Samaritan Persecutions in the Hellenistic Period According to Josephus Flavius 2020 (original) (raw)
Early Christian Authors on Samaritans and Samaritanism: A Review Article
Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2006
Samaritan studies have known a very great increase in the last twentyfive years, both in the quantity and in the scope of published research. The boost that began in the Sixties and Seventies of the last century, with the publication of a number of basic works dealing with Samaritan history, philology and theology, and with the first timid appearance of archaeological evidence of the Samaritan ethnos, broke out into a veritable flood of scholarly works in the Eighties and Nineties and in the first years of the Twenty-First century. Partly this is due to a natural process of fructification: scholars who made their first steps in the field in the third quarter of the last century now yield the mature fruit of their work; but it is also apparent that not a few students and scholars have become interested in the various aspects of Samaritan studies, if only because the newly published researches have suddenly brought the Samaritan phenomenon into their consciousness. Students of late antiquity, who until recently viewed the history or the theological strife of the period as a confrontation of pagans, Jews and Christians (or at most of pagans, Jews, Christians and "heretics"), now identify another contestant in the arena, one whose character, social status, motivations, and general Weltanschauung, are far from well known. Therefore, there was a keenly felt need for a collection of texts that would put at the disposal of the public, in accessible form, as many relevant sources as possible, and the present book worthily fulfils that desideratum. The selected sources are offered in the original language and in English
Persecution and apostasy 297 of religious oppression in the seventh century requires special consideration. For this reason, we employ sociologist Margaret Somers's theories of narrativity and emplotment to a selection of representative seventh-century documents. 3 This chapter concludes that persecution inflicted by Persians, Muslims, and Romans can only be understood in the context of war and as a means to prevent and punish challenges, both real and imaginary, to a so-called persecutor's hegemony. All three polities considered here were concerned with the smooth administration of communities under their control, not with the destruction of opposing religious groups. Methodology Themes This chapter is divided into three major themes based on forces in the Eastern Mediterranean that have traditionally been considered persecutors. We begin with the Sassanid Persians, who conquered significant portions of Roman territory, including Jerusalem and the True Cross, in 614. 4 The Persian invasions lasted from 602 until 628 when the emperor Heraclius secured victory and recovered Roman territory, along with the restoration of the True Cross. 5 Second, we consider the persecution of religious minorities in the earliest decades of the Muslim invasions. Here we consider the incursions of Islamic forces through to the establishment of Arab hegemony over former Roman territories. The time covered during this period spans from the 640s until the construction of the Dome of the Rock in the 690s. We will conclude by considering the persecution of religious minorities by the Heraclian dynasty itself. Here, we will focus primarily on the persecution of the Jews, initiated by the emperor Heraclius, and the treatment of Christian dissidents by the emperor Constans II, particularly Pope Martin II and Maximus the Confessor. This theme serves to demonstrate that Christians were not only persecuted but also served as persecutors, particularly at the imperial level. Sources This chapter examines sources spanning the chronological range of the seventh century. Witnesses to the Persian invasions include the Life of Anastasius the Persian, the History of the Armenians by pseudo-Sebeos, and the Life of George of Choziba. 6 For the Arab invasions, we consider the Life of Theodore of Sykeon, the Dialogue Between the Jews Papiscus and Philo with a Monk, and the Apocalypse of pseudo-Methodius, composed at the end of the seventh century. 7 Finally, our primary evidence for imperial persecution comes from a unique adversus Judaeos dialogue, the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati, an account of the arrest and trial of Pope Martin I, and the record of Maximus the Confessor's first trial in Constantinople. 8 Considering the polemical nature of our sources, some caveats are necessary. Each of the sources examined here are hostile toward the so-called persecutors
Heirs of Roman Persecution. Studies of a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity, 2019
The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c. 300-700 CE). Through a series of detailed case studies covering the full chronological and geographical span of the period, this book investigates how the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity changed the way that Christians and para-Christians perceived the hostile treatments they received, either by fellow Christians or by people of other religions. A closely related second goal of this volume is to encourage scholars to think more precisely about the terminological difficulties related to the study of persecution. Indeed, despite sustained interest in the subject, few scholars have sought to distinguish between such closely related concepts as punishment, coercion, physical violence, and persecution. Often, these terms are used interchangeably. Although there are no easy answers, an emphatic conclusion of the studies assembled in this volume is that "persecution" was a malleable rhetorical label in late antique discourse, whose meaning shifted depending on the viewpoint of the authors who used it. This leads to our third objective: to analyze the role and function played by rhetoric and polemic in late antique claims to be persecuted. Late antique Christian writers who cast their present as a repetition of past persecutions often aimed to attack the legitimacy of the dominant Christian faction through a process of othering. This discourse also expressed a polarizing worldview in order to strengthen the group identity of the writers' community in the midst of ideological conflicts and to encourage steadfastness against the temptation to collaborate with the other side.