribe them.
It is to be hoped that some other Aramaic scholar will undertake the
work. This tomb is a few miles back in the eastern desert, opposite to
Oxyrhynkhos. It proves that in this region of Middle Egypt there was also
a Jewish settlement commonly using Aramaic.

The close of the Persian age brought in new conditions under Alexander.
Wide as had been the liberty of Judaism under the international empire
of Persia, it obtained still more liberal treatment from the Macedonian
conqueror. In consequence of the assistance that the Jews had given
against the Egyptians, Alexander granted to them equal rights with
the Greeks in the new foundation of Alexandria.[22] They had there a
separate quarter called the Delta,[23] and they were allowed to be
called Macedonians,[24] to mark them as being under royal protection.
This status in Alexandria, though suspended by Caligula, was renewed by
Claudius. The Jews had also other places assigned to them in Egypt, and
were ruled by an ethnarch, who was chief judge and registrar of the whole
of the settlers.[25]

In the Fayum they naturally found space, as the province was land
reclaimed from the lake, in order to settle Greek troops as colonists. A
village of Samareia is named,[26] also Jews in Psenuris.[27] At Thebes
Simon son of Eleazar was tax collector.[28] Ptolemy Philopator tried to
curb the power of the Jews in Egypt; and the libellous retort on him is
the subject of the third book of Maccabees.[29]

The number of Jews in Egypt, and their familiarity with Greek, led
to various Greek translations of books of the Hebrew Scriptures.[30]
These, in popular rather than literary style, were probably used by
proselytes, and followed in synagogues where Hebrew was drifting out of
use. They were at last compiled, and probably completed by adding all
the remaining books which were familiar as religious literature, though
not canonical. Thus seems to have grown up the Greek version known as
the Septuagint. Its differences from the Hebrew must not all be assigned
to caprice, for its sources probably antedate the formal text of the
Masorah. It represents to some extent the sources of the final orthodox
text. The production of such a body of translation in Egypt is proof of
the large demand that must have existed in a population far more familiar
with Greek than with Hebrew.

The next chapter of the Jewish history in Egypt opens out a wide view.
The troubles in Palestine caused by the Hellenistic party seizing on
the Temple, and the persecutions by Antiochus, had driven large numbers
of Jews to settle in the Delta of Egypt; in fact, as later references
seem to show, the Eastern Delta was largely occupied by Jews. It was the
Hyksos occupation repeated, only in this case the settlement was probably
not that of pastoral nomads, but of agriculturalists and traders. The
extent of the settlement is indicated by the need for a national centre
of worship on a large scale. At first Jerusalem would of course be
entirely the focus of religion; but when the Temple fell into the hands
of the Hellenizing party, and the High-Priesthood became entirely the
prey of violence and bribery, it was more and more difficult to regard
the Holy City as a religious home. This severance, and the distance
across a long desert journey, would lead to an entire estrangement, and
the practical cessation of all Temple worship. The loss of a religious
centre, and the presence of an heir of the High-Priesthood, driven out
of Jerusalem by the crimes of his relatives, would at last lead to the
rise of a new national centre in the midst of the faithful who were
thus living in exile.[31] There must have been a large support for the
project before Oniah would venture to start so great an enterprise. The
vast amount of work that was done in constructing the new city shows
that there was a large and wealthy population involved. The letter of
application for the site, and the reply granted by Ptolemy VII, seem
quite in accord with the times, and there is no reason to suppose
that this title-deed of occupation would be lost to sight, and then
re-invented.

The site having been granted, of a deserted city, with ruins of an
Egyptian palace of Rameses III, and a massive fortification wall of the
Hyksos period, there was abundant material for constructing the new city.
A large area was laid out beyond the wall of the old city, deliberately
modelled upon the plan of Jerusalem and the temple hill. So close is the
copy that Professor Dickie in his study of Jerusalem could combine the
plans to help in restoring the detail of Jerusalem. The old Egyptian site
was adopted as equivalent to the town of Jerusalem, and the new hill
was constructed to copy the Temple, and continued northward to imitate
Bezetha, leaving a deep gap representing the Tyropœan valley. To throw up
these great artificial hills, to face the temple hill with stone walling,
up to 100 feet high, to lay out the new city and the fortifications
covering six acres, must have needed a large body of supporters, and is
the strongest evidence of the numbers and status of the Jews in this
district, about twenty-eight miles north of Memphis.

The status of the Jewish settlers in Egypt was influential. Oniah, the
heir of the High-Priesthood, was associated with Dositheos, another Jew,
as generals of the whole army of Ptolemy VII.[32] He later supported
the widowed queen against the attacks of Ptolemy Physcon.[32] He lived
at Alexandria, and seems to have been powerful in the court. We also
read of an adventurous Jew named Yosef,[33] who outbid all the tax
farmers and obtained great power, which was extortionately used in the
Ptolemaic province of Palestine. Under Ptolemy VII also we find the Jews
of Athribis,[34] the central city of the Delta, dedicating a synagogue.
The spread of Jewish settlement was far beyond the city of Oniah, as
in Caesar’s time the march of troops from Pelusium to Alexandria was
dependent on the goodwill of the Jews of Onion.[35] The road between
those cities is more than fifty miles north of the city of Oniah, and
it seems therefore that the settlement which was in allegiance to that
city must have extended over most of the eastern side of the Delta. As
the Jews were already sharing Alexandria on equal terms with the Greeks,
they must have pretty well absorbed the management of the Delta. It is
in this connection that we must view the statement that they had “entire
custody of the Nile on all occasions.”[36] Probably as holding mortgages
on interest in much of the land of the Delta, they organized a management
of the inundation to ensure the solvency of their securities. The modern
Debt Control taking over the management of the Irrigation Department is
the parallel to the Jewish custody of the Nile.

There was also another and entirely different side of Jewish life in
Egypt. In Josephus we read a long account of the Essenes,[37] to which
sect this Pharisee of the High-Priestly family had devoted himself in
his youth. This account of the Ascetics of Palestine so closely accords
with the account that the Alexandrian Jew Philo gives of the Therapeutae
in Egypt[38] that they seem to be identical. This spread of asceticism
appears to have been started by the Buddhist mission from India. It was
entirely foreign to the Western ideals, yet it took root quickly after
Asoka’s mission. Indian figures are found of this period at Memphis, and
a multitude of modelled heads of foreigners also found there,[17] can
only be paralleled by the modelled heads of foreigners made now for a
Buddhist festival in Tibet, and thrown away as soon as the ceremony is
over. The influence which thus came into Egypt with the Indians of the
Persian occupation is found in working order by 340 B.C., and it was
probably strengthened and organized by the Buddhist mission in 260 B.C.,
and so grew until we meet with the full description of long-established
communities in the pages of Philo and Josephus. These bodies were
apparently composed of philosophical Jews and proselytes largely
influenced by the Alexandrine mixture of Oriental beliefs with Greek
theorizing.

Though we are reviewing the status of the Jews, that must include their
intellectual as well as social position. The Alexandrian school of
thought, as we have it in the Hermetic books[39] and in Philo, was a new
development in the world, freely reasoning on the nature of God and of
man, starting from various beliefs which were chosen for their prominence
and compatibility, and coming to conclusions which are curiously similar
to some modern thought. These ideas are the ground for various dogmas
which naturally grew up from it in the development of that Jewish sect of
Christianity.

We turn from these recluses back to the busy world of the Roman age,
when troops for Caesar at Alexandria were collected by his General
Mithradates, but stuck at Askelon, hindered by the desert and the
Delta.[40] Antipater, a Jewish general with 3,000 Jewish troops, joined
him, organized the desert transport with the Arabs, and then forced the
fortress of Pelusium. On entering Egypt Antipater brought over the Jews
of the Delta to the Caesarian cause, and so opened the way across to
Alexandria, and this induced the Memphite Jews also to join Caesar. This
service was handsomely acknowledged by Caesar.

Augustus rewarded the fidelity of the Alexandrian Jews by giving them a
renewal of all the rights and privileges of equality with the Greeks,[41]
which they had in the original charter of Alexander. They had an ethnarch
and a council, or a president and parliament, of their own; but the
Alexandrian Greeks by their opposition to Augustus lost their right to a
senate.

Trouble began with the insane Caligula,[42] who tried to force the
worship of his own statues in every place. The Jewish refusal of this
demand cost them the withdrawal of all rights of citizenship.[43] The
Greeks then thought it an opportunity for a pogrom to revenge their
subordination under Augustus.[43] On the accession of Claudius the Jews
started a riot to avenge themselves on the Greeks.[44] The influence of
Agrippa, which had checked the persecution of the Jews before, shielded
them again at Rome. Claudius therefore sent a decree,[45] reciting the
equality of the Jews and Greeks in Alexandria from its foundation, and
the renewal of the rights by Augustus. Another more general decree was
published in the Empire, honouring the fidelity of the Jews to the
Romans, and declaring that they were in all countries to keep their
ancient customs without hindrance: “And I do charge them also to use this
my kindness to them with moderation, and not to show a contempt of the
superstitious observances of other nations, but to keep their own laws
only.” By the end of his reign, however, Claudius ejected all Jews from
Rome.[46] Under Nero there was an attempt of Egyptian Jews to liberate
Jerusalem.[47] That failing, there was a renewed riot in the theatre at
Alexandria between Jews and Greeks, ending in calling in the legions to
plunder the Jewish quarter; in hard fight and massacre after it 50,000
are said to have been killed.[48] This seems to have broken the Jewish
hold on the capital, and we do not hear of any more turmoil with the Jews
in Alexandria.

The great war in Palestine and destruction of Jerusalem immediately after
Nero’s reign put an end to Jewish aspirations for a long time. At last a
general conspiracy broke out when Trajan was engaged in Parthia, and the
Jews in Cyrene, Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine and Mesopotamia broke out in
revolt and massacre.[49] Nearly half a million Greeks were slaughtered
in Cyrene and Cyprus.[50] In Egypt all Greeks about the country were
massacred, or driven into Alexandria for refuge, where they massacred
all Jews left in that city. All of this history shows that in numbers
and power the Jews were almost the equals of the Greek population, their
close organization perhaps making up for lesser numbers. The retaliation
by the Roman legions was naturally a full reply to the destruction which
had been dealt out to the Greeks. Henceforward there was no united action
of the Jews.

The great settlement of Onion, occupying most of the eastern Delta, was
depleted at the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The Temple of the
new Jerusalem was closed in 71 A.C. by Lupus the Prefect;[51] finally,
Paulinus within the next few years stripped the place, drove out the
priests, shut the gates, and left the place to decay. This repression
was not sheer persecution on the part of the Romans, but was caused by
the Zealots, who had made the worst of the Palestine war, escaping to
Egypt, and going even as far as Thebes.[52] In the interest of peace it
was needful to abolish a religious centre which might have been made a
rallying point for later trouble.

Although history scarcely mentions the Jews in Egypt for some centuries,
they were by no means expelled. As traders, perhaps as cultivators, they
kept a place in the country. A surprise has come in the last few weeks
by the discovery at Oxyrhynkhos, in Middle Egypt, of fragments of four
papyri written in Hebrew, as early as the third century. These are thus
the oldest Hebrew writings known, apart from stone inscriptions. The age
of them is given by another papyrus found with them dated under Severus,
193-211 A.C. One Hebrew writing is on part of a Greek document, which by
the hand is probably of the third century. The style of the Hebrew will
quite agree to this, as it is closely like the synagogue inscriptions
of the first century, as pointed out by Professor Hirschfeld, who has
examined these papyri and made a preliminary transcript. With these
letters are scraps of a liturgical work on parchment with minute writing.
Two of the papyri appear to be dirges, one on the destruction of the
Temple. Another papyrus has Jewish names, Joel, Nehemiah, and others.

Though the Jewish half of Alexandria had been severely, if not
altogether, reduced in the great rebellion under Trajan, there had been
a large return of those who were attracted by the powerful centre of
commerce and activity. Once more a pogrom broke out, from the fanatical
Cyril in 415, who expelled the Jews, while the mob sacked the Jewish
quarter.[53] Yet they returned, as, a couple of centuries later, at the
conquest by Islam the Jews were expressly allowed to remain, according to
the articles of capitulation.[54] During the rule of Islam the position
of the Jew has fluctuated like that of the Christian. Restrictive laws
have sometimes been passed, as that of El Hakim, ordering Jews to
wear bells or to carry a wooden calf,[55] or the later restriction to
wearing yellow turbans.[56] Yet Jews have risen to high power, as the
slave-dealer who became supreme in the childhood of Ma’add about 1040,
and set Sadaka, a renegade Jew, as vizier in 1044.[57] Though in recent
times the Oriental Jew has little hold in Egypt, the European Jew has
been a moving force in finance and enterprise.

The general conclusion appears that Egypt from its position and its
fertility has always attracted the Jew. It has had therefore a notable
influence on the mental attitude, especially in the Alexandrian school of
the Wisdom literature and Philo. The status of the Jewish population has
been fully equal to that of the other important races, native and Greek,
especially in the great Jewish occupation under the Ptolemies, which was
perhaps the age of the greatest political power in Jewish history.




REFERENCES IN TEXT


[1] Petrie, _History_, i, Fig. 6.

[2] Petrie, _Scarabs_, xix; _Egypt and Israel_, Fig. 1.

[3] Clay, _Empire of the Amorites_.

[4] Petrie, _Egypt and Israel_, Figs. 2, 5.

[5] Petrie, _Scarabs_, xv, A.C.

[6] Petrie, _History_, i, Apepa 1.

[7] _History_, i, Khyan.

[8] Hastings, _Dict. Bib._, _Abrekh_.

[9] Petrie, _Six Temples_, 28.

[10] To appear in _Herakleopolis_.

[11] Ex. v. 14.

[12] _Egypt and Israel_, 68.

[13] Petrie, _Tanis_, 11; _Defenneh_, 48-53.

[14] Jer. xliv. 1.

[15] Jer. xliv. 30.

[16] Petrie, _Naukratis_, 7.

[17] Petrie, _Memphis_, 1, xxxvi-xl.

[18] Hoonacker, _Une Communauté Judéo-Araméenne_.

[19] Petrie, _Gizeh and Rifeh_, 42.

[20] Hoonacker, 39.

[21] To appear in _Oxyrhynkhos_.

[22] Josephus, _Wars_, II, xviii, 7.

[23] _Wars_, II, xviii, 8.

[24] _Wars_, II, xviii, 7.

[25] Josephus, from Strabo, _Antiq._, XIV, vii, 2.

[26] Mahaffy, _History of Egypt_, 92.

[27] Mahaffy, 93.

[28] Mahaffy, 192.

[29] Mahaffy, 145.

[30] Thackeray, St. J., _The Septuagint and Jewish Worship_, 11-13.

[31] Petrie, _Egypt and Israel_, 98-101.

[32] Josephus, _Cont. Apion_, ii, 5.

[33] _Antiq._, XII, iv.

[34] Mahaffy, 192-3.

[35] _Wars_, I, ix, 4.

[36] _Cont. Apion_, ii, 5, end.

[37] _Wars_, II, viii.

[38] Petrie, _Personal Religion in Egypt_, 63.

[39] _Pers. Relig._, 38.

[40] _Antiq._, XIV, viii.

[41] Milne, _History of Egypt_, 16.

[42] _Antiq._, XVIII, viii.

[43] Milne, 29, 30.

[44] Milne, 31, 32.

[45] _Antiq._, XIX, v. 2, 3.

[46] Acts xviii. 1.

[47] Milne, 35.

[48] _Wars_, II, xviii, 8.

[49] Milne, 52.

[50] Dion Cassius, Trajan, end.

[51] _Wars_, VII, x, 4.

[52] _Wars_, VII, x, 1.

[53] Milne, 98-9.

[54] Stanley Lane-Poole, _History of Egypt_, 11.

[55] Lane-Poole, 127.

[56] Lane-Poole, 301.

[57] Lane-Poole, 137.




APPENDIX

ANCIENT HEBREW PAPYRI

PROVISIONAL TRANSLATION BY DR. H. HIRSCHFELD


FRAGMENT A

   LINE

     1. (relic of selah [?]).

     2. Wells ... hewn ...

     3. To lead ... to this ...

     4. They rejoice ... they decay ...

     5. In the light, or (with ח added) the path ...

     6. Of the Temple ... He has put to shame ...

     7. They trembled, languished, turned to Thee ...

     8. With glee and holy convocation ...

     9. In the assembly of holy myriads ...

    10. When mountain peaks frowned (see Psalm lxviii. 16-17) ...

    11. Myrrh and cinnamon ...

    12. I am inundated with tribulation ...

    13. ...

    14. Kings ...

    15. Engraved.

    16. Remember and ...

    17. ?

(_Probably a lament on the destruction of the Temple._)


FRAGMENT B

     1. ?

     2. surrounding (?)

     3. ?

     4. path ?

     5.

     6. upon the earth (land ?).


FRAGMENT C

     1. ? ?

     2. ?

     3. ?

     4. ... males ...

     5. ... and avenge the sanctuary ...

     6. Thou hast ... ? us a kingdom of priests ...

     7. ... a kingdom ... ?


FRAGMENT D

     1 to 5. illegible and untranslatable.

     6. Joel ... ?

     7. And Nehemiah. Nahor ... ? in judgement (?).

     8 to 10. illegible ...

       *       *       *       *       *

    _Printed in Great Britain by_
    UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
    LONDON AND WOKING