BMGS 20 (1996) 249-274

Byzantines and Jews:

some recent work on early Byzantiulll
AVERIL CAMERON

The publication of David Olster's book, Roman Defeat, Christian

Response and the Literary Construction of the Jew (Philadelphia 1994)
marks a further stage in the recent tendency to draw attention to the
role played by Jews in the events of the early seventh century. As
several other scholars have done, Olster draws attention to what seems
to have been a heightened awareness of Jews and Judaism by the
Christian majority in Byzantium in this period and during the next
century or so. A number of contemporary examples survive of the
Christian anti-Jewish literary dialogue form familiar in Greek since
the second century AD; what is perhaps even more striking, antiJewish comments and whole passages on this topic also feature in
many other kinds of writing in the period, even when they have no
obvious relevance to the topic. Iconophile texts are pervaded by such
material, in particular the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea in
AD 787, and Jewish subject matter also appears in visual art. This
review combines comments on Olster's book with a wider consideration of the topic itself and of other recent publications touching on
it; it also asks why the subject became so pressing to contemporary
Christians, and makes some suggestions about the interpretation of
the relevant material.

It may be convenient to start by surveying Olster's arguments, which

cover a good deal of the relevant ground while still leaving much
unsaid. In essence, the book explains the anti-Jewish dialogues of
the seventh century in political rather than religious terms: they are
to be read as expressions of a sense of decline and instability. Roman
(sic) defeat produces a rejection ofbistory in favour of an apologetic
of restoration (p. 180) in which the Jews function as the cardboard
249

AVERIL CAMERON

villains who allow the Christian writers a 'brazen' assertion of their

own imperial superiority (p.182); their role in this literature, therefore,
is more as a rhetorical device than as part of a serious religious debate.
More than that, the Jews function, in fact, as 'a substitute for the
Arabs' (loc. cit.); rather than engaging with the religious issues posed
by the new religion of Islam, the Byzantine polemicists and apologists
attack the more familiar target provided by the Jews.
These arguments are neither new nor implausible, 1 but as here set
out they do not go very far or very deep. Nor are they expressed
with any great subtlety. It would seem that the book was a long time
in the press, and many recent works go without mention, including
critical editions; in the chapter on the intriguing Doctrina Jacobi nuper
baptizati (630s), for example, on which Olster has a number of
interesting points to make, the author was able to refer to the new
critical text and discussion by V. Deroche and G. Dagron,2 but does
not discuss their arguments in detail; the same goes for his chapters
on the other Greek anti-Jewish dialogues in chap. 6, where there is
a reference to, but no discussion of, V. Deroche's important article
on the topic, in which they are placed in a chronological sequence. 3
On Sophronius and Monotheletism (chap. 5), Olster does not cite

1. See e.g. John Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century. The Transformation of a
Culture (Cambridge 1990) 345-48, who also notes the derogatory use of the terms 'Jew',
'Jewish' in Byzantine literature in contexts detached from reference to real Jews. AntiJewish polemic in this period is also seen as expressing anxiety about Muslim success
in the recent book by Glster's teacher Walter E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic
Conquests (Cambridge 1992) 210-27, especially 220-22, following his earlier article 'Initial
Byzantine reactions to the Arab invasions', Church History 10 (1969) 139-49, to which
Olster explicitly refers as an inspiration for his doctoral thesis.
2. G. Dagron and V. Deroche, 'Juifs et chretiens dans l'Orient du Vne siecle', Travaux
et Memoires 11 (1991) 17-273 (17-46 Introduction historique, G. Dagron; 47-229 critical
text, V. Deroche; 230-47 Commentaire I, G. Dagron; 248-73 Commentaire Ii, v. Deroche).
Equally important is Dagron's article in the same volume, 'Judai'ser', ibid., 359-80.
3. V. Deroche, 'La polemique anti-judai'que au VIe et au vne siecle, un memento inedit,
les Kephalaia', ibid., 275-311.; see also Kaegi, op. cit., 220-27, 231-35 on dating the
works. The appearance of H.G. Thiimmel, Die Friihgeschichte der ostkirchlichen
Bilderlehre. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Zeit vor dem Bilderstreit. TV 139 (Berlin, 1992),
with detailed discussion of the complex and interconnected manuscript tradition of some
of these works, especially at 253-68, marks an important further stage in the discussion,
though Thiimmel' s interest is confined to passages referring to religious images, and he
stops with John of Damascus.
250

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

the basic bibliographical article by F. Winkelmann,4 nor has he used

Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy. Palestine in Christian
History and Thought (New Haven 1992), of which chaps. 10-12
contain a sensitive treatment of many of the texts discussed by Olster,
including the writings of Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem. It is
of course unfortunate for an author when he has an unreasonable wait
before publication. But in chapter 1, in which Olster castigates the
world of scholarship for an over-rigid separation of classical and
Christian subject matter, some of his targets, which include
Krumbacher and Harnack, seem very old hat: the pass has been sold
some time ago.s Nor, though Olster's schema for the book is to
work through a series of individual texts in detail, does he scrutinise
them from a literary point of view, or ask how they function qua
texts; yet, I would argue, the very topics of Jews and Judaism are
used as rhetorical tropes in a considerably more complex way than
Olster allows. It is not just a question of whether we are to read the
works historically or in a religious sense, but of the nature of
representation in this period, whether literary or visual.
Yet while Glster's book, the second to have developed from his
1986 PhD thesis,6 is not a complete treatment either of the construction of the Jew in the Byzantine literature of this period or of the
broader historical and literary issues centring on defeat and restoration,
it does have the great merit of demonstrating that these are complex
texts, demanding careful strategies of interpretation. I shall go on
to take some of the main isSues in turn, and will argue below that
4. F. Winkelmann, 'Die Quellen zur Erforschung des monoergetisch-monotheletischen
Streites', Klio 69 (1987) 515-59.
5. See Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles
1991) chap. 1; also 'The eastern provinces in the seventh century AD: Hellenism and the
emergence of Islam', in S. Said, ed., 'EA.A.llVtaJ.l6~. Quelques jalons pour une histoire
de l'identite grecque, Actes du colloque de Strasbourg 25-27 octobre 1989 (Leiden 1991)
287-313'; 'Byzantium in the seventh century: the search for redefinition', in J. Fontaine
and J. Hillgarth, OOs., The Seventh Century (London 1992) 250-76. Also relevant for Olster's
argument is the thoughtful discussion by G. Stroumsa, 'Religious contacts in Byzantine
Palestine', Numen 36 (1989) 16-42.
6. For the other see D. Olster, The Politics of Usurpation in the Seventh Century: Rhetoric
and Revolution in Byzantium (Amsterdam 1993); in it, Olster deals with the disturbances
connected with the last year of Phocas, A.D. 609110, in which Jews also feature prominently
in the sources: see Dagron, 'Juifs et chretiens', 18-22.
251

AVERIL CAMERON

one of the main weaknesses of Glster's study is that it fails to make

a link between the frequency of the theme of Jews in contemporary
Byzantine literature and the rise to prominence of the whole question
of religious images.
Jews in the early Byzantine empire
The first question must concern the actual place occupied by Jews
in this period, which is far from easy to discern. Recent work by
Nicholas de Lange has made clear the lack of good evidence from
the period for real, as distinct from literary, Jews and Judaism; de
Lange refers to the seventh century as 'the darkest age for Byzantine
Jewry' .7 This is perhaps the place to mention the recent publication
of collected papers by Andrew Sharf, Jews and Other Minorities in
Byzantium (Jerusalem 1995), with a bibliography of his publications,
and containing two relevant papers, 'Byzantine Jewry in the seventh
century' and 'Jews in Byzantium'; these were however originally
published in 1955 and 1966 respectively. M. Gil, A History of
Palestine, 634-1099 (Cambridge 1992), contains a short account of
our period, as does J. Prawer, ed., The History of Jerusalem. The
Early Islamic Period (638-1099) (Jerusalem 1987). I have attempted
to gather the bibliography elsewhere,8 and in doing so appreciated
the very useful article by S. Reif, 'Aspects of medieval Jewish
literacy', in R. McKitterick, ed., The Uses of Literacy in Early
Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1990), 143-55. Reifpoints out, as does
N. de Lange, that general histories of the Jewish people, of which
there are a fair number, usually content themselves for this period
with a rather brief (and often unoriginal) comment; little has been
written in detail. The actual size of the Jewish population, whether
in Palestine itself or in the empire generally, is therefore difficult
to assess, and further distorted by the exaggerated claims made in
the Christian sources. In Palestine itself, the evidence of the Doctrina

7. N. de Lange, 'Jews and Christians in the Byzantine Empire: problems and prospects',
in D. Wood, ed., Christianity and Judaism, Studies in Church History 29 (Oxford 1992)
15-32, cf. p.23.
8. Averil Cameron, 'The Jews in Seventh-Century Palestine', Scripta Classica Israelica
13 (1994) 75-93; see 77, n. 7.

252

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

Jacobi and other texts suggests that there were communities in a

number of major cities, including Tiberias (which remained a major
centre of Jewish learning), Caesarea, Sykamina, Sepphoris, Lod
(Lydda); their prosperity and degree of Hellenisation is attested in
fine surviving synagogues, of which that at Gaza is particularly
noteworthy.9 Jewish inscriptions, in Greek Of, less commonly, using
Hebrew, coexist with Christian and pagan ones; though some scholars
would argue that the groups lived separately, this seems unlikely. 10
There was a concentration of Jewish settlement in eastern Galilee,
the region of Tiberias and the western Golan. Nevertheless, the overall
Jewish population in Palestine remains hard to compute; against some
very high estimates, Avi-Yonah put it at ten to fifteen per cent of
the whole. 11
Much of the evidence in Greek sources for Jews and Jewish communities in the earlier part of the seventh century does in fact centre
on Palestine and the eastern provinces. Unfortunately, a common
feature in modern scholarship has been to take more Of less at face
value the tendentious accusations in Christian sources of Jewish
complicity in the Persian invasion of the eastern provinces; Jewish
armies are alleged to have taken part in some of the campaigns on
the Persian side, for instance at Caesarea, Ptolemais and Tyre, and
Jewish informers to have assisted the Persians in, for example, the

9. Discussion in Cameron, art. cit. 84-86; synagogues: Lee I. Levine, ed., The Synagogue
in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia 1987); see Wilken, The Land Called Holy, 194-202. The
Gaza synagogue had a fine mosaic of King David in the garb of Orpheus.
10. See Robert Gregg and Dan Urman, Jews, Pagans and Christians in the Golan Heights
(forthcoming); for separation: C. Dauphin, 'Jewish and Christian communities in the Roman
and Byzantine Gaulanitis: a study of evidence from archaeological surveys', J!alestble
Exploration Quarterly 114 (1982) 129-82, with Z. Ma'oz, 'Comments on Jewish and
Christian communities in Byzantine Palestine', ibid. 117 (1985) 59-68. Further remarks
on settlement and on the Jewish and Samaritan presence in Palestine, with bibliography,
in John Haldon, 'The Ajnad and the "thematic myth"',
in Averil Cameron, ed., The
Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East III. States, Resources and Armies (Princeton 1995)
379-423, at 410-11; a map showing synagogue locations is published in Y. Tsafrir, L.
Di Segni and J. Green, Tabula Imperii Romani: Iudaea. Palaestina: Maps and Gazetteer
(Jerusalem 1994), and for settlement in our period see 18-19.
11. M. Avi-Yonah, The Jews of Palestine (Oxford 1976) 289; contrast G. Alon, The
Jews in their Land in the Talmudic Age (70-640 CE) (Eng. trans. Jerusalem 1984) 36.

253

~AVERIL CAMERON

sack of Jerusalem. After the fall of the city in A.D. 614, the Persian
army retreated, supposedly leaving the Jews in charge; 12 atrocities
against Christians are the stock-in-trade of the Christian accounts,
most, if not all, of which are characterised by lurid stories and replete
with casually hostile and prejudiced allusions to Jewish complicity.
S. Leder has drawn attention to the distortions in the sources in a
useful article,13 and Glster shows how far the main Greek account
of the sack of Jerusalem in A. D. 614 by Strategios, an author often
wrongly, as in Glster, called Antiochus Monachus, is dominated by
an ideology which sets Jews and Christians against each other. 14 To
the Christians, the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 614 was a blow which
negated three hundred years of Christian rule since Constantine; to
the Jews it represented a shortlived triumph, lasting only until the
Persians changed their minds about Jewish rule. 15 Modern Jewish
historians, with good reason, have also wanted to emphasise this brief
period of turning the tables, when it even appears that Jews were

12. Avi- Yonah, chap. XII is a fairly typical example of acceptance of this scenario; more
critical is P. Schafer, Histoire desjuifs dans l'antiquite (French trans., Paris 1989) 219-23;
Dagron, 'Judalser', 370, allows for real activism.
13. S. Leder, 'The attitudes of the population, especially the Jews, towards the ArabIslamic conquest of Bilad aI-Sham and the question of their role therein', Die Welt des
Orients 18 (1987) 64-71; critical account of the events: Dagron, TM 11 (1991) 22-26.
14. Olster, Roman Defeat, 79-84; however, Olster does not explain the complex transmission of the account of the capture of Jerusalem by Strategios, for which see B. Flusin,
Saint Anastase Ie Perse et I 'histoire de la Palestine au debut du VIle siecle, 2 vols. (Paris,
1992) II 130-33; Wilken, The Land Called Holy, 319, n. 28; 324-25, nn. 5-6. For Jews
in Strategios's account, see Flusin II 162-64, 168. For the Persian episode see Flusin II
151-63, a new and important discussion, with Wilken, The Land Called Holy, chaps. 10-11,
emphasising the immense psychological and emotional impact of the loss of Jerusalem
for Christians; Wilken is particularly good in his use of Sophronius's anacreontic laments
for the fall of the city. Sophronius's anacreontic poems are edited by M. Gigante, Sophronii
Anacreontica, Opuscula. Testi per esercitazioni academiche 10/12 (Rome, 1957), but see
H. Donner, Die anakreontischen Gedichte Nr. 19 und Nr. 20 des Patriarchen Sophronius
von Jerusalem, Sitz. Heidelberger Akad. der Wiss, philosoph.-hist.
Klasse 1981, 10
(Heidelberg 1981). Olster discusses the continuation of this demonising of Jews in the
context of the Arab invasions at 84-92.
15. I have also discussed these events in 'The Trophies of Damascus: the Church, the
Temple and sacred space', inLes cahiers du CEPOA, Actes du colloque de Cartigny 1988
(Leuven 1995) 203-12, with further bibliography; for their ideological importance see Flusin
II 136-40.
254

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

once again allowed to offer worship on the site of the Temple; certainly
Jewish hopes were raised beyond all previous expectation.16
The main problem for the historian in attempting to deal with the
events of the Persian invasion is the difficulty and inadequacy of the
contemporary sources, most of which have yet to receive critical study;
a full and detailed discussion of the Persian invasion is still awaited,
and much needed, but B. Flusin has provided a valuable account in
his recent work on the dossier pertaining to the early seventh-century
martyr known as S. Anastasius the Persian. I? It is clear that the
heightened excitement which is apparent in the sources for the years
before and after A. D. 614 had been mounting since the events
surrounding the deposition of Phocas in A.D. 609/10, which are the
subject of an earlier book by David Olster.18 An increasingly hostile
Byzantine attitude towards Jews from the reign of Justinian on19
encouraged the labelling of Jews as trouble-makers and gave rise to
the fear, if not always the reality, of their participation in civil

16. For Jewish apocalyptic and for the evidence of contemporary Hebrew liturgical poetry
see Cameron, art. cit. (n. 12) 204 n. 4; Wilken, The Land Called Holy, 207-15; Dagron,
TM 11 (1991) 26-28, 41-43 (the most detailed and reliable discussion); F.E. Peters,
Jerusalem. The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims and Prophets from
the Days of Abraham to the Beginning of Modern Times (Princeton 1985) 201 ff., with
id., Jerusalem and Mecca. The Typology of a Holy City (New York 1986) especially 80-122.
On Jerusalem see also Cyril Mango 'The Temple Mount, AD 614-638', in J. Rabyand
J. Johns, eds. Bayt al-Maqdis. 'Abd al-Malik's Jerusalem I, Oxford Studies in Islamic
Art IX (Oxford 1992) 1-16, at 5-6.
17. Above, n. 14, at II 67-93,265-92;
Heraclius in Jerusalem: 293-319.
18. See n. 6 above; see also Dagron, TM 11 (1991) 18-22; brief account in Judith Herrin,
The Formation of Christendom (Princeton 1987) 187-91. The main source is the Chronicle
of John of Nikiu, also in need of critical study; the Doctrina Jacobi is also important on
these events for its account of Jacob's youth as a participant in the urban rioting in vario~s
eastern cities during these years (1.40-41, on which see Dagron, TM 11 [1991] 235-37).
The association of Jews with the Blue and Green circus factions, especially the Blues,
that is mentioned in connection with these episodes has often been accepted by modern
scholars in too strong a sense; seat inscriptions show them sitting together with Blues at
Aphrodisias, Antioch and Tyre, but this need not imply a close or consistent political
connection, see Charlotte Roueche, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (London 1989) 222,
following on from Alan Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford 1976) 149-52. Jews sat together
in groups, as did cult- or trade associations (Charlotte Roueche, Performers and Partisans
at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods [London 1993] 124, cf. 130, 154).
19. See A.M. Rabello, Giustiniano, Ebrei e Samaritani, alla luce delle fonti storicoletterarie, ecclesiastiche e giuridiche (Milan 1987).
255

AVERIL

CAMERON

disturbances to which the Doctrina Jacobi amply attests. But here

too some of the hostile narratives may be cases of retrojection from
later periods when the hostility had become more general and more
intense; thus Theophanes and Michael the Syrian blame the Jews for
the murder of Anastasius II, patriarch of Antioch, in A.D. 609,
whereas the contemporary
Chronicon Paschale has him killed by
soldiers.2o
An invasion of Palestine by a foreign power which might overthrow
the Christian Byzantines and free Jerusalem for the Jews was a very
different matter. Many of the strong feelings in the years before and
after A.D. 614 focused round the highly emotive issue of possession
of the Temple Mount; similar feelings were to be revived even more
strongly after the surrender of Jerusalem to the Muslims by Sophronius
in A.D. 638. It was fundamental to Christians that the Temple
remained in ruins (Mark 13.2; Matth. 24.2, 15), for this was taken
as proof of the triumph of Christianity over Judaism;21 conversely,
Jews longed for its restoration. While the city of Jerusalem was also
symbolic of God's dispensation, and Christians in A.D. 614 lamented
its capture as Jews had done before them,22 the Temple was the
greatest prize. Against all hopes and expectations, Heraclius in A.D.
630 restored to Je~salem the True Cross taken into captivity by the
Persians. If the Jews of Jerusalem had really regained the Temple
Mount, they had soon lost it again. But soon afterwards a bitter blow
was dealt to Christians and Jews alike when the Muslims began to
build on and around it. This seems to have started at an early date,
to judge from an allusion in Anastasius of Sinai and an anonymous

20. Theoph., Chron. 206 de Boor; Michael the Syrian, Chron. X.25; Chron. Pasch. s.a.
610; see J.D. Frendo, 'Who killed Anastasius II?', Jewish Quarterly Review 72 (1982)
202-204, with note ad loco in Michael Whitby and Mary Whitby, Chronicon Paschale
284-628 AD (Liverpool 1989) 150.
21. See further below.
22. The patriarch Zachariah accompanied the prisoners and the Cross into captivity after
the city's capture, in which the Jews, Christianity's forerunners and symbolic enemies,
were envisaged as assisting the Persians; see the vivid discussion by Wilken, The Land
Called Holy, chap. 11. Narrative also in R. Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine
from Byzantine to Islamic Rule. A Historical and Archaeological Study (Princeton 1995).
256

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

Georgian text. 23 Thus the Temple Mount was the subject of intense
ideological rivalry; Cyril Mango has argued recently that Heraclius
had also aspired to build on the contested site, and that the construction
at the Golden Gate is his work.24
Byzantine legislation against Jews
This then is the context for the recording of an imperial edict issued
by Heraclius, requiring the conversion of all Jews to Christianity,
the first example of such legislation in Roman law; it was to be
followed by similar laws passed by Leo III and Basil I. 25 As G.
Dagron has argued, the ambition of achieving forced baptism of all
Jews, however, unlikely per se, was the logical culmination of all
the conversion stories in contemporary hagiography and other
literature.26 The law of Heraclius, passed over in silence by
Theophanes, gave rise to the Doctrina Jacobi, which purports to be
a work of encouragement by one such Jewish convert to Christianity
to his former fellow-religionists; it is also the subject of a letter written
by Maximus Confessor from North Africa in A.D. 632 and published
by Devresse in 1937. Dagron has reviewed the evidence again recently
and supported the authenticity of the letter and the historical reality

23. B. Flusin, 'Les premieres constructions musulmanes sur I'Esplanade du Temple selon
deux "recits edifiants" byzantins', REG 101 (1988) xxv-xxvi; id., 'L'esplanade du Temple
a I'arrivee des Arabes, d'apres deux recits byzantins', in Raby and Johns, eds., Bayt alMaqdis (n. 16) 17-31.
24. Mango, 'The Temple Mount' (n. 16); for an Umayyad date, M. Rosen-Ayalon, The
Early Islamic Monuments of al-Haram al-Sharif, Qedem 28 (Jerusalem 1989) 39, see
Cameron, 'The Jews in seventh-century Palestine', 80 n. 20.
25. Chron., pAOI de Boor; see on this P. Yannopoulos, La societe profane dans ['empire
byzantin des VIle, VIlle, et IXe siecles (Louvain 1975) 247-51, and for the later repetitions
de Lange, 'Jews and Christians in the Byzantine empire' (n. 7) 23; G. Dagron has published
a ninth-century treatise on the subject of baptism of Jews which seems to relate to the
episode under Basil I: G. Dagron, 'Le traite de Gregoire de Nicee sur Ie bapteme des
Juifs', TM 11 (1991) 313-57, and see the comments on this legislation at 347-53. There
is also a valuable brief discussion of Heraclius' s measure in its historical and ideological
context by G. Dagron in G. Dagron, P. Riche and A. Vauchez, eds., Histoire du
Christianisme IV. Eveques, moines et empereurs (610-1054) (Paris 1993) 70-79.
26. Dagron, 'Judai"ser', 363; for conversion stories, see below.

257

AVERIL CAMERON

of the law demanding baptism;27 he argues for the date of A.D. 632
on the basis of Maximus' s letter against A. D. 634, Michael the
Syrian's date for the edict. 28 But while the law is presented as
empire-wide in significance, the only clear evidence of its implementation comes from Maximus in North Africa; the immediate
context in the narratives of both Theophanes and Michael the Syrian
is fanciful and tendentious, and the former's omission of the edict
itself is surprising. It is hard to imagine that much could have been
done to enforce the law, given the imminent Arab invasions, and even
if genuine enough, its import may have been more symbolic than
practical; if writers and hagiographers resorted to fantasies of the
conversion of individuals, it was to be expected that an emperor might
try to achieve the same effect through legislation. Dreams of
conversion and imperial legislation are alike expressions of ideological
and psychological attitudes which found it more and more necessary
to draw boundaries between Christianity and Judaism.

The anti-Jewish dialogues and polemical worl{s against Jews

These extraordinary reversals cannot but have influenced the output
of anti-Jewish dialogues and other writings by Christians during this
ensuing period, and indeed the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the
destruction of the Temple are among the major themes of such works.
Their purpose is both polemical and apologetic: Judaism must be
shown to have been superseded by Christianity in both religious and
historical terms. Thus it was still argued, even after the establishment
of the Umayyad caliphate, that Christian rule spread to the ends of
the earth, even as far west as Britain, and that the world enjoyed
the peace of the church promised by Isaiah after the coming of the
Messiah; in contrast, the Jews had been dispersed and without a

27. Dagron, TM 11 (1991) 30-31; see R. Devreesse, 'La fin inedite d'une lettre de S.
Maxime: un bapteme force de Juifs et Samaritains a Carthage en 632' , Rev. des sciences
religieuses 17 (1937) 25-35; further discussion in C. Laga, 'Judaism and Jews in Maximus
Confessor's works. Theoretical controversy and practical attitude', Byzantinoslavica 51
(1990) 177-88 (cf. 188 'a brutal and at any rate inefficient act of repression').
28. Chron. XI.4, Dagron, 32; cf. Olster, Roman Defeat, 84-85 with useful discussion
of other more dubious sources, which he describes as .contradictory and confusing'.

258

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

Temple for six hundred years.29 It was more important for Christian
writers to reiterate the theme of Jewish defeat after the abortive Jewish
revival under the Persians than it was to engage with real conditions
in the Near East. It has been argued that the anti-Jewish dialogues
represent

a hidden attack on ~v1uslims, 30 but consciousness

of Islam

as a religion with claims to be rebutted seems to take root only towards

the end of the seventh century, and for good reason, for it was then
that the public display of Islam combined with measures against
Christianity and the conversion of Christians to bring Christian
anxieties to the fore.31 The extraordinary concentration in seventhcentury Greek literature from the eastern provinces on Jews and
Judaism (further below), speaks of a more direct aim, and while much
of the content of the dialogues themselves is taken over from the
traditions of the genre,32 it is hard not to see a more immediate
29. Trophies of Damascus, ed. G. Bardy, PO 15 (Paris, 1920),221; on the themes and
their ancestry, see Cameron, 'The Trophies of Damascus' (n. 15),207-208; for the Trophies
see also M. Waegemann, 'Les traites adversus Iudaeos: aspects des relations judeo-chretiens
dans Ie monde grec', Byzantion 56 (1986) 195-313. For some themes, see R. Wilken,
'The restoration of Israel in Biblical prophecy: Jewish and Christian responses in the early
Byzantine period', in J. Neusner and E. Frerichs, eds., 'To see ourselves as others see
us': Christians, Jews and "Others" in Late Antiquity (Chicago 1985) 443-71.
30. So, e.g. Olster, Roman Defeat, 123.
31. See G.R.D. King, 'Islam, iconoclasm and the declaration of doctrine', BSOAS 48
(1985) 267-77; S.H. Griffth, 'Images, Islam and Christian icons. A moment in the
Christian/Muslim encounter in early Islamic times', in P. Canivet and J.-P. Rey-Coquais,
eds., La Syrie de Byzance a ['Islam, Actes du colloque international (Damascus 1992)
121-38; G.J. Reinink, 'The beginnings of Syriac apologetic literature in Greek', Oriens
Christianus 77 (1993) 165-87 (plausibly redating to this period the Syriac dialogue between
the patriarch John and an emir usually assigned the early date of AD 644: see e.g. M.
Cook. 'The origins of kalcim', BSOAS 43 (1981) 171f.; Patricia Crone and Michael Cook,
Hagarism. The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge 1977) 162 n. 11). The Syriac
Apocalypse of Ps. Methodius, quickly translated into Greek, also seems to belong to this
period: GJ. Reinink, 'Ps-Methodius: a concept of history in response to the rise of Islam' ,
in Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad, eds., The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near
East I. Problems in the Literary Source Material (Princeton 1992) 149-87. Apocalyptic
and messianism, characteristic of the period beginning with the reign of Heraclius and
coinciding with the rise to prominence of religious images, brought with them a heightened
ideological awareness of the theme of conversion of the Jews: see Paul Magdalino, 'The
history of the future and its uses: prophecy, policy and propaganda', in Roderick Beaton
and Charlotte Roueche, eds., The Making of Byzantine History. Studies dedicated to Donald
M. Nicol (Alders hot 1993) 3-34, at 18-21.
32. Examples of which are listed in H. Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Adversus-Iudaeos
Texte und ihr literarische Umfeld I-II (Frankfurt a.M./Bern 1982, 1988); for our period,
see especially Deroche, 'La polemique anti-juda'ique' (n. 3).

259

AVERIL CAMERON

contemporary application in this period. 33

The appearance of a new critical edition of the Doctrina Jacobi
nuper baptizati by V. Deroche34 is an important addition to the
scholarly literature, placing linguistic and other comparisons between
this and the other texts on a much more secure footing. In comparison,
while a reasonable edition of the Trophies of Damascus was provided
by G. Bardy in 1920,35 the Dialogue of Papiscus and Philo with a
Monk depends on an unsatisfactory and inaccessible text36 and the
Ps. Athanasian Quaestiones ad Antiochum lack a critical edition, and
their date is still a matter of disagreement. 37 Dating these works is
indeed often difficult: the problems are compounded by the probable
circulation of different and partial versions, and by subsequent revision
and alteration.38 Somewhat misleadingly, Olster terms them the

33. Jews more the aim than Muslims, even in eighth-century texts: see Reinink, 'The
beginnings of Syriac apologetic', 169-70.
34. See n. 2 above.
35. See no. 29 above.
36. A.C. McGiffert, ed., Dialogue between a Christian and a Jew (Marbourg 1889);
further bibliography cited by Deroche, art. cit. 279. Deficiencies of McGiffert's edition:
Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte, 256-57.
37. Nos. 42 and 137 in the collection are relevant; see PG 28,621-24,684-700,
709;
discussion of the collection in John Haldon, 'The works of Anastasius of Sinai: a key source
for the history of seventh-century East Mediterranean society and belief' , in Cameron and
Conrad, eds., The Early Byzantine and Islamic Near East I, 107-47, at 120-25; see also
F.J. Martiriez, Eastern Christian Apologetic in the Early Muslim Period (PhD. diss., Catholic
U. of America 1985) 529-30. On the date of the PS.-Athanasian Quaestiones (before
Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones), see Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte, 246-52, and on the
relationship between the Trophies, the Dialogue of Papiscus and Philo and the Dialexis
of Anastasius of Sinai (PG 89. 1203-72) ibid., 253-68.
38. Thiimmel, loco cit.; see also Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests, App.
1,231-25, on the date of the Dialexis ascribed to Anastasius of Sinai, with general discussion
at 220-27. Olster, Roman Defeat, 131-33 puts the Dialogue of Papiscus and Philo first,
then the Trophies of Damascus, and last the Quaestiones, but the Dialogue of Papiscus
and Philo in particular seems to have gone through a number of stages of redaction;
Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte, 268, with discussion of manuscripts and textual borrowings,
sees the Dialexis of Anastasius of Sinai (third quarter, seventh century) as preceding the
Dialogue, the Trophies and the Quaestiones of Ps. Athanasius. The Disputation of S.
Gregentius, bishop of the Himyarites, with Herbanus the Jew, PG 86,621-784,
is dated
by Deroche, art. cit., 276-77, with full bibliography, to the late sixth or early seventh
century, by Olster, Roman Defeat, chap. 7. to the mid-seventh century; Olster places its
composition in Jerusalem. For other dialogues with a 'foreign' dramatic setting see Olster,
ibid., 155 n. 2.

260

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

'Syrian dialogues', 39 but while they may all originate in a very

general sense from the eastern provinces, if not certainly from Syria
itself, their language is Greek, with the exception of the Syriac
Dialogue of Sergius the Stylite with a Jew, apparently of the early
eighth century. 40They belong, moreover, in a broader context of
anti-Jewish works. Glster does not discuss the fragmentary Apology
against the Jews of Leontius of Neapolis in Cyprus, known indirectly
through the Acts of II Nicaea and the treatises on images of John
of Damascus, where it is cited. This work, by a writer of hagiography,41 is one of the earliest to connect the defence of religious
images with arguments against supposed Jewish allegations of idolatry ,
a theme which was taken up in later discussion, notably by John of
Damascus and in the Acts of II Nicaea, but also, for example, in
the Dialogue of Papiscus and Philo;42 Leontius's treatise contained
an Old Testamentjlorilegium of citations for use in argument against
Jews. A treatise against the Jews by Anastasius of Sinai is mentioned

39. Roman Defeat, chap. 6.

40. Ed. P.A. Hayman, CSCO 338-39 (Louvain 1973); see also P. Hayman, 'The image
of the Jew in the Syriac anti-Jewish literature', in Neusner and Frerichs, eds., 'To see
ourselves as others see us' (n. 29) 423-41. Olster's identification of the authors of the
dialogues as 'Syrian Melkites' (ibid., 138) is very misleading: not only does it ascribe
to them the unsatisfactory label 'Syrian', but it ignores the much broader context of this
literature, with examples from, e.g. Cyprus, and elsewhere.
41. For Leontius's Life of John the Almsgiver and his Life of S. Spyridon, see C. Mango,
'Leontius of Neapolis: a Byzantine hagiographer at work', in 1. Hutter, ed., Byzanz und
der Westen (Vienna 1985) 25-41; Averil Cameron, 'Cyprus at the time of the Arab
conquests', Journal of the Cyprus Historical Society 1 (1992) 27-50, at 34-35, 39-40. D.
Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool. Leontius IS Life and the Late Antique City (Berkeley and
Los Angeles 1996) discusses Leontius and his literary work in chap. 1, and see now the
detailed treatment in V. Deroche, Etudes sur Uontios de Neapolis (Uppsala 1996).
42. For the authenticity and date, see V. Deroche, 'L' authenticite de l' "Apologie contre
les Juifs" de Leontios de Neapolis', BCH 110 (1986) 655-69, with id., 'La polemique
anti-judalque', 278, against P. Speck, 'Zu dem Dialog mit einem Juden des Leontios von
Neapolis', Poikila Byzantina 4, Varia 1 (1984) 242-49; ibid. 6, Varia 2 (1987) 315-22,
who sees in it the hand of a later iconophile writer. Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte, 340-64,
prints the passages in these texts relevant to images, from Leontius of Neapolis to Stephen
of Bostra; for the relation of other texts to the fragment by Leontius of Neapolis, see the
discussion at 246-52. The issue of images in the anti-Jewish literature was already discussed
by Norman Baynes, 'The icons before Iconoclasm', Harvard Theological Review 44 (1951)
93-106 (repr. in his Byzantine Studies and Other Essays, London 1955) no. XV.
261

AVERIL CAMERON

in his Hexaemeron,43 and fragments survive of a seventh or eighthcentury Dialogue on the Trinity between a Jew and a Christian by
Jerome of Jerusalem,44 as of a similar work by Stephen of Bostra
cited by John of Damascus, also with an Old Testament
jlorilegium.45 In his De fide orthodoxa, John of Damascus himself
addressed the question of the Jewish Sabbath, and hoped for the
conversion of the Jews.46 A number of other works against the Jews
are listed in vol. III of the Clavis Patrum Graecorum, some of
uncertain date;47 the genre is included by J. Munitiz in his valuable
list of Byzantine catechetical 'teaching-aids', with the comment that
this is 'an exceptionally broad category that remains to be
explored'.48 Typical of the penumbra that surrounds the core of (to
us) known texts is the appearance of a story in John Moschus, Pratum
Spirituale, referring to the author's 'debating with Hebrews', urged
by a certain Cosmas of Alexandria, who had a large library which
John consulted: 'I visited him every day, and I never entered without
finding him either reading or writing against the Jews: for he devoted
great zeal to bringing Jews to the truth' .49Another debate between
Christians and Jews is mentioned in Anastasius of Sinai's Bodegas,
a treatise largely devoted to refuting Monophysites.5o Whether or
not the story in John Moschus is to be taken at face value, it illustrates
very well the fact that anti-Jewish debate in this period depended on
43. PG 89,933; the Hexaemeron itself defends the doctrine of the Trinity against Jews,
barbarians and Samaritans, with most emphasis on the Jews.
44. PG 40, 847-60, 865; 94, 1409; see B. Kotter, Johannes von Damaskos III (1975),
194; Schreckenberg, 468. Mention of images (94, 1409) points to later in our period.
45. PG 94, 1376 B-D; for the date (seventh to early eighth-century) see Deroche,
'L'authenticite',
663 n. 45; M. Sartre, Rostra. Des origines a I'Islam (Paris 1985) 116-17.
46. See Schreckenberg, 473; for the 'Answers to the Jews' preserved in Armenian see
H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich 1959)
479, with 486.
47. M. Geerard, Clavis Patrum Graecorum III (Louvain 1974), nos. 7798-7802; cf. the
reference by Deroche, 'L'authenticite', 660 n. 34, to 'textes inedits ou quasi-inaccessibles'.
48. J. Munitiz, 'Catechetical teaching-aids in Byzantium', in J. Chrysostomides, ed.,
Kathegetria. Essays presented to Joan Hussey (Camberley, 1988), 69-83, at 78.
49. PG 87.3,3040-41; see Deroche, 'La polemique anti-judai'que', 285, who takes Casmas
to be producing texts (perhapsjlorilegia) for others to use in their own arguments (translation
from de Lange, 'Jews and Christians in the Byzantine Empire', 26).
50. Hodegos XIV .1, ed. K.-H. Uthemann (Turnhout 1981) 257-58, and see the discussion
in Deroche, 'La palemique anti-judalque', 284-86.

262

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

serious research and the collection of armouries of proof texts. The

same conclusion follows from the Kephalaia epaporetika published
by Deroche, a collection of questions for Christians to use in
arguments with Jews, which reveals the energy with which such
materials were now being produced.51 The argument is constructed
in syllogisms designed to show the falsity or the absurdity of Jewish
claims, and while a substantial part is derived from traditional
Christian arguments on the subject, the collection does not content
itself with arguing for the truth of Christianity, but takes the offensive
and seeks to demolish Jewish claims on their own ground.
Do these texts represent real debates?52 While V. Deroche,
followed by G. Dagron, envisage Jewish initiatives in this regard,53
the evidence is one-sided; in any case, there is no single answer, just
as there is no single type for the texts themselves. The Kephalaia
and the Quaestiones of Ps. Athanasius fall into the category of handbooks, and some of the polemical works are essentially scholastic
treatises. Even among the disputations and dialogues themselves there
is great variation in structure, dramatic setting and fictionality, with
the Trophies of Damascus high on the scale as far as the last two
are concerned. It would be a mistake to conclude that religious debates
never occurred, and indeed there is plenty of evidence to show that
they did; contemporaries were also well attuned to public debating
on such issues by experience of frequent synods and councils, and
by formal confrontations summoned in particular circumstances. 54
But there is little or no direct evidence of real public debates between
Christians and Jews, and the rhetorical and scholastic nature of much
of the argumentation in the surviving texts suggests that they are more
51. Greek text and French translation in Deroche, 'La polernique anti-judai"que' , 299-307,
with commentary at 308-11; the editor supposes a seventh-century date.
52. See Cameron, 'The eastern provinces', 306-307; Dagron, TM 11 (1991) 370, and
for the Christian-Muslim texts, Reinink, 'The beginnings of Syriac apologetic literature',
169; see also B. Blumenkranz, luifs et chretiens dans la monde occidental, 430-1096 (Paris,
The Hague 1960).
53. Deroche, 'La polemique anti-judai"que', 284 f.; Dagron, 'Judai"ser', 370.
54. See Averi! Cameron, 'Disputations, polemical literature and the formation of opinion
in early Byzantine literature', in G.J. Reinink and H.J.L. Vanstiphout, eds., Dispute Poems
and Dialogues in the Ancient and Medieval Near East, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta
42 (Leuven 1991) 91-108, at 102-104.

263

AVERIL CAMERON

expressive of what Nicholas de Lange has called 'an official theology

of Judaism'55 than of religious argument as actually practised.
However, the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati must be regarded as
an exception, not, perhaps, in that it records a real debate, but in
the amount of plausible circumstantial detail which it includes. 56 The
general air of unreality which hangs over the Christian texts, with
this exception, also helps to explain what is otherwise puzzling, namely
the relative absence of Jewish response. The question is addressed
by de Lange, who rightly points out that evidence of Jewish attitudes
is better sought in other literary genres, for example liturgical poetry
or midrashim; 57 disputations with Christians written by Jews are
hard to find because Jews lacked the theological imperative in this
period to prove Christians wrong which Christians had towards them,
and in any case were in no position to engage them in public debate
so as to do SO.58
While it may well be the case therefore that the special circumstances
of the early seventh century gave a new urgency to the familiar
arguments of Christians against Judaism, the basic genre was also
a traditional one, which functioned in this period as a way of teaching
orthodox Christians the essentials of their faith, and providing them
with arguments with which to counter possible critics; as such it
stands alongside the outpouring of treatises in this period by writers
such as Anastasius of Sinai and John of Damascus against other
heretical or mistaken groups, including Monophysites, Manichaeans,
and, in time, Muslims.59 Seen in this light, it becomes easier to
55. 'Jews and Christians in the Byzantine empire', 26-27.
56. See Cameron, 'The Jews in seventh-century Palestine', 83-84.
57. De Lange, 'Jews and Christians in the Byzantine empire', 27-29; one could add Jewish
apocalyptic. See also E.I.J. Rosenthal, 'Anti-Christian
polemics in medieval Bible
commentaries',
Journal of Jewish Studies 11 (1960) 115-35.
58. See also Cameron, 'The Jews in seventh-century Palestine', 90; it is argued by Deroche,
'La polemique anti-judai:que', 296, and Dagron, 'Judaiser', 365-66, that open polemic
by Jews against Christians was a fundamental feature of seventh-century life, though
Deroche, loco cit., has to find an explanation for the lack of surviving examples.
59. See Averil Cameron, 'Texts as weapons: polemic in the Byzantine dark ages', in
Alan Bowman and Greg Wolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cambridge
1994) 198-215, and review ofR. Le Coz, ed., Jean Damascene. Ecrits sur l'/slam, Sources
chretiennes 383 (Paris 1991) inJThS n.s. 46 (1995) 368-72. The development and rhetorical
techniques of heresiology in this period deserve a full study.

264

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

understand why Judaism and indeed Islam, which from our perspective
are not Christian heresies but separate religions, should themselves
feature in these lists. An interesting variation is to be found in the
Doctrina Jacobi,. where the newly converted Jacob attempts to explain
the doctrine of the Trinity without falling into heresy, for the slightest
deviation from which, it is stated, even bishops and patriarchs have
been excommunicated. 60 Some at least of this didactic literature was
highly technical, with authors vying with each other to produce new
proof texts, 61 while some fulfilled a more practical need for instruction in times of dislocation and disturbance.62 The writings against
Jews may be as much academic exercises or works of practical
catechesis as expressions of contemporary ideology. In this general
context, the interpretation of the Doctrina Jacobi presents a special
case. It purports to be addressed to other Jews rather than to Christians,
and to be encouraging them to convert as Jacob had done; in contrast
the tone of the Trophies of Damascus is sharply triumphalist, and
that dialogue ends with a scathing portrayal of learned Jews discomfited in the argument. 63 The Doctrina Jacobi also has more
circumstantial detail than most of the treatises, some of which make
few claims to verisimilitude.
References to Jews and Judaism in other types of literature
The extent to which this specialised literature also belonged within
a general context of hostile references to Jews and Judaism is less
often remarked. Given the mounting suspicion on the Christian side,
which found expression in Heraclius' s law of AD 632, it followed
that 'judai:ser' would become the worst, and at the same time the most
common, form of accusation to be levelled at one's enemies.64 The
60. Doctrina II. 5.
61. Notable here are P. Van den Ven, 'La patristique et l'hagiographic au condIe de
Nicee de 787', Byzantion 25-27 (1957) 325-62; Cameron, 'Texts as weapons', 203-206
and C. Mango, 'The availability of books in the Byzantine Empire, AD 750-850', in
Byzantine Books and Bookmen (Washington, D.C. 1975) 29-45.
62. Cameron, ibid., 207-208; see Haldon, 'The works of Anastasius of Sinai'.
63. See Cameron, 'The Trophies of Damascus', 207-208; these slink away in dudgeon,
but some conversion is also envisaged. See Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte,
268 on the
idiosyncrasy of this text.
64. See Dagron, 'Judai'ser', 364.

265

AVERIL CAMERON

Byzantines in our period were both fascinated by Jews and Judaism

and fearful of them. Not only literary texts but also the contemporary
church canons show a constant preoccupation with the subject,65 and
it is at once apparent from even the most cursory reading of the
relevant part of such works as the Chronicles of Theophanes or
Michael the Syrian (ultimately dependent on contemporary sources),
or the Annals of the patriarch Eutychius, 66 all three of which are
main sources for the period. There are no doubt many reasons for
this bias, including a long previous history in the rhetorical practice
of homiletic;67 it is revived with particular force in the eighthcentury homilies by writers such as Andrew of Crete. 68 Another
manifestation of the same tendency is the common story of a supposed
Jewish informer or evil genius, who is blamed for present ills. Thus
Theophanes attributes the iconoclastic decree of Yazid II to the
influence of a 'Jewish wizard'; 69a variant appears in the Suda entry
on Jesus, which consists largely of a story about a Jew called
Theodosius who had secret information about the existence of a Jewish
document of the time of Christ which recorded that Jesus was the
Son of God and born from the Virgin Mary. 70Conversely, the conversion or symbolic defeat of Jews is a common theme in hagiography,
not least in the Life of Symeon the Fool by the same Leontius of
65. Ibid., 365-66.
66. Ed. and trans. M. Breydy, Das Annalen werk des Eutychios von Alexandrien, CSCO
471-72, Script. arab. 50-51 (Leuven 1985); cf. id., Etudes sur Sa'rd ibn Batrrq et ses
sources, CSCO Subsidia 69 (Leuven 1983).
67. Recognisable for example in the well-known Christmas homily of Sophronius of AD
634 (ed. H. Usener, Rh.Mus. n.f. 41 [1886] 500-16, e.g. at 514). For a sixth-century
example cf. P. Allen and C. Datema, eds. Leontii presbyteri Constantinopolitani: Homiliae,
CCSG 17 (Leuven 1987) 54; the theme has a long history (see especially R. Wilken, John
Chrysostom and the Jews. Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century [Berkeley and
Los Angeles 1983]).
68. Cf. his homily on Lazarus, PG 97, especially 964, 976-77.
69. Chron., pp. 40 1-402 de Boor.
70. See de Lange, 'Jews and Christians', 19. The messiahship of Jesus and the geneaology
of the Virgin Mary were two of the key components in Christian-Jewish debate: question
137 in the Quaestiones of Ps. Athanasius asks how Jews can be persuaded to recognise
Jesus as the Messiah, and the genealogy of Mary is the subject, for example, of a letter
by Jacob of Edessa to the stylite John of Litarb (d.737), for which see Reinink, 'The
beginnings of Syriac apologetic', 168-70. The 'Jew from Tiberias' and the story of the
genealogy of Mary also appear in the Doctrina Jacobi.
266

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

Neapolis who is the author of the Apology against the Jews. 71Other
types of literature circulating in our period include the apocryphal
Discussion of St. Sylvester, a fictional dispute between the bishop
of Rome and twelve Jews in the presence of Constantine and his
mother Helena, which was known to the author of the Syriac Dialogue
of Sergius the Stylite, which also drew on older Syriac anti-Jewish
works by Aphrahat and Ephrem.72
There were other reasons why there may have been a heightened
awareness of Judaism in the seventh century. One was that this period
also saw a significant development in the cult of the Cross, particularly
after the capture and restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem in
AD 614 and 630 respectively. 73Homilies and other works celebrating the Cross tended to contain passages disparaging the Jews. Another
reason is that, as I have already argued, one tum taken by theological
debate during the seventh century was to return to a more literal and
physical interpretation of the Incarnation, which had the effect of
stimulating debate about the status of created matter; in this context,
Christians were highly sensitive to possible Jewish allegations that
they worshipped created objects, whether the Cross, images or Christ
Himself, and were thus idolaters.74 Those whose works addressed
these issues included Anastasius of Sinai,75 and the three Orations
in Defence of Images by John of Damascus (citing Leontius of
Neapolis) contain the most fully developed defence against such
charges.76 Whether, as has been argued recently by Sidney Griffith,
71. On the Life, dating from the 640s, see Krueger, Symeon the Holy Fool, with translation
at 131-71. For Jews see ibid., 12-13,43, 122 (on the stories of a Jewish glassblower and
another Jewish artisan brought to baptism by Symeon). For the theme of conversion see
also Dagron, 'Judalser', 369, 372-76, who is however inclined to place more weight on
some of the stories than I might do myself.
72. See Hayman (n. 40), CSCO 339, 25 f., 15. A Syriac translation of a Greek collection
of testimonies (proof texts) against Jews has been suggested as another source, though one
should bear in mind the multiplicity and variety of the collections apparently in circulation.
73. The restoration of the Cross to Jerusalem in 630: Flusin, Saint Anastase II 293-319;
the Cross and Jews: ibid., 317. Cross and images: Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte, 246-47;
icons in anti-Jewish texts: ibid., 340-64.
74. Averil Cameron,
'The language of images: the rise of icons and Christian
representation',
in D. Wood, ed., The Church and the Arts, Studies in Church History
28 (Oxford 1992) 1-42.
75. See Anna Kartsonis, Anastasis (Princeton 1986) 40-63.
76. See also Cameron, 'The Jews in seventh-century Palestine', 88-89.
267

A VERIL CAMERON

John's concerns were with local, that is Muslim, iconoclastic

tendencies,77 or with measures taken in Constantinople, as still
seems to me likely, the connection of iconoclastic with Jewish lines
of thought was a natural one for him to make in this context. The
first stage of concern about religious images focused firmly on this
issue of idolatry, and the opponents of images were quickly associated
by their rivals with the Jewish position on this subject. The appearance
of the theme of religious images in Christian anti-Jewish dialogues
from Leontius of Neapolis onwards, as being among the Christian
objects of veneration or worship to which Jews allegedly took
exception, is one of the striking features in the texts, and one which
links Christian-Jewish polemic firmly with the iconoclastic debates
of the eighth century. Here the Dialogue of Papiscus and Philo
deserves comment, despite the incoherent form in which it has come
down to us, and the unsatisfactory edition in which it must be read,
since it shows a hardening of attitudes against Jews, combined with
explicit reference to the debate about images; the repertoire of Old
Testament 'signs' familiar from John of Damascus is juxtaposed with
accusations against the Jews, their responsibility for the crucifixion
and their punishment in the destruction of the Temple. 'Where are
the tablets, the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle, the rod of Aaron,
the burning bush, manna, the pillar of fire?', it asks; all are gone,
and the Jews defeated.78 It is hardly surprising, then, when the
argument in John of Damascus's Orations in defence of images lapses
easily into condemnation of the Jews, as does the treatise on the

77. Paper delivered to the Fourth Workshop of the Late Antiquity and Early Islam Project,
London, 1994. The attempt by D. Sahas, 'The Arab character of the disputation with Islam.
The case of John of Damascus (ca. 655-ca. 749)', in Religionsgespriiche im Mittelalter,
Wolfenbiitteler Mittelalter-Studien (Berlin 1993) 185-205, to present John as an 'enlightened
Arab' is not convincing; more critical, if not actually over-sceptical, is M.-F. Auzepy,
'De la Palestine a Constantinople
(VIIIe-IXe siecles): Etienne Ie Sabai'te et Jean
Damascene', TM 12 (1994) 183-218.
78. McGiffert, 59 f., 68; in the later recension, where this hardening of attitudes is to
be seen, the Old Testament signs are not adduced as elsewhere to point to the coming
of Christ, but rather to demonstrate the victory of Christianity over Judaism. That the
Old Testament was problematic for Christians is clearly shown by their continuing concern,
even in this late period, to demonstrate that it could indeed be put to their own uses; see
Dagron, 'Judai'ser', 377-80.

268

BYZANTINES AND JEWS: SOME RECENT WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

subject by John's disciple Theodore Abu Qurrah;79 both these works

draw on earlier examples of anti-Jewish literature, and the latter
explicitly cites Ps. Athanasius. It is in the Acts of the Second Council
of Nicaea in AD 787 that the identification of Iconoclasts and Jews
reaches its height: the Iconoclasts are described as 'godless Jews and
enemies of the truth', and Jews are routinely blamed for their supposed
part in attacks on images.8o Surely this, more than any other factor,
is what accounts for the rabidly anti-Jewish tone of later writers about
the period, from Theophanes to Eutychius, who themselves belong
to the victorious iconophile tradition.
The appearance of caricatured portrayals of Jews in the ninthcentury illustrated psalters takes this development a stage further,
and has been well documented in a major study by Kathleen
Corrigan.81 Corrigan traces the influence of the anti-Jewish texts on
the ideological message of the psalter illustrations, but sees it as a
problem that the themes in visual art seem to make so late an
appearance. She explains this by suggesting that the ninth-century,
post-Iconoclastic psalters are extending the argument to the real
contemporary enemies of Orthodoxy, namely Iconoclasts and
Muslims.82 The present survey shows, I hope, that anti-Jewish
argumentation persisted in its own right, and that while there was
indeed an equation made between Jews and Iconoclasts, there is no
need to regard all anti-Jewish writing as covert polemic against
Muslims; indeed, it has never been explained by the proponents of
this view why such polemic needed to be covert. The illustrations
in the psalters are indeed ideologically inspired, but their target is
Iconoclasm, and that is more than enough to explain the presence
79. Ed. I Dick, Theodore Abuqurra, Traite du culte des icones (Jounieh and Paris 1986);
see S.H. Griffith, 'Theodore Abu Qurrah's Arabic tract on the Christian practice of
venerating images', Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (1985) 53-73.
80. E.g. Mansi XIII. 41; 24-32; Jews are linked with 'Hagarenes and other infidels' in
their objections to images and the Cross: 357D. See further Dagron, 'Judalser', 367 for
Iconoclasts as Judaizers.
81. K. Corrigan, Visual Polemics ifz the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psaltes (Cambridge
1992), especially chaps. 2-3. This book has already been interestingly discussed in this
journal by L. Brubaker, 'Life imitates art: writings on Byzantine art history, 1991-92',
BMGS 17 (1993) 173-223, at 180-86.82. See Brubaker, art. cit., 182-83.
269

AVERIL CAMERON

of Jewish stereotypes; a helpful article by Herbert Kessler underlines

this point.83 Also in our period, and surely not by accident, the use
of the visual theme of the crucifixion emphasised the fact of Christ's
suffering in the flesh, while reminding Christians of the role played
by the Jews, and the appearance of the Jewish Tabernacle in contemporary visual art illustrated the fact of its supersession.84 Visual
art, no less than texts, expressed the ideology of Christianity's victory
over Judaism.
Jews and Muslims
If the Christian anti-Jewish literature is not to be regarded as a front
for a confrontation with Islam, what is its place in the context of the
development of the latter as a new religion during the course of the
seventh century? And what was the place of the Jews themselves in
this development? The latter question was given an answer in the
controversial book, Hagarism, by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook,
with similar views expressed in an article by Crone published shortly
afterwards: 85 to quote from the latter, 'Islam is Judaism restated as
an Arab faith'. 86 This extreme position has not found general
acceptance, although many, if not all, western scholars now recognise
the fragility of much of the Arabic source tradition for early Islamic
history which is the main platform of Crone and Cook's thesis.
Crone's article, perhaps paradoxically, suffers to my mind from a
willingness to take non-Muslim sources at face value, in particular
the Christian picture of Judaism; this is of course as dangerous as
the method that she attacks. Other recent books which also lay stress
on Judaism in the context of the rise of Islam are Garth Fowden's

83. H. Kessler, '''Pictures fertile with truth": how Christians managed to make images
of God without violating the Second Commandment' , Journal of the Walters Art Gallery
49/50 (1991/2) 53-65, also discussed by Brubaker, art. cit., 187.
84. See H. Kessler, 'Through the Temple veil: the holy image in Judaism and Christianity',
Kairos 32/33 (1993) 53-77; for Jews in Byzantine art see also E. Revel-Neher, The Image
of the Jew in Byzantine Art (Oxford 1992).
85. Above, n. 31; cf. Patricia Crone, 'Islam, Judaeo-Christianity and Byzantine Iconoclasm', Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980) 59-95.
86. Art. cit., 63.
270

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

Empire to Commonwealth and Fergus Millar's, The Roman Near

East.87 The context of this debate, which is still very much in its
early stages, is the interest now being shown by historians in such
questions as cultural identity and ethnicity, against traditional emphases
on military explanations, combined with a more critical and nuanced
understanding of the written sources.
This is not the place to take the issue further. The important
contribution of Judaism, and indeed Christianity (the religions of
'peoples of the book'), to Islam is evident to anyone who consults
the Qur'an.88 More should be said however about the Christian antiJewish literature of the period and its dual relation both to the
development of Christian-Muslim apologetic and to the emergence
of Muslim kalam. In the first place, there is a considerable overlap
in the themes considered in Christian works dealing with Jewish and
Muslim concepts. Anastasius of Sinai's Hodegos includes Arabs with
Jews and 'Greeks', i.e. pagans, as unbelievers, and refers to their
sacred books. 89 The status of the signs by which the divine will is
revealed, the identification of the Messiah, the status of prophecy
are all common to the Christian-Jewish and Christian-Muslim works
alike. In the Syriac Disputation of Sergius the Stylite with a Jew, Jesus
is claimed as the new prophet greater than Moses. The Christian cites
In. 5:43 on false prophets and comments 'Here He indicated the false
and deceiving Messiah whom you (sc. the Jews) in your error are
expecting' (ch. 22.18). The issue is not merely about true versus false
87. G. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth. Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity
(Princeton 1993); Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 BC-AD 337 (Cambridge, Mass.,
1993); while the latter deals with an earlier period, it lays heavy emphasis on Judaism,
as a carrier of cultural identity in the Near East (and strenuously denies a 'Syrian' or 'Arab'
identity), and Millar's arguments, especially in the Epilogue, have considerable implications
for the events of the seventh century, emphasising in particular the profound influence
of external, Jewish-Christian, conceptions on the development of Arab identity. See also
in this connection G.W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1990). Kaegi,
Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests, poses the 'problem' of Arab success in terms
of military strategy, and regards Jews as probable allies of the Muslims against a hostile
Byzantine state (see e. g. 116-17).
88. For the attitudes expressed towards Christians and Jews in the Qur'an see A.~T.
Khoury, Les theologiens byzantins et l'Islam. Textes et auteurs (VIlle-XIlle s.) (LouvainParis 1969) 15-30.
89. S. H. Griffith, 'Anastasios of Sinai, the Hodegos, and the Muslims', Greek Orthodox
Quarterly Review 32 (1987) 341-58, see 358.
271

AVERIL CAMERON

prophecy, but also about true versus false prophets. The status of
Mu1)ammad as a prophet, the signs by which he is known, and the
comparison of Mu1)ammadand Jesus are already issues in the Qur'an.
Thus, for a time, Islamic thinking developed side by side with
Christian treatments of similar themes in the different context of antiJewish disputes. The earliest Greek writer to show clear awareness
of Qur'anic doctrines is Anastasius of Sinai;9owhen Christians took
up the Muslim challenge, they did so by drawing on Old Testament
prophecy to refute Qur' anic teachings in a manner very familiar from
the anti-Jewish literature. According to John of Damascus, the burden
of proof was upon Musliins:cthey were the ones who should be asking
for proofs that Muhammad is a prophet, but 'they remain silent'. 91
As for the development of kalam, the valuable article on the subject
by Michael Cook92 stresses the importance of Syriac as well as the
Greek antecedents commonly adduced, but still gives only a limited
picture of the rich documentation of earlier disputation literature, and
criticises earlier discussions for being 'oddly biased' (sic) towards
Christian polemic against the Jews;93 against this view, while there
were indeed many kinds of disputation besides the Christian-Jewish
ones, the subject matter of the latter alone surely does make them
a major element in the evolution of Muslim debates, just as they lead
naturally into the genre of Christian-Muslim apologetic.94

90. See Griffith, 'Anastasios of Sinai'.

91. PG 94.768A. For some of the apologetic themes, see D. Sahas, 'The formation of
later Islamic doctrines as a response to Byzantine polemics: the miracles of Muhammad' ,
ibid. 27 (1982) 307-24; S. Stroumsa, 'The Signs of Prophecy: the emergence and
development of a theme in Arabic theological literature', Harvard Theological Review
78 (1985) 104-14. For John of Damascus on Islam (treated as a 'heresy'), and the authenticity
of De Haeresibus 100 and the Dialogue between a Saracen and a Christian, see now R.
Le Coz, Jean Damascene: Ecrits sur I '[slam, Sources chretiennes 383 (Paris 1992), with
rev. by Averil Cameron, JTh.S n.s. 46 (1995) 368-72.
92. Above, n. 31.
93. Cook, 'The origins of kalam', 34, criticising J. Van Ess, 'Disputationspraxis
in der
islamischer Theologie, eine vorlaufiger Skizze', Rev. des et. islamiques 44 (1976) 23-60.
94. On which see S.H. Griffith, 'Disputes with Muslims in Syriac Christian texts: from
patriarch John (d.648) to Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286), in Religionsgespriiche im Mittelalter,
Wolfenbiitteler Mittelalter-Studien
(Berlin 1993) 251-73; for the date of the letter of the
Patriarch John see above, n. 31. Also valuable is A. Ducellier, Le Miroir de l'[slam.
Musulmans et chreriens d'orient au Moyen Age (VIIe-Xle siecle) (Paris 1971). (After
272

BYZANTINES

AND JEWS: SOME RECENT

WORK ON EARLY BYZANTIUM

It has been something of an article of faith that Jews were treated

better under Islam than by the Byzantines. 95 This view has been
challenged lately and a picture of Muslim oppression of Jews
advocated in its place.96 It is not hard to see a hidden agenda here,
and the truth must lie somewhere at mid-point, though given the nature
of the sources, an objective assessment remains difficult. 97 But we
can now say with some confidence that the Arab conquest did not
constitute the massive and immediate cultural divide that has so often
been assumed; life went on in many places much as before, with local
contacts between the existing inhabitants and the newcomers. 98 A
more realistic date for substantial, though still gradual, change would
have to be found in the mid-eighth century, with the move of the
Islamic capital to the east at Baghdad, with something of a turningpoint earlier, coinciding with the public display of Islam towards the
end of the seventh century.

This survey has been restricted in the main to the seventh and early
eighth centuries. It could of course have started earlier and concluded
later. But I would still argue that during that time-span a variety of
particular reasons combined to intensify Byzantine awareness of, and
perhaps apprehension about, Jews and Judaism. The catalogue of
John of Damascus, the Christian-Muslim debates move largely, though not wholly, from
Greek into Arabic: see e.g. S.H. Griffith, 'The first Christian Summa Theologiae in Arabic:
Christian Kalam in ninth century Palestine', in M. Gervers and R.J. Bikhazi, eds.,
Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth
to Eighteenth Centuries (Toronto 1989) 15-31; 'Greek into Arabic. Life and letters in the
monasteries of Palestine in the ninth century: the example of the Summa Theologiae
Arabica', Byzantion 56 (1986) 117-38.
95. Even, e.g. S. Reif, in an otherwise valuable article (above, p.252), 139, claims Islamic
rule as a 'golden age' for Jews; many historians simply assume without question that Jews
were ill-treated by, and hostile to, Byzantines.
96. Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (Eng. trans., New Jersey,
London, Toronto 1985).
97. See M. Cohen, 'Islam and the Jews: myth, counter-myth and history', The Jerusalem
Quarterly 38 (1986) 125-37.
98. See the archaeological evidence presented in G.R.D. King and Averil Cameron, eds.,
The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East II. Land Use and Settlement Patterns (Princeton
1994).

273

A VERIL CAMERON

references does not make happy reading, but whether it adds up to

anti-semitism in the manner in which we have come to know it is
questioIlable, for the Byzantines did not mince their words when
writing about any group of which they did not approve, whether
heretics, schismatics or pagans. 99 Recent work has been moving
towards a recognition that what we are seeing is the development
of stereotypes, and the extent to which some of the most apparently
circumstan~ial historical accounts of the period are themselves
ideologically driven and dominated by these polemical categories.
But the thrust of recent. work goes beyond that. It is beginning to
be clear, first, that the theological and ideological arguments of the
period had repercussions in every level and corner of Byzantine
society, and second, that the complex situation in the eastern provinces
in the century of Islam can only be understood after the most detailed
and patient work on individual parts of the evidence, whether literary
texts or the archaeological record. In the several joint enterprises
between Byzantinists and Islamicists that have been a feature of the
last decade and which are still continuing, 100 the role of the Jews has
quickly emerged as one of the most central themes to be explored,
and indeed, one of the striking features of recent years has been the
way in which this has been taken up by distinguished ByzantinistS.lOl This is a subject, therefore, with several dimensions, by no
means to be regarded as a specialist backwater. It seems likely that
we shall see further developments in the years to come.
Keble College, Oxford

99. Cameron, 'Texts as weapons', 211-12; the abuse heaped on Constantine V by

iconophile writers is a good example of their style, which was shared by lay and clerical
authors alike.
100. See as well as the publication edited by Raby and Johns (n. 23) the collection of
papers in F.M. Clover and S. Humphreys, eds., Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity
(Madison 1989); the project on Late Antiquity and Early Islam, with the publication series
Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Darwin Press, Princeton), led by Averil Cameron,
Lawrence I. Conrad and Geoffrey King, grew out of an interdisciplinary colloquium held
in London in 1986.
101. Conspicuous among them is the work of G. Dagron and his colleagues in Paris,
represented in the articles cited above from Travaux et Memoires 11 (1991) and in Flusin,
Saint Anastase.
274