Claudius’s Edicts for the Jews

Claudius quickly got rid of everyone in the army he had reason to suspect. Then he published an edict in which he confirmed to Agrippa the kingdom that Gaius had given him, and spoke of the king in high praise. He also added to it all the country his grandfather Herod had ruled, that is, Judea and Samaria. These he gave back to him as owed to his family; but Abila of Lysanias and everything on Mount Lebanon he added out of his own territories. He also made a treaty with Agrippa, sworn with oaths, in the middle of the Forum in the city of Rome. He took from Antiochus the kingdom he held, but gave him a certain part of Cilicia and Commagene. He also set free Alexander the alabarch, an old friend of his who had been the steward of his mother Antonia, and who had been put in chains in Gaius’s anger. Alexander’s son married Berenice, Agrippa’s daughter. When this son, Marcus, who had married her as a virgin, died, Agrippa gave her to his own brother Herod, and asked Claudius to give him the kingdom of Chalcis. [a]

About this time there was civil strife between the Jews and the Greeks in the city of Alexandria. For when Gaius died, the Jewish nation, which had been humbled under his rule and terribly abused by the Alexandrians, took heart again and at once took up arms. Claudius sent orders to the prefect of Egypt to put down the strife. At the request of King Agrippa and King Herod he also sent an edict to Alexandria and to Syria, written in this way: “Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, holding the tribunician power, declares: I have learned that the Jews in Alexandria, who are called Alexandrians, settled there together with the Alexandrians from the very earliest times, and received from the kings equal civic rights with them, as has been made plain by the documents in their possession and by the edicts. After Alexandria was brought under our empire by Augustus, their rights were preserved by the prefects sent there at different times, and no dispute arose over these rights of theirs. And at the time when Aquila was at Alexandria and the ethnarch of the Jews died, Augustus did not prevent ethnarchs from being appointed, since he wished each people to be subject to us while keeping to their own customs, and not to be compelled to break the religion of their fathers. But in the time of Gaius Caesar the Alexandrians rose up against the Jews living among them, because Gaius, out of his great madness and folly, had humbled them, since the Jewish nation would not break the religion of their fathers and address him as a god. It is my will that the Jewish nation lose none of its rights because of the folly of Gaius, but that the rights they had before be preserved to them, and that they keep to their own customs. And I command both parties to take the greatest care that no disturbance arise after my edict has been posted.” [d]

Such was the edict on behalf of the Jews that was sent to Alexandria. The one sent to the rest of the inhabited world read as follows: “Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, chief priest, holding the tribunician power, consul-elect for the second time, declares: King Agrippa and King Herod, who are very dear to me, have asked me to allow the same rights to be preserved for the Jews throughout the empire under the Romans as for those in Alexandria. I have very gladly agreed, not only as a favor to those who asked me, but also because I judge those for whom I was asked to be worthy of it, on account of their faithfulness and friendship toward the Romans. Most of all, I judge it right that not even any Greek city should lose these rights, since they were preserved for them under the divine Augustus. It is right, therefore, that the Jews throughout the whole world under us should also keep the customs of their fathers without hindrance. I now also command them to use this kindness of mine considerately, and not to despise the religious observances of other nations, but to keep their own laws. It is my will that the magistrates of the cities, colonies and municipalities, both in Italy and outside it, and the kings and princes through their own envoys, have this edict of mine inscribed, and keep it posted for not less than thirty days in a place where it can easily be read from the ground.” [g]