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To: RobbyS
RobbyS: "The whole empire was in decline in the 3rd Century.
That does not mean that locally —as in Syria and Parthia and Arabia —that Jews might not have been proportionally well-represented, especially in an area that was still highly urbanized."

Sure, but the purpose of your argument is to emphasize the power and threat that Jews represented to Christians at the time of Roman Emperor Constantine, circa 4th Century AD.

A fair reading of the historical data is as follows:

Jewish Revolts of the First and Second Centuries nearly exterminated Jewish populations in precisely those areas where they had previously been strongest: Judaea, Alexandria, Cyprus, Libya and Syria.
These left roughly half the previous Jewish populations surviving, but in areas far removed from their previous centers of strength, and including many whose beliefs were not entirely, shall we say, orthodox.

Among those non-orthodox Jews were many who considered themselves Christians, others we might call "Hellenized Jews".
These were doubtless sources of various Christian "heresies" which attempted to down-play Christ's divinity and emphasize God's Unity.

Over many years, these non-orthodox Jews were forced to chose between Trinitarian Christianity, Orthodox Judaism and, eventually, Islam.

As various groups made their choices, the total Jewish population world-wide fell from around two million in the Second Century to fewer than one million by, say, the Ninth Century (Middle Ages).

Finally, at the same time that the number of Jews was falling from four million to fewer than one million, the number of Christians rose from circa 500,000 in 100 AD, to 2 million in 200 AD, to 5 million in 300 AD to 10 million by 400 AD.
So the question of when, exactly, did Jews stop being a powerful threat to Roman Empire Christians is answered: certainly no later than the Third Century AD -- long before Emperor Constantine's rise to power.

241 posted on 06/10/2013 4:25:16 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: BroJoeK
No , my point was to emphasize the wealth and power of Jews in Antioch and maybe Asia and the Straits, which is where the Arian Party and later the Nestorian Party were strong. Furthermore, in Parthia Christians began to be persecuted after they gained religious freedom from the Roman government because they could be accused of being disloyal. Jews in that land suffered no disabilities. After all, the Jews had supported the Diaspora uprising against Trajan, which came damn close to success.

You point seems to be that we must treat the Jews as victims when the truth was they were an interest group and one antipathetic to Christians. The diatribes of Chrysostrom against the Jews would have been pointless unless they had not been a plausible threat, a situation not unlike that in Spain in the 15th Century.

242 posted on 06/10/2013 11:18:40 AM PDT by RobbyS
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