Conflicts between Christians and Jews at Alexandria

About this same time, it happened that the Jewish inhabitants were driven out of Alexandria by Cyril the bishop, on the following account. The Alexandrian public is more delighted with turmoil than any other people, and if at any time it should find an excuse, it breaks forth into the most intolerable excesses; for it never ceases from its turmoil without bloodshed.

It happened on this occasion that a disturbance arose among the populace, not from a serious cause but from an evil that has become very popular in almost all cities, namely, a fondness for dancing exhibitions. Because the Jews are disengaged from business on the Sabbath and spend their time not in hearing the law but in theatrical amusements, dancers usually collect great crowds on that day, and disorder almost invariably occurs. Although this was in some degree controlled by the governor of Alexandria, the Jews nevertheless continued to oppose these measures. And although they are always hostile to the Christians, they were stirred to still greater opposition against them due to the dancers. When Orestes the prefect published an edict—for so they are accustomed to calling public notices—in the theater to regulate the shows, some of the bishop Cyril’s party were present to learn the nature of the orders about to be issued. There was among them a certain Hierax, a teacher of the basic branches of literature, who was a very enthusiastic listener to the bishop Cyril’s sermons and who made himself conspicuous with his constant applause. When the Jews observed this person in the theater, they immediately cried out that he had come there for no other purpose than to excite sedition among the people.

Now Orestes had long watched the growing power of the bishops with jealousy because they encroached on the jurisdiction of the authorities appointed by the emperor, especially as Cyril wished to set spies over his proceedings. He therefore ordered Hierax to be seized and publicly subjected him to torture in the theater. When Cyril was informed of this, he sent for the leaders of the Jews and threatened them with the utmost consequences unless they ceased their molestation of the Christians. The Jewish populace, on hearing these threats, instead of suppressing their violence only became more furious and were led to form conspiracies to destroy the Christians. One of these was so desperate in character that it caused their entire expulsion from Alexandria. This I shall now describe.

Having agreed that each one of them should wear a ring on his finger made of the bark of a palm branch, for the sake of mutual recognition, they [the Jews] determined to make a nightly attack on the Christians. They therefore sent people into the streets to raise an outcry that the church named after Alexander was on fire. Upon hearing this, many Christians ran out, some from one direction and some from another, anxious to save their church. The Jews immediately fell upon and slew them—readily able to identify each other by their rings.

At daybreak, the authors of this atrocity could not be concealed. Cyril, accompanied by an enormous crowd of people going to their synagogues—for so they call their house of prayer—took them away from them and drove the Jews out of the city, permitting the masses to plunder their [the Jews’] goods. Thus the Jews who had inhabited the city from the time of Alexander the Macedonian [ca. 323 BCE] were expelled from it, stripped of all they possessed, and dispersed, some in one direction and some in another. One of them, a physician named Adamantius, fled to Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, and, professing Christianity, some time afterward returned to Alexandria and fixed his residence there. But Orestes, the governor of Alexandria, was filled with great indignation at these events and was excessively grieved that a city of such magnitude should be suddenly bereft of such a large portion of its population. He therefore immediately communicated the whole affair to the emperor. Cyril also wrote to him, describing the outrageous conduct of the Jews, and meanwhile sent people to Orestes to mediate a reconciliation, for the people had urged him to do so. When Orestes refused to listen to friendly advances, Cyril extended toward him the book of Gospels, believing that respect for religion would convince him to lay his resentment aside.

Adapted from the translation ofA. C. Zenos.