Christians and Jews at Alexandria

About this same time it happened that the Jews living in Alexandria were driven out of the city by Cyril the bishop, for the following reason. The people of Alexandria delight in riots more than any other people, and whenever they find a pretext they break out into the most intolerable excesses; they never stop their turmoil without bloodshed. On this occasion a disturbance arose among the people, not from any serious cause, but from an evil that has become very popular in almost every city, namely a passion for dancing shows. Because the Jews are free from business on the Sabbath, and spend the day not in hearing the Law but in theatrical amusements, the dancers usually draw great crowds on that day, and disorder almost always follows. Though the governor of Alexandria had this somewhat under control, the Jews kept opposing his measures. And although they are always hostile to the Christians, they were stirred to still greater opposition against them because of the dancers. [a]

So when Orestes the prefect was publishing an edict (that is what they call public notices) in the theater to regulate the shows, some of Cyril the bishop’s party were present to learn what orders were about to be issued. Among them was a certain Hierax, a teacher of the first elements of reading and writing. He was a very enthusiastic hearer of Cyril the bishop’s sermons and made himself conspicuous by his eagerness to applaud. When the Jews saw this man in the theater, they immediately cried out that he had come there for no other purpose than to stir up the people to sedition. Now Orestes had long looked with jealousy on the growing power of the bishops, because they encroached on the jurisdiction of the authorities appointed by the emperor, and especially because Cyril wanted to set spies over what he did. He therefore had Hierax seized and publicly put him to the torture in the theater. When Cyril was told of this, he sent for the leading Jews and threatened them with the utmost severity unless they stopped harassing the Christians. When the Jewish people heard these threats, instead of curbing their violence they only grew more furious, and they formed conspiracies to destroy the Christians. One of these was so desperate that it caused their complete expulsion from Alexandria, and I will now describe it.

They agreed that each of them should wear on his finger a ring made of the bark of a palm branch, so that they could recognize one another, and they resolved to make an attack on the Christians by night. So they sent men into the streets to raise the cry that the church named after Alexander was on fire. Many Christians, hearing this, ran out from every direction, anxious to save their church. The Jews immediately fell on them and killed them, easily telling each other apart by their rings. At daybreak the authors of this atrocity could not be hidden. Cyril, with an immense crowd of people, went to their synagogues, as they call their houses of prayer, took them away from them, and drove the Jews out of the city, letting the crowd plunder their goods. So the Jews, who had lived in the city since the time of Alexander the Macedonian, were expelled from it, stripped of everything they had, and scattered in every direction. One of them, a teacher of medicine named Adamantius, fled to Atticus, bishop of Constantinople. He professed Christianity, and some time afterward returned to Alexandria and settled there.

But Orestes, the governor of Alexandria, was filled with indignation at these proceedings, and deeply grieved that so great a city should suddenly have lost so large a part of its population. He at once reported the whole affair to the emperor. Cyril also wrote to him, describing the outrageous conduct of the Jews. Meanwhile he sent people to Orestes to work for a reconciliation, for the people had urged him to do this. When Orestes refused to listen to friendly approaches, Cyril held out the book of the Gospels toward him, believing that respect for religion would lead him to put aside his resentment. But even this did nothing to calm the prefect; he remained relentlessly hostile to the bishop. And then the following event took place.