first is an edict that Josephus has preserved, which may date from mid-41 (Antiquities of the Jews, XIX, 52). The Emperor recalls that the coexistence of Jews and Alexandrians is of long standing, that the Emperors have recognized the civic rights of both, and that they have acknowledged the right of the Jews to observe their customs. He alludes to the uprising of the Alexandrians against the Jews under Caligula and condemns the latter’s attempts to have himself worshipped as a god. He demands that the traditional rights of the Jews be restored and that both sides remain in peace.
Subsequently to that first text, Claudius received delegations of both Jews and pagans coming from Alexandria. He had to listen to complaints from both sides. A second text from 42 is the Letter to the Alexandrians, discovered in 1921 and published by Harold Idris Bell.30 It refers to the Egyptian delegation whose eleven members are named. The first part authorizes the erection of statues and chariot scenes at Alexandria in honor of the Emperor. But the Emperor asks that no temple be built to him and that there be no high priests devoted to his cult. That is a reaction against Caligula.
The second part alludes to the pogrom of A.D. 38 the Emperor has heard the explanation of the delegation and of the opposing side. This shows that the Jews had also sent a delegation. Claudius exhorts the Alexandrians to live in peace with the Jews and threatens punishments if they begin to persecute them again. He particularly affirms their right to practice their religion. Furthermore, explicitly referring to the counter-attack of A.D. 41, he demands that the Jews be content with the rights that have been acknowledged as theirs, to send no more delegations beside the official delegation, and to live in peace with others.
Thereafter, Claudius showed he had decided to pass from words to deeds. Some years later the Alexandrians made new attempts against the Jews. Again the leaders were Lampo and Isidore. They were summoned to Rome and judged in the presence of Claudius. They tried to place the blame on Agrippa II, son of Herod Agrippa and brother of Berenice. We have rediscovered the papyrus that contains the Acts of this proceeding. Herbert Musurillo has edited them.31 The trail ends with a death sentence for the two Egyptians. The relentless adversaries of Philo and the Alexandrian Jews saw their careers end tragically. Flaccus had perished. Philo could thus judge that the God of the Jews avenged his persecuted servants.
After his finally successful mission, Philo returned to Alexandria at the end of A.D. 41. We can imagine the reception he received. He had been the savoir of the Jewish community. It remained for him to finish this labor by drawing a lesson from it. It is then that he wrote In Flaccum, presumably dedicated to the new Roman governor of Alexandria and the Legatio ad Gaium addressed to Claudius. In his fashion, the Christian Apologists of the following century addressed their books to the Emperor. Philo was then over sixty. We know nothing of his last years or of the date of his death.
1. J. Schwartz, “Note sur la famille,” 595–96.
2. See Goodenough, The Politics of Philo, 65–66.
3. Fuks, “Notes on the Archive,” 216.
4. Schwartz, “Note sur la famille,” 596.
5. Ibid., 601–2.
6. Ibid., 599.
7. [Translator: this is not in De Congressu, 17, which is on Philo, IV, 467, nor in other paragraphs whose numbers are likely misprints of 17. Furthermore, De Congressu is allegorical and exhortative rather than biographical. In any case paragraphs 17 and 18 do recommend the study of rhetoric and philosophy: “Rhetoric, sharpening the mind to the observation of facts and training and welding thought to expression, will make the man a true master of words and thought, thus taking into its charge the peculiar gift which nature has not bestowed on any other creature. Dialectic is the sister and twin, as some have said of Rhetoric, distinguishes true argument from false and combats the plausibilities of sophistry and thus will heal that great plague of the soul deceit. It is profitable to take them and the like for our early associates and for the field of our preliminary studies.” ]
8. Philo VII, 475, 477.
9. Philo IX, 127, 129.
10. Ibid., 155, 157, 159.
11. Ibid., 163, 165.
12. Ibid., 165, 167
13. Philo I, 279.
14. Ibid., 125.
15. De Opificio Mundi, 128; De Vita Mosis, 216, etc.
16. Wolfson, Philo, I:96.
17. See Thyen, Der Stil, 7–11.
18. Wolfson, Philo, I:98.
19. Ibid., I:79.
20. Friedländer, Geschichte der jüdischen Apologetik, 10ff.; Dalbert, Die Theologie.
21. Philo VII, 477.
22. Goodenough, An Introduction, 79.
23. Philo IX, 321.
24. Ibid.
25. Bell, Jews and Christians in Egypt, 12–16.
26. Today Saint-Bernard-de-Comminges in Haute-Garonne.
27. The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, 550.
28. See Mireaux, La reine Bérénice.
29. Norden, Genesiszitat.
30. Bell, Jews and Christians in Egypt, 23–26.
