Abstract
The article examines the problem of falsifications used by Jewish authors – Philo of Alexandria and Josephus – in their narrative of the Greco-Jewish conflict of AD 38–41. Despite the fact that these authors emphasized the refusal of Jews to worship Gaius Caligula as emperor, both parallel sources and the texts of Philo of Alexandria indicate that members of the Jewish community incorporated elements of the imperial cult into the Jewish religious environment. Jews in Alexandria paid homage to emperors in synagogues, participated in the creation of a golden wreath based on funds from the aurum coronarium tax, could swear by the emperor’s spirit-genius, and synagogues also accepted patronage from influential pagan residents of the cities where Jews lived. The emphasis that Jewish writers placed on the importance for Jews of preserving ancestral traditions and refusing to worship the emperor as a god was aimed at an internal Jewish audience, which, by observing these traditions, could remain a cohesive ethno-religious community. Philo’s account that Prefect Flaccus made a pact against the Jews, violating peace (eirēnē), was intended to create a negative image of Flaccus, who thus interfered with the emperor’s prerogative to establish a just order of things and a peace pleasing to the gods.
Keywords
Greco-Jewish conflict, imperial cult, Roman Egypt, falsifications, Gaius Caligula, Josephus Flavius, Philo of Alexandria.