Marcus Aurelius's Beliefs (Stoic Emperor) and How It Affects Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

Jews and their beliefs of Monotheism different from other life over 4,000 years ago, which was mostly all polytheistic.  Jews had a set of rules;  613 of them to be exact with the Ten Commandments known to most all people living today.  The rules were brought to the Jews, in those days called the Israelites,  by Moses, who got them directly from G-d and Moses wrote them down.  Then along came a Roman Emperor (161-169 CE) quite different from previous ones, most likely affected also by the new ideas of Christianity, Marcus Aurelius.

Rome had taken over the land from the Greeks and Alexander the Great who was so good to Jews, so by the year   Roman Emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54 C.E.) generally maintained traditional religious rights and favored specific Jewish leaders, but he also expelled Jews from Rome and curbed assemblies to keep public order.  Nero (reigned 54–68 CE): Took the throne after Claudius. While his wife Poppaea Sabina interceded on behalf of Jewish priests on multiple occasions, Nero famously launched a brutal, localized wave of persecution against Christians in Rome after the Great Fire of 64 CE

Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ ruled from (161-169 CE) full name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Jewish tradition identifies him with the benevolent Roman ruler,  Antonius , mentioned in the Talmud. (Some scholars equate Antoninus with different Roman leaders, including the Emperor Elagabalus.)

  (Talmud=records of Academic discussions  and how judges shared  them).  The Babylonian Talmud was one of 2 written,   the most popular, and the other one was the Palestinian Talmud on the Jewish Law  The Talmuds were about these  generations of scholars who interpreted the Jewish Law.  They all were the Einstein's of their day.                                  

 

   Emperor Antonius Pius---Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Pius19 September 86 – 7 March 161) was Roman emperor from AD 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the Five Good Emperors from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty and also the fourth of the six adoptive emperors.  

According to tradition, the future emperor Antonius developed a deep affection for the Jewish people as an infant, following an extraordinary episode involving his mother and the great Jewish leader Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel II. At the time, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel and his wife had a newborn son, Yehuda, whom they circumcised (when 8 days old)  in defiance of the Roman Empire’s harsh decrees restricting Jewish life. Summoned before Roman authorities, the couple traveled to Rome with their baby.                                                                   

Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel was renowned for his wisdom and kindness among Jews and Gentiles alike, and along the journey many people offered assistance—including Antonius’ mother. In a daring act, she exchanged her own infant son with Yehuda.  (The baby might be taken from the parents and killed by the emperor.  It was circumcised against the law of Rome.)

When Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel and his wife presented the baby Antonius before the Roman judges, the authorities were astonished: the child was not circumcised. The couple was released, and on their return journey the newborns were switched back. At that moment, the two mothers pledged that their sons would remain lifelong friends.

Antonius later became Emperor of Rome, succeeding his uncle in the year 161 CE. Yehuda, meanwhile—now Rabbi Yehuda, known simply as “Rabbi” because of his greatness—succeeded his father as Nasi, leader of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, in 163 CE. As distinguished leaders of their respective worlds, Rabbi and Antonius maintained a close relationship, bound by a shared love of philosophy. The Talmud describes Antonius seeking Rabbi Yehuda’s counsel on matters of governance.

The period of Marcus Aurelius’ rule is often described as a golden age of Jewish life in the Land of Israel. Roman authorities generally allowed Jewish life to continue with little interference. During this time, Rabbi Yehuda the Nasi established a major yeshiva in Beit She’arim in the Galilee, which became a leading center of Jewish intellectual life. While Marcus Aurelius ruthlessly persecuted Christians in the Land of Israel, he did not target Jews in the same way.

Bust of Marcus Aurelius, AD 161-169, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY 2.5)

Marcus Aurelius is known to have visited the Land of Israel on more than one occasion. One of his first acts as emperor was to wage war against the Parthian Empire (in present-day Iran, Iraq, and Central Asia), using the Land of Israel as a forward base from which to rally troops. Roman soldiers returning from these campaigns brought plague with them. Marcus Aurelius took steps to protect Jews in the Land of Israel, ensuring they were not scapegoated by soldiers or others.

At the same time, the later Roman historian Marcellinus recorded that Marcus Aurelius harbored negative views of the Jews, writing that he considered them “to be worse than” a number of other despised minorities. In 175, Avidus Cassius, Rome’s governor of Syria—which included the Land of Israel—declared himself emperor. Many local Jews supported his rebellion. Marcus Aurelius crushed the revolt with extreme brutality, killing Cassius along with many of his Jewish supporters.  (What the?-so Cassius betrayed Marcus who could be brutal now, and too bad that Jews were on the wrong side as he saw it.)

When Marcus Aurelius was eleven years old, he adopted the distinctive dress of ancient Roman philosophers. After a youth spent exploring philosophy and the arts, he embraced the ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism as a guiding principle for his life.

“Stoics think that each of us are finite, limited beings,” explains Prof. Ralph Wedgwood, director of the School of Philosophy and professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. “There are a few things we can control and other things we can’t control, and we should keep track of those things and have different attitudes toward those domains. That’s the goal of life: to have this accurate understanding and to be guided by it.”

Stoicism regards emotions such as fear, anger, and grief as “irrational” distractions from what truly matters. Marcus Aurelius subscribed to the Stoic ideal that a state of tranquility—ataraxia in Greek—should be humanity’s highest goal.

Some aspects of Stoic philosophy find parallels in Jewish thought, including curiosity, a willingness to learn about the world around us, and self-awareness. Yet Judaism diverges from Stoicism in fundamental ways. Where Stoicism emphasizes an unalterable fate, Judaism stresses the power of human action: each person can shape their own life and influence the world through choices, acts of kindness, Jewish learning, charity, good deeds, and prayer.

Judaism teaches that each individual has a unique and burning purpose to fulfill. 

Entirely absent from Stoic philosophy—and from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations—is the Jewish conception of the Divine, and the understanding that every person is an equally vital part of the universe, entrusted with a mission that only they can carry out.  Nearly 2,000 years later, Marcus Aurelius remains a figure of enduring fascination. (My apologies;  I doubt if all of us Jews knew that we were to carry out a special mission in life, and it is  good to know.) 

Resource:

https://aish.com/roman-emperor-marcus-aurelius-and-the-jews/?utm_source=googlegrants&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=19561819333&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=24351647003&gbraid

After All Is Ruined in 70 CE

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

                        2nd Temple's Destruction in 70 CE

After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE, the region of Judea (Judah) underwent massive political, social, and religious transformations:

• Destruction and Sacking: Roman forces under Titus razed Jerusalem and its walls, slaughtered thousands of inhabitants, and sold an estimated 97,000 Jews into slavery.  It had been a 5 month siege by starving the population according to Josephus, the writer of this history.    Titus was then a Roman Emperor from 79-81 CE.  His father,  Vespa,  had held the army in Judea since 70 CE.  
• Military Occupation: The Roman Empire stationed the Legio X Fretensis in the ruins of Jerusalem to maintain control over the province. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Roman Legio X Fretensis (Tenth Legion of the Strait) was permanently garrisoned in the ruins of the city to maintain control over the conquered province.  Location: The legion's main camp sat on Jerusalem’s Western Hill (the former Upper City), occupying the southern half of what is now the Old City.   Herod's Palace: The Roman camp was built directly into the surviving ruins of Herod the Great's royal palace, which Titus had ordered demolished.  Aelia Capitolina: When the Romans later rebuilt the city as the pagan colony of Aelia Capitolina, the legion's camp sat at the southern end of the main north-south avenue, the cardo maximus
  
  
  

• End of the Temple Cult: With the Second Temple destroyed, the centralized sacrificial system of Judaism collapsed, shifting Jewish religious life toward study, prayer, and the rise of Rabbinic Judaism centered around synagogues and rabbinic academies (such as the one at Yavneh). It is the ancient and modern city in central Israel where Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai reestablished the Sanhedrin and helped transition Judaism to synagogue- and prayer-based communal life following the destruction of the Second Temple.  Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai (also known as Ribaz) was a 1st-century Jewish sage, a leading Pharisee, and a primary contributor to the Mishnah who saved the core of Rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
• Financial Penalties: The Romans replaced the annual Temple tax with the Fiscus Judaicus, a humiliating head tax levied on all Jews throughout the empire to fund the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. The Fiscus Judaicus was a special annual tax imposed on Jewish people across the Roman Empire. Origin: Instituted in the early 70s CE by Emperor Vespasian following the First Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Purpose: It replaced the traditional biblical half-shekel tax (two drachmas / two denarii) that Jewish men previously sent to the Temple in Jerusalem. Instead, the funds were redirected to Rome to finance the rebuilding of the pagan Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter Capitolinus). Scope: Unlike the old Temple tax—which applied only to adult men aged 20 to 50—the Fiscus Judaicus was mandatory for all Jews, including women, children, the elderly, and even Jewish slaves.
  

• Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE): A second major Jewish rebellion led by Simon bar Kokhba was brutally crushed by Emperor Hadrian. Bar Kokhba held out for 3 years before he was killed, and this 3 year span was an embarrassment to the Romans so they were very angry about it. After all, they had boasted about being the strongest.  He was the nephew of Rabbi Eliazar of Modiin and of David descent meaning he was from the House of David.  In those days they kept a great family tree, needed to serve in the Sanhedrin.  Rabbi Akiva had declared him to be the Moshiach but he was in the minority.  Now, the cause of the revolt is not known but thought to be the rebuilding of Jerusalem to be a Roman Colony or the law against circumcision that people had been discussing for a long time till this point in time.  Akiva was Ben Joseph Akiva (50-135 CE) known to have studied our history at the age of 40 on and his family supported him in this endeavor.  
•              Renaming With False Advertising About Jews 
• Renaming of the Region: After the 135 CE revolt, Rome barred Jews from entering Jerusalem, leveled the city, and rebuilt it as a pagan Roman colony named Aelia Capitolina, while renaming the broader province from Judea to Syria Palaestina to erase its Jewish identity.
• The Diaspora: Large numbers of Judean Jews were displaced, executed, or enslaved, accelerating the growth of the Jewish Diaspora across the Roman Empire and Mesopotamia, while a core rural Jewish population remained anchored in Galilee and parts of the southern region. Religious Persecution: Hadrian enacted harsh decrees intended to stamp out Judaism entirely, banning the Torah, Sabbath observance, circumcision, and public Torah study, and executing leading rabbinic sages (such as Rabbi Akiva).Shift of Jewish Center: With Judea devastated, the primary centers of Jewish life and scholarship shifted north to the Galilee and later to Babylonia.  

• Rise of Rabbinic Judaism: Deprived of the Temple and national sovereignty, Jewish religious life transformed permanently into Rabbinic Judaism, focusing heavily on prayer, study, home observance, and the codification of oral law (culminating later in the Mishnah). The revolt and its aftermath accelerated the final separation between early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism as distinct religious movements.
  
• Byzantine Period (Eastern Roman Empire): The Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) lasted from 330 CE to 1453 CE. After the split of the Roman Empire, Judea (then part of the administrative divisions known as Palaestina) remained under Byzantine/Eastern Roman rule. During the Byzantine period (4th to 7th centuries CE), Judea and the broader southern Levant transformed into a heavily Christianized region governed from Constantinople, leading to the decline of the local Jewish majority and the rise of extensive Christian monasticism.  Decline of the Jewish Population: Persistent legal pressure, forced conversions, and revolts reduced the Jewish majority in Judea down to a small minority by the 7th century. The center of world Jewish scholarship and leadership shifted from Judea to Babylonia, where the Babylonian Talmud was finalized.                                
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• Brief Sassanid Persian Rule: The Persian Sassanid Empire briefly invaded and captured Jerusalem from 614 to 628 CE (14 years)  before Byzantine control was restored by Emperor Heraclius. During the brief Sassanid Persian rule (specifically the capture of Jerusalem in 614 CE during the Byzantine–Sasanian War), Jewish forces from the Galilee and Judaea allied with the Sassanid army to overthrow Byzantine Christian control.   Tired of severe religious persecution, heavy taxation, and bans under Byzantine rule (Emperor Heraclius), thousands of Jewish rebels (estimated between 20,000 and 26,000) from Tiberias, Nazareth, and the Galilee joined Sassanid general Shahrbaraz. Conquest of Jerusalem: The joint Sassanid-Jewish forces captured Jerusalem in May 614 CE. Brief Jewish Autonomy: Following the victory, Nehemiah ben Hushiel was appointed as the Jewish governor of Jerusalem, and ritual sacrifices and efforts toward re-establishing a form of self-rule or temple administration began.  
  
                       Map of the Islamic Conquests in the 7th to 9th centuries
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              The Rashidun Caliphate at its greatest extent under Uthman, c. 655
• The Rashidun Caliphate: In 636 CE, only 8 years after the Sassanid Empire held Judah, Arab Muslim armies decisively defeated Byzantine forces at the Battle of Yarmouk (636 CE) against the Byzantine Empire and the fall of the Sasanian capital and captured Jerusalem in 637–638 CE, bringing centuries of Roman and Byzantine rule to an end.  The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661 CE) lasting for 29 years,  was the first Islamic state led by the four "Rightly Guided" (Rashidun) caliphs who succeeded the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.  
• Treasury & Taxes: Maintained a state treasury (Bayt al-Mal) and structured land and wealth taxes, including Zakat, Jizya (poll tax on non-Muslim subjects), Kharaj, and Fay.  Garrison Cities: Built central military and administrative hubs like Kufa, Basra, and Fustat to manage troops and local populations. The caliphate grew rapidly to cover over 2 million square miles, spanning the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, the entire Sasanian Empire (Persia), and parts of Armenia and Anatolia., ending in 661 CE. 
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• In 661 CE, the geographic region of Judah (then known historically as part of Palestine or Jund Filastin) transitioned to the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate.Founder & Capital: Founded in 661 CE by Mu'awiya I after the First Muslim Civil War (First Fitna), shifting the capital from Medina to Damascus (Syria), which served as their primary power base.  Territorial Expansion: It grew into one of the largest empires in history, stretching across three continents—from the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa through the Middle East up to Central Asia and the Indus River in India. Their northern advance into Europe was stopped at the Battle of Tours in 732 CE.  Major Architecture: They constructed iconic monuments including the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Great Mosque of Damascus, and the Great Mosque of Córdoba.  Fall: Exhausted by ongoing tribal rivalries, financial strain, and civil wars (such as the Third Fitna), the dynasty was overthrown in 750 CE during the Abbasid Revolution at the Battle of the Great Zab River.
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• This covers 680 years past 70 CE and we leave the Judeans under the thumb of the Abbasid Caliphate.  The Abbasid Caliphate was the third major Islamic caliphate, ruled by the Abbasid dynasty from 750 CE to 1258 CE.  a total o 508 years, but The historical region of Judah (part of Palestine/the Holy Land) was under Abbasid-affiliated rule for a total of 192 years, split across two main time periods.