| Contents |
The absence of evidence as the evidence of absence -- "Five hundred and forty souls were added to the church": the Letter of Severus of Minorca on the conversion of the Jews, early fifth century? -- "You shall have freedom from care...during my reign.": Letter 51, the Emperor Julian to the collectivity of the Jews, (perhaps spurious) (dated) March 1, 363: From Constantine to the death of Julian, 312-363 -- "The sect of the Jews is prohibited by no law": CTh 16.8.9, Theodosios I at Constantinople, September 23, 393: Valentinian, Gratian, and Theodosios I, 363-395 -- "Their synagogues shall remain in their accustomed peace": CTh 16.8.12, Arkadios at Constantinople, June 17, 397: Arkadios, Honorius, and Gamaliel VI, 395-408 -- "No synagogue shall be constructed from now on": CTh 16.8.25, Theodosios II, at Constantinople, February 15, 423: Honorius and Theodosios II, 408-423 -- "We deny to the Jews and to the pagani, the right to practice legal advocacy and to serve in the state service.": Sirmondian Constitution 6, Galla Placidia, in the name of five-year-old Valentinian and Theodosios II, Summer 425: Theodosios II in his majority, 423-450 -- "We do not grant that their synagogues shall stand, but want them to be converted in form to churches": Justinian, Novella 37, August 1, 535: in the aftermath of Theodosios II in the East, 450-604 -- "In what has been allowed to them, [the Jews] should not sustain any prejudice": Letter 8.25, Gregory the Great, to Victor, bishop of Palermo, June 598: in the aftermath of Theodosios II in the West, 450-604 -- "Here rests Faustina, aged fourteen years, five months... Two apostoli and two rebbites sang lamentations": Latin epitaph from Venosa, Italy, early sixth century: the price of (Christian) orthodoxy. |
| Abstract |
"The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity examines the fate of Jews living in the Mediterranean Jewish diaspora after the Roman emperor Constantine threw his patronage to the emerging orthodox (Nicene) Christian churches. By the fifth century, much of the rich material evidence for Greek and Latin-speaking Jews in the diaspora diminishes sharply. Ross Shepard Kraemer argues that this increasing absence of evidence is evidence of increasing absence of Jews themselves. Literary sources, late antique Roman laws, and archaeological remains illuminate how Christian bishops and emperors used a variety of tactics to coerce Jews into conversion: violence, threats of violence, deprivation of various legal rights, exclusion from imperial employment, and others. Unlike other non-orthodox Christians, Jews who resisted conversion were reluctantly tolerated, perhaps because of beliefs that Christ's return required their conversion. In response to these pressures, Jews leveraged political and social networks for legal protection, retaliated with their own acts of violence, and sometimes became Christians. Some may have emigrated to regions where imperial laws were more laxly enforced, or which were under control of non-orthodox (Arian) Christians. Increasingly, they embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them. The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity concludes that by the beginning of the seventh century, the orthodox Christianization of the Roman Empire had cost diaspora Jews--and all non-orthodox persons, including Christians--dearly."-- Publisher's description. |
