Lucius Apuleius of Madaurus on the Jews

Lucius Apuleius of Madaurus - better known as either Lucius or Apuleius - was a second century Roman polymath and the author of numerous books on topics as disparate as philosophical commentaries on Plato, practical magic, the mechanics of universe and agriculture.

Apuleius is also the only Latin novelist whose work 'Metamorphoses' (usually called after Saint Augustine 'The Golden Ass'), has come down to us complete.

Indeed we know quite a lot of biographical detail about Apuleius in that he was Berber origin - as was Saint Augustine - and spent the sizable fortune that his father left him in a constant search for knowledge as well as initiation into numerous Roman mystery cults.

When money began to run dry Apuleius married his friend Pontianus' mother Pudentilla (with said friend's blessing) - who happened to also be a rather rich widow - but Pontianus' wife's father persuaded him to invite

Apuleius in court with having seduced Pudentilla with magic in order to get her fortune.

This directly lead to Apuleius' successful defence speech (we also know he practiced law for an unspecified amount of time hence his ability to easily defend himself against the charges rather than hiring an advocate to do it on his behalf); which was later published by him, known as the 'Apologia' or alternatively 'A Discourse on Magic', that contains a substantive mention of the jews.

To wit:

'Consider what confidence in my innocence and what contempt of you is implied by my conduct. If you can discover one trivial reason that might have led me to woo Pudentilla for the sake of some personal advantage, if you can prove that I have made the very slightest profit out of my marriage, I am ready to be any magician you please—the great Carmendas himself or Damigeron or Moses of whom you have heard, or Jannes or Apollobex or Dardanus himself or any sorcerer of note from the time of Zoroaster and Ostanes till now.' (1)

Now in the above it is clear that Apuleius is suggesting that Moses - the 'law-giver' of the jews from the Greek and Roman perspective - was a sorcerer/magician par extraordinaire.

Williams even goes as far as to declare that the Romans and Greeks saw Moses as the 'supreme sorcerer' and concomitantly jews as master practitioners of magic and sorcery. (2) This is true to an extent but

Williams is guilty of slightly overstating the case in that while it is true the jews were seen as highly competent sorcerers: they were not the only ones.

The Egyptians - in addition to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia [the Assyrian and Babylonian empires respectively] - (3) were also renowned for their magical abilities (4) as is easily demonstrated in the passage by pointing out that of all the non-divine names mentioned we do know who the magician Jannes supposedly was: one of the Egyptian magicians bested by Moses. (5)

This means that while Williams is right to emphasize the jews as being regarded as eminent sorcerers: she is wrong not to qualify her remarks by pointing out that the jews were but one of several Eastern peoples that had such a reputation in the Greek and Roman world.

Coming back to the point in hand in relation to Apuleius: we should understand - as this necessary diversion has shown - that when he is talking about Moses as being a master magician it is not actually a compliment per se. Rather it would be regarded as an insult inside the Imperial Roman ideological system of Romano-Greek civilization being non-decadent and manly (thus willing to deal with problems fairly and in the open), while Eastern barbarians like the jews were held to be examples of decadent emasculation in that they didn't deal with others openly and honestly, but rather sought to gain mastery and revenge by nefarious means in their barbarous religious systems such as casting spells. (6)

This is confirmed when we read

Apuleius' other mention of the jews in his work 'Florida':

'The Indians are a populous nation of vast extent of territory, situated far from us to the East, near the reflux of the ocean and the rising of the sun, under the first beams of the stars, and at the extreme verge of the earth, beyond the learned Egyptians, and the superstitious Jews, and the mercantile Nabataeans, and the flowing robed Arsacidae, and the Ityraeans, poor in crops, and the Arabians rich in perfumes.' (7)

In this passage we can see that Apuleius is highlighting the material and religious decadence of the Eastern peoples in so far as in referring to the Indians: he talks about the Egyptians as being 'learned' (as the Egyptians were regarded as 'origin of religion' by the Greeks and then the Romans), the (southern) Arabs as being decadent perfume merchants, the (northern) Arabs (Nabataeans) as being obsessed with mercantile activities and the jews as being superstitious religious loons par excellence.

This is obviously negative stereotyping on Apuleius' part, but it does tell us that Apuleius had a strong distaste for the jews (who he would have had plenty of contact with in his well-travelled life and profound interest in all things to do with the pursuit of knowledge) and that distaste is likely to have been based - in whole or in part - on his experiences in dealing with them.

References

(1) Apul. Apol. 90

(2) Margaret Williams, 1998, 'The Jews among the Greeks and Romans: A Diasporan Sourcebook', 1st Edition, Duckworth: London, p. 58

(3) For a useful summary of the focus on the practice of magic in Mesopotamian religion see Benjamin Foster, 2007, 'Mesopotamia', pp. 205-206 in John Hinnells (Ed.), 2007, 'A Handbook of Ancient Religions', 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York

(4) Cf. Derek Collins, 2008, 'Magic in the Ancient Greek World', 1st Edition, Blackwell: Oxford

(5) Tim. 2:3.8

(6) Cf. Erich Gruen, 2002, 'Diaspora: Jews against Greeks and Romans', 1st Edition, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, pp. 20-21

(7) Apul. Flor. 6