Tacitus on the Jews
TACITUS – THE HISTORIES – BOOK V ‘THE JEWS’
First published A.D. 105
Translation by Kenneth Wellesley (1964)
As I am now to record the death-agony of a famous city, it seems
appropriate to inform the reader of it’s origins. The Jews are
said to have been refugees fro the island of Crete who settled
in the remotest corner of Libya in the days when, according to
the story, Saturn was driven from his throne by the aggression
of Jupiter. This is a deduction from the ‘Judaei’ by which they
became known: the word is to be regarded as a barbarous
lengthening of ‘Idaei’, the name of the people dwelling around
the famous Mount Ida in Crete.
A few authorities hold that in the reign of Isis the surplus
population of Egypt was evacuated to neighbouring lands under
the leadership of Hierosolymus and Judas. Many assure us that
the Jews are descended from those Ethiopians who were driven by
fear and hatred to emigrate from their home country when Cepheus
was king.
There are some who say that a motley collection of landless
Assyrians occupied a part of Egypt, and they built cities of
their own, inhabiting the lands of the Hebrews and the nearer
part of Syria. Others again find a famous ancestry for the Jews
in the Solymi who are mentioned with respect in the epics of
Homer: the tribe is supposed to have founded Jerusalem and named
it after themselves. Most authorities however, agree on the
following account:
The whole of Egypt was once plagued by a wasting disease which
caused bodily disfigurement. So Pharaoh Bocchoris went to the
oracle of Hammon to ask for a cure, and was told to purify his
kingdom by expelling the victims to other lands, as they lay
under a divine curse. Thus a multitude of sufferers was rounded
up, herded together, and abandoned in the wilderness. Here, the
exiles tearfully resigned themselves to their fate. But one of
them, who was called Moses, urged his companions not to wait
passively for help from god or man, for both had deserted them:
they should trust to their own initiative and to whatever
guidance first helped them to extricate themselves from their
present plight. They agreed, and started off at random, into the
unknown. But, exhaustion set in, chiefly through lack of water,
and the level plain was already strewn with the bodies of those
who had collapsed and were at their last gasp when a herd of
wild assess left their pasture and made for the shade of a
wooded crag. Moses followed them and was able to bring to light
a number of abundant channels of water whose presence he deduced
from the presence of a grassy patch of ground. This relieved
their thirst. They travelled on for six days without a break,
and on the seventh they expelled the previous inhabitants of
Canaan, took over their lands and in them built a holy city and
temple.
In order to secure the allegiance of his people in the future,
Moses prescribed for them a novel religion quite different from
those of the rest of mankind. Among the Jews all
things are profane that we hold sacred; on the other hand they
regard as permissible what seems to us immoral. In
the innermost part of the temple, they consecrated an image of
the animal which had delivered them from their wandering and
thirst, choosing a ram as beast of sacrifice to demonstrate, so
it seems, their contempt for Hammon. The bull is also offered
up, because et h Egyptians worship it as Apis. They avoid eating
pork in memory of their tribulations, as they themselves were
once infected with the disease to which this creature is subject
(leprosy). They still fast frequently as an admission of
the hunger they once endured so long, and to symbolise their
hurried meal the bread eaten by the Jews is unleavened. We are
told that the seventh day was set aside for rest because this
marked the end of their toils. In the course of time the
seductions of idleness made them devote every seventh year to
indolence as well. Others say that this is a mark of respect to
Saturn, either because they owe the basic principles of their
religion to the Idaei, who, we are told, were expelled in the
company of Saturn and became the founders of the
Jewish race, or because, among the seven stars that rule
mankind, the one that describes the highest orbit and exerts he
greatest influence is Saturn. A further argument is that most of
the heavenly bodies complete their path and revolutions in
multiples of seven.
Whatever their origin, these observances are sanctioned by their
antiquity. The other practices of the Jews are
sinister and revolting, and have entrenched themselves by their
very wickedness. Wretches of the most
abandoned kind who had no use for the religion of their fathers
took to contributing dues and free-will offerings to swell the
Jewish exchequer; and other reasons for their increasing wealth
may be found in their stubborn loyalty and ready benevolence to
brother Jews. But the rest of the world they
confront with the hatred reserved for enemies. They will not
feed or intermarry with gentiles. Though a most lascivious
people, the Jews avoid sexual intercourse with women of alien
race. Among themselves nothing is barred.
They have introduced the practice of circumcision to show that
they are different from others. Proselytes to Jewry adopt the
same practices, and the very first lesson they learn is to
despise the gods, shed all feelings of patriotism, and consider
parents, children and brothers as readily expendable.
However, the Jews see to it that their numbers increase. It is a
deadly sin to kill an unwanted child, and they think that
eternal life is granted to those who die in battle of execution
– hence their eagerness to have children, and their contempt for
death. Rather than cremate their dead, they prefer to bury them
in imitation of the Egyptian fashion, and they have the same
concern and beliefs about the world below. But their conception
of heavenly things is quite different. The Egyptians worship a
variety of animals and half-human. Half-bestial forms, whereas
the Jewish religion is a purely spiritual monotheism. They hold
it impious to make idols of perishable materials in the likeness
of man: for them, the Most High and Eternal cannot be portrayed
by human hands and will never pass away. For this reason they
erect no images in their cities, still less in their temple. The
kings are not so flattered, the Roman emperors not so honoured.
However, their priests used to perform their chants to the flute
and drums, crowned with ivy, and a golden vine was discovered in
the temple; and this has led some to imagine that the god thus
worshipped was Prince Liber (Bacchus, god of the vine), the
conqueror of the East. But the two cults are diametrically
opposed. Liber founded a festive and happy cult: the
Jewish belief is paradoxical and degraded.
…
The Jew, and the Jew alone, was allowed to approach the gate of
the temple (of Jerusalem), and all but priests were denied
access within it’s threshold.
While the Assyrian, Median and Persian Empires dominated the
East, the Jews were slaves regarded as the
lowest of the low. In the Hellenistic period, King Antiochus
IV Epiphanes of Syria made an effort to get rid of their primitive
cult and Hellenize them, but would-be reform of
this degraded nation was foiled
by the outbreak of war with Parthia, for this was the moment of
Arsaces’ insurrection.
…
Prodigies had occurred, but their expiation by the offering of
victims or solemn vows is held to be unlawful by a nation which is
the slave of superstition and the enemy of true beliefs.
END OF EXCERPT
The Roman Empire’s Jewish Problem
The Jews have been a
consistent and irreconcilable problem for all peoples who
were unfortunate enough to make contact with them throughout
all of the thousands of years of recorded history. The
Ancient Romans in particular had a mortal Jewish problem,
just as we in the West do today.
Here are a few anti-Jewish quotes from famous Romans:
“The Jews belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows
how numerous this clique is, how they stick together and
what power they exercise through their unions. They are a
nation of rascals and deceivers.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero, famous Roman
philosopher, orator and statesman (106 BC – 43 BC)
Marcus Tullius Cicero
“The customs of that most criminal nation (Israel) have
gained such strength that they have now been received in all
lands. The conquered have given laws to the conquerors.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – 65 AD)
“Even while Jerusalem was standing and the Jews were at
peace with us, the practice of their sacred rites was at
variance with the glory of our empire, the dignity of our
name, the customs of our ancestors.”
– Marcus Tillius Cicero (106 BC – 46 BC)
“The Jews . . . ate the flesh of their victims, made belts
for themselves out of their entrails, and daubed themselves
with their blood.”
– Lucius Cassius Dio (c. AD 155–235)
“[The Jews have] an attitude of hostility and hatred towards
all others.”
– Tacitus (c. 56 AD – after 117 AD)
“[The Jews are] a people who, having imbrued their hands in
a most heinous outrage [i.e., killing Christ], have thus
polluted their souls and are deservedly blind…Therefore we
have nothing in common with that most hostile of people the
Jews. We have received from the Savior another way…our holy
religion: unanimously pursuing this, let us…withdraw
ourselves from that detestable association. For it is truly
absurd for them to boast that we are incapable of rightly
observing these things [i.e., religious holy days] without
their instruction. For on what subject will they be
competent to form a correct judgment, who after that murder
of their Lord, having been bereft of their senses, are led
not by any rational motive, but by an ungovernable impulse,
wherever their innate fury may drive them?”
– Emperor Constantine (c. 272 AD – 337 AD)
Roman
Emperor Constantine
the Great
“[Judaism is] ever… mighty in wickedness… when it cursed
Moses; when it hated God; when it vowed its sons to demons;
when it killed the prophets, and finally when it betrayed to
the Praetor and crucified our God Himself and Lord… And so
glorying through all its existence in iniquity.”
– Hillary of Poitiers (c. 300 AD – c. 368
AD)
“[Jews are] murderers of the Lord, assassins of the
prophets, rebels against God, God haters,… advocates of the
devil, race of vipers, slanderers, calumniators, dark-minded
people, leaven of the Pharisees, sanhedrin of demons,
sinners, wicked men, stoners, and haters of righteousness.”
– St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 AD – c. 395
AD)
“If you call [the synagogue] a brothel, a den of vice, the
devil’s refuge, Satan’s fortress, a place to deprave the
soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever
else you will, you are still saying less than it deserves.”
– St. Jerome (c. 347 AD – 420 AD)
“Although such beasts [Jews] are unfit for work, they are
fit for killing… fit for slaughter”
[the Synagogue] is not merely a lodging place for robbers
and cheats but also for demons. This is true not only of the
synagogues but also of the souls of the Jews.”
“Shall I tell you of their plundering, their covetousness,
their abandonment of the poor, their thefts, their cheating
in trade?”
– St. John Chrysostom (c. 349 AD – 407
AD), Adversus
Judaeos
* * *
Some of these quotes were extracted from
chapter 3 of Separation
and its Discontents by Dr. Kevin MacDonald.
More on Rome and the Jews:
Absurd Jewish stories of massacres of Jews, committed by the Romans
