Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

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 legalprotection, 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 RomanEmpire had cost diaspora Jews—and all non-orthodox persons, including Christians—dearly.

Scholars of this period will, no doubt, benefit from her detailed analysis of the primary literature and find her arguments provocative. Those interested in the relationship of Judaism and Christianity, particularly discussions about the "parting(s) of the ways," will find much to consider in this volume., This masterful work of history, which analyzes Byzantine legislation against dissidents and its impact on Mediterranean diasporic Jewish communities, has arrived at a critical moment., Kraemer's volume ... provides any scholar interested in the late antique history of the Jews with a superb launching pad for further research. Few stones are left unturned and each significant piece of evidence is discussed with an admirable sense of caution and detail., Readers of her volume will gain an essential understanding of an often overlooked historical period and be grateful that our own era has been defined by a historic and still-developing reconciliation between the Christian and Jewish communities., This book shows Kraemer to be a master at interpreting primary and secondary materials, materials that demonstrate that the groundwork for anti-Semitic ideas in the Mediterranean was laid sadly and predictably early.

Ross Shepard Kraemer is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University, where she specialized in early Christianity and other religions of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, including ancient Judaism. She holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and a B.A. from Smith College. Her many publications have focused particularly on gender and women's religions in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, and on aspects of Jewsand Judaism in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora.