1. Valerius Maximus, 1. 3. 3
Cn. Cornelius Hispalus, praetor peregrinus in the year of the consulate of M. Popilius Laenas and L. Calpurnius, ordered the astrologers by an edict to leave Rome and Italy within ten days, since by a fallacious interpretation of the stars they perturbed fickle and silly minds, thereby making profit out of their lies. The same praetor compelled the Jews, who attempted to infect the Roman custom with the cult of Jupiter Sabazius, to return to their homes.
2. Tacitus, Annals 2. 85. (M. Grant tr).
Another discussion concerned the expulsion of Egyptian and Jewish rites. The senate decreed that four thousand adult ex-slaves tainted with those superstitions should be transported to Sardinia to suppress banditry there. If the unhealthy climate killed them, the loss would be small. The rest, unless they repudiated their unholy practices by a certain date, had to leave Italy.
3. Suetonius, Tiberius 36 (J. C. Rolfe tr).
He abolished foreign cults, especially the Egyptian and Jewish rites, compelling all who were addicted to such superstitions to burn their religious vestments and all their paraphernalia. Those of the Jews who were of military age he assigned to provinces of less healthy climate, ostensibly to serve in the army; the others of the same race or of similar beliefs he banished from the city, on pain of slavery for life if they did not obey.
4. Suetonius, Claudius 25.4 (Silverman tr).
Because they were constantly causing a disturbance at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled the Jews from Rome (in 41 AD).
5. Varro, Antiq. Rerum Div. (F 48; M. Stern tr).
Yet Varro, one of themselves (to a more learned man they can not point) thought the god of the Jews to be the same as Jupiter, thinking that it makes no difference by what name he is called, so long as the same thing is understood.
6. Seneca, Fr 145R (W. M. Green tr).
But when speaking of the Jews he (Seneca) says: "Meanwhile the customs of this accursed race have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. The vanquished have given laws to their victors."
7. Juvenal, Satire 6 153-160 (G. G. Ramsay tr).
Then in the winter time, when merchant Jason is shut out from
view, and his armed sailors are blocked out by the white booths,
she will carry off huge crystal vases, vases bigger still
of agate, and finally a diamond of great renown, made precious
by the finger of Berenice. It was given as a present long ago
by the barbarian Agrippa to his incestuous sister, in that country
where kings celebrate festal sabbaths with bare feet, and where
a long-established clemency suffers pigs to attain old age.
8. Lucan, B. C. 2. 590-593 (J. D. Duff tr).
The Arab owns me conqueror; so do the warlike Heniochi,
and the Colchians, famous for the fleece they were robbed of.
My standards overawe Cappadocia, and Judea given over
to the worship of an unknown god.
9. Petronius, Satyricon Fr. 37 (Silverman tr).
The Jew can worship his porcine divinity
and clamour in the ears of high heaven,
but unless he also cuts back his foreskin with the knife,
and closely binds his knotty head,
cut off from the people, he must go live in Greek cities
and not be bound to tremble at the Sabbath fast.
10. Suetonius, Domitian 12.2 (J. C. Rolfe tr).
Besides other taxes, that on the Jews is leveled with the utmost vigour, and those were prosecuted who without publicly acknowledging their faith yet lived as Jews, as well as those who concealed their origin and did not pay the tribute levied upon their people. I recall being present in my youth when the person of a man ninety years old was examined before the procurator and a very crowded court, to see whether he was circumcised.
11. Horace, Serm. 1.9.67-72 (H. R. Fairclough tr).
"Surely you said that there was something you wanted
to tell me in private." "I mind it well, but I'll tell you
at a better time. Today is the thirtieth day, a Sabbath.
Would you affront the circumcised Jews?" "I have no scruples",
say I. "But I have. I am a somewhat weaker brother, one
of the many. You'll pardon me; I'll talk another day."
12. Scholiast on Hor. Serm. 1.9.70 (Silverman tr.)
Note on "the circumcised Jews": circumcised for the following reason, because Moses, the king of the Jews, by whose laws they are governed, was rendered thus by the negligence of some surgeon, and he wanted all the men to be circumcised in order that he would not be the only one so marked.
13. Genesis 17. 10-11 and 14 (NRSV).
(10) This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. (11) You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. (14) Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.
14. Paul, Romans 2. 28-29 (NRSV).
For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart; it is spiritual and not literal.
15. Juvenal, Sat. 14 96-106 (G. G. Ramsay tr).
Some who have had a father who reveres the Sabbath worship
nothing but the clouds, and the divinity of the heavens,
and see no difference between eating swine's flesh, from which
their father abstained, and that of man. In time they take to
circumcision. Having been wont to flout the laws of Rome,
they learn and practice and revere the Jewish law, and all
that Moses handed down in his secret tome, forbidding
to point the way to any not worshipping the same rites,
and conducting none but the circumcised to the desired fountain.
For all of this the father was to blame, who gave up every
seventh day to idleness, keeping it apart from all concerns of life.
