החיבור האנטי-יהודי של אפולוניוס מולון

Apollonius Molon, the renowned orator who flourished in Rhodes in the first half of the first century B C , was considered by Josephus to be the most rabid Jew-hater ever, along with Apion. Judging from the subject matter of the surviving testimonia, it would seem that Apollonius Molon may well be described as the most hostile of the foremost Hellenistic and Roman authors and intellectuals. Very little has been written, however, on Apollonius Molon's remarks about the Jews, perhaps because of the meagre sources on this topic and, indeed, on the life and works of Apollonius Molon altogether. This paper attempts to understand the testimonia concerning Molon's attitude toward the Jews in the context of his life and views, and his contemporary cultural background. Several preliminary questions are first addressed, concerning the identification of Molon's sources and the literary framework in which he made his remarks on the Jews. One central question discussed at length is Molon's attitude toward the enthusiastic excursus of his contemporary, Posidonius of Apamea, on Mosaic Judaism (on the latter, see my article, 'Mosaic Judaism and Judaism of the Second Temple Period - The Jewish Ethnography of Strabo', Tarbiz, 66 [1997], pp. 297-349). The main conclusions of the article may be summarized as follows: 1. Molon wrote an ethnographic monograph called On the Jews'. 2. Josephus was familiar with this treatise at first hand. 3. The work described the origo of the Jews, their customs, the acts of contemporary Jewish leaders, and apparently the geography of their country, too. 4. Apollonius Molon chose the ethnographic genre to make his work appear scientific and reliable. 5. His main sources of information were both pro-Jewish and anti-Jewish; of these we may identify: a Hellenistic Jewish source; Lysimachus, the Hellenistic author quoted by Josephus on the Jews' residence m, and expulsion from, Egypt; Timochares, a court scribe of Antiochus VII Sidetes; and the Jewish excursus of Posidonius of Apamea. 6. Apollonius Molon was the direct source for Apion's account of the 'Blood Libel', but he did not originate it. Molon availed himself of Timochares, who drew on previous sources. 7. Josephus does not balk at any means to blacken the name of Molon, whose character we learn from other testimonia was quite pleasant. Josephus achieves his aim by a series of terms of abuse and foisting upon Molon the story that he sullied the reputation of married women and castrated youths. 8. The abusive remarks of Josephus against allegorical interpretation are to be understood in view of Molon's composition on Homer in which there are interpretations of an allegorical nature. 9. We cannot know whether Molon had personal motives arising from close personal expenence for his attack on the Jews, or whether he was commissioned by someone else. 10. There appears to have been an inevitable rivalry between Apollonius Molon and Posidonius of Apamea. This seems to have been not only because of the traditional discidium between rhetors and philosophers, and because they were competing for students, but also because they were two of the most dominant figures in Hellenistic culture confined together in such a small space as Rhodes 11. At least some of the testimoma indicate that some of Molon's remarks on the Jews are a reaction to the enthusiastic excursus by Posidonius on Mosaic Judaism. Molon uses various means to turn Posidonius' praises on their head. It is possible that the choice of genre and the selection of material were also influenced by Molon's desire to respond to Posidonius' account. The discussion on these points occupies about half of the paper. 12. This is not to say that Molon s work was written as a clear and consistent polemic against Posidonius, with every argument and minute detail responding to Posidonius. It was an ethnographic treatise with a life of its own, and would have been intended to appear reliable to the reader. 13. The insertion of reactions to previous authors was a common occurrence in Greco- Roman ethnographic literature. Hecataeus of Abdera, for example, reacted to Herodotus in this way, as did Posidonius to Hecataeus, and Artaphanus to Manetho. This is also the case with Tacitus. Authors of the Hellenistic-Roman period did not content themselves with copying, abbreviating and embellishing what they found in their sources, but also reacted to them and argued with them implicitly or explicitly. There was a continuous discourse between historians and ethnographers on the Jewish nation, as well as other nations. This discourse gained momentum in the literary exchanges between Christians and pagans. 14. It can be established that both the positive and the negative treatments of the Jews and Judaism in the Hellenistic-Roman period are to be understood not only against the background of the authors' personal experience and contact with Jews, contemporary events, and the literary and ethnographic tradition preceding them, but also - often most importantly, or only - by reference to the views of philosophical schools (e.g. Theophrastus, Posidonius), and the arguments and hostility between philosophers themselves (Clearchus), or between them and representatives of other disciplines (Apollonius Molon).