The Accusations of Misanthropy Against the Jews in Antiquity

Abstract

Abstract: This article argues that the origin of the accusation of misanthropy against the Jews is Greek—not Egyptian, as other scholars have thought—and reflects a Greek interpretative framework. The depiction of the Jewish way of life as misanthropic may go back to Hecataeus of Abdera, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic era, or it may have developed later, in the context of Ptolemaic Egypt or during the Judeo-Seleucid conflict of the second century BCE. Accusations of misanthropy are often found to appear during conflicts between Jews and Greeks—be it in the Seleucid kingdom, in Alexandria at the beginning of the first century CE, or in Syria during the first century. Moreover, several authors who depict the Jews as misanthropes share a Stoic or at least a universalist ideological background. Finally, in a Roman context, the accusation of misanthropy becomes associated with an aversion to the phenomenon of Judaization or conversion to Judaism.