Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic Holding also said that "Romans as a whole had a disdain for Jews as a whole." I am pretty sure that that claim if false.

"The following accusations were common:

* The Exodus-story was inverted. The Jews were considered to be the descendants of lepers, who had been exiled by the Egyptians. In Antiquity, statements like these were considered extremely insulting.
* Because the Jews were said to have been rescued in the desert by a wild ass, the Jews were believed to venerate this animal as their God. A similar statement can be found in the Symposium of the Greek philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea (c.45-120), where he says that the object of the Jewish cult was the pig.
* The Jews did not worship the usual gods, like others did. This was, of course, true, but was held against the Jews, who were sometimes considered to be responsible for the divine anger when disasters befell a community. It should be added, however, that many Greeks and Romans were fascinated by the radical monotheism of the Jews, which was philosophically elegant.
* In their temple in Jerusalem, the Jews sacrificed human beings. For example, it was widely believed that when the Roman general Pompey took the city and entered the temple, he liberated a Greek prisoner who was being fattened for the sacrifice.
* Jews were considered to be lazy: this was clear to all Greeks and Romans, because the Jews maintained the sabbath. This thought can be found in the Fourteenth satire of the Roman poet Juvenal (c.67-c.145).
* The Jews had strange customs. The Food and Purity Laws -the difference was never clear to the Greeks and Romans- were the object of many jokes, sometimes good-natured, usually not.
* Those who followed the Law of Moses were thought to ignore the law of the state in which they resided. Of all accusations against the Jews, this one is the oldest; we have encountered it in the story about Esther.
* Jews were believed to be antisocial. They separated from the other people living in the ancient Mediterranean world. (As a matter of fact, pious Jews were forced to live in the neighborhood of their synagogues -there was a maximum distance they were allowed to walk on a sabbath-, which explains the existence of Jewish quarters. For example, in Rome, the quarter on the other side of the Tiber was entirely Jewish. So, the Jews were indeed separated from the others, but this does not mean that they were antisocial.)
* The 'mutilation of genitals' was considered barbarous. The Greeks and Romans thought that the Jews circumcised their boys to prevent them from assimilating. In 132, the Roman emperor Hadrian tried to root out this practice, which led to war. Probably, he was influenced by Greek philosophical ideas about the integrity of the body (which was, after all, the vehicle of the soul). This may also apply to the persecution by Antiochus IV."