Timeline of Antisemitism - Antiquity

Antiquity

586 BCE

Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and captured Judea and 10,000 Jewish families.

175 BCE-165 BCE

The Deuterocanonical First and Second Books of the Maccabees record that Antiochus Epiphanes sacks Jerusalem and commits atrocities against the Jews and the Jewish religion. The festival of Hanukkah commemorates the uprising of the Maccabees against his rule.

2nd century BCE

Various Greek and Roman writers, such as Mnaseas of Patras, Apollonius Molon, Apion and Plutarch, repeat the legend that Jews worship a pig, a golden calf, a head, etc. Josephus collects and denies the rumours.

19 CE

Roman Emperor Tiberius expels Jews from Rome. Expulsion is reported by the Roman historical writers Suetonius, Josephus, and Cassius Dio.

37–41

Thousands of Jews killed by mobs in Alexandria (Egypt), as recounted by Philo of Alexandria in Flaccus.

50

Jews ordered by Roman Emperor Claudius "not to hold meetings", in the words of Cassius Dio (Roman History, 60.6.6). Claudius later expelled Jews from Rome, according to both Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Caesars", Claudius, Section 25.4) and Acts 18:2.

66–73

Great Jewish Revolt against the Romans is crushed by Vespasian and Titus. Titus refuses to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing people forsaken by their own God." (Philostratus, Vita Apollonii). The events of this period were recorded in detail by the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus. His record is largely sympathetic to the Roman view and was written in Rome under Roman protection; hence it is considered a controversial source. Josephus describes the Jewish revolt as being led by "tyrants," to the detriment of the city, and of Titus as having "moderation" in his escalation of the Siege of Jerusalem (70).

1st century

Fabrications of Apion in Alexandria, Egypt, including the first recorded case of blood libel. Juvenal writes anti-Jewish poetry. Josephus picks apart contemporary and old antisemitic myths in his work Against Apion.

Late 1st–early 2nd century

Tacitus writes anti-Jewish polemic in his Histories (book 5). He reports on several old myths of ancient antisemitism (including that of the donkey's head in the Holy of Holies), but the key to his view that Jews "regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies" is his analysis of the extreme differences between monotheistic Judaism and the polytheism common throughout the Roman world.

115–117

Thousands of Jews are killed during civil unrest in Egypt, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica, as recounted by Cassius Dio, History of Rome (68.31), Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica (4.2), and papyrii.

c. 119

Roman emperor Hadrian bans circumcision, making Judaism de facto illegal.

c. 132–135

Crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt. According to Cassius Dio 580,000 Jews are killed. Hadrian orders the expulsion of Jews from Judea, which is merged with Galilee to form the province Syria Palaestina. Although large Jewish populations remain in Samaria and Galilee, with Tiberias as the headquarters of exiled Jewish patriarchs, this is the start of the Jewish diaspora. Hadrian constructs a pagan temple to Jupiter at the site of the Temple in Jerusalem, builds Aelia Capitolina among ruins of Jerusalem.

167

Earliest known accusation of Jewish deicide (the notion that Jews were held responsible for the death of Jesus) made in a sermon On the Passover attributed to Melito of Sardis.