In the Stoic pantheism the first stand of the pagan
national deities was made against the God of Israel, and at Alexandria
during the first century the fight waxed fierce. It was a fight of
ideas in which persons only were victims, but at the back of the
intermittent persecutions of which we have record we may always
surmise the influence of the Stoic anti-Semites. The war of words
translated itself from time to time into the breaking of heads.
Philo, indeed, never mentions Apion by name, but he refers covertly in
many places to his insolence and unscrupulousness.[74] Josephus wrote
a famous reply to his attacks, refuting "his vulgar abuse, gross
ignorance and demagogic claptrap,"[75] and the fact that a Palestinian
Jew thought this apology necessary, proves the wide dissemination of
the poison. The disgrace and death of Sejanus seem to have brought a
relief from actual persecution to the Alexandrian Jews; but the
ill-will between the two races in the city smouldered on, and it only
required a weakening of the controlling hand at Rome to set the
passions aflame again. Right through Philo's treatise "On the
Confusion of Tongues," we can trace the tension. As soon as Gaius,
surnamed Caligula, came to the imperial chair, the opportunity of the
anti-Semites returned. Gaius, after reigning well a few months, fell
ill, was seized with madness, and proved how much evil can be done in
a short space by an imbecile autocrat.
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