Memoirs of Hadrian, Antisemitism, and the Gospel

I’ve been reading Marguerite Yourcenar excellent novel, Memoirs of Hadrian. I’ve noticed how Yourcenar adeptly uses Hadrian as a mouthpiece for her philosophical and social concerns while still maintaining a historical realism that doesn’t devolve into crass anachronism. Nevertheless, she is not so adroit as to mask her own ideology; I quite suspected she was of a socialist bent and subsequent research proved this. Indeed, there is an air of the socialist sophisticant throughout the pages of the book. There is the dream of using the resources of government (in this case the Roman Empire) to reorder society along particular socio-economic standards, many of which have a noticeably leftist bent to them. In the book, there is the urge for social, economic, and cultural conformity of society and the world, so that everyone comes together as one. Naturally, what’s left unstated in this idealism is that it can only be achieved by force of government and its inherent violence.

Having understood the book in this light, yesterday I read its account of the famous Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) and Hadrian’s fictional musings about the events and circumstances. The revolt was a rebellion by Jewish Zealots led by Simon bar Kokhba, against the Roman Empire, for the liberation of Palestine. This was the final revolt that led to the complete dissolution of the Jewish state. Hadrian was Roman Emperor at the time.

In his account, Hadrian notes how he and his subordinates attempted use the Roman army to revitalize Jerusalem as a Roman city, to establish religious pluralism, to spread Greek culture, and ending barbaric practices such as circumcision. Hadrian admits that he underestimated the Jews’ resistance to change, but nevertheless criticizes their religious “fanaticism” and unwillingness to conform to society for the greater good. Jewish resistance to conformity eventually leads to the utter destruction of Judea.

Now, based on my reading of the book and my research into Yourcenar, I do not believe that this account of the revolt has been written with ironic disapproval with regards to Hadrian. While I do not think that Yourcenar approves of violence, she nevertheless appears to approve of government-enforced conformity to society and to disapprove of resistance to it, typified in 2^nd century Jewish zealotry.

Even before I read this account, I had been thinking about the rise of anti-Semitism amongst the Anglo-Left, particularly the more various individuals and aspects of it embrace socialism. In doing so, I was reminded of the following quote by Kevin D. Williamson:

"For the Jew-hater, this is maddening: Throw the Jews out of Spain, and they thrive abroad. Send them to the poorest slums in New York, and those slums stop being slums. Keep them out of the Ivy League and watch NYU become a world-class institution inspired by men such as Jonas Salk, son of largely uneducated Polish immigrants. Put the Jewish state in a desert wasteland and watch it bloom, first with produce and then with technology. Israel today has more companies listed on NASDAQ than any other country except the United States and China.”

The ancient Hebrew anthropological conception insists upon the idea of the individual, though in balance with the community. Monotheism necessitates moral and ethical standards that are understood to be universal. Combine this anthropology and theology, along with election and the covenantal requirements of Torah, and you get a people who, when appropriately applying their principles, will succeed even in the midst of persecution and who will stubbornly resist conformity and the abandonment of those principles, even to the point of death. The early Roman emperors understood Jewish nonconformity and made allowances; Hadrian did not. But then neither did the Pharaohs of the Exodus, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and the socialists of the 20^th and now 21^st centuries. The common thread of all has been the pursuit of an established, cohesive order of society and culture, either for the blatant securing of power or for the professed reasons of a greater, harmonious society. Unfortunately for the conformists, Jews stick out as an embodied contradiction to whatever ideology many conformists hold.

Jews continue to be the most persecuted minority in history, yet they’ve continually excelled in market-based capitalism amidst suffering, not with government help but despite government oppression. This defies much thinking in contemporary socialist and intersectional thought. Small wonder Jews are often excluded from leftist considerations of minorities; they don’t often fit within socialist formulas explaining the causes of minority oppression. Asians often face a similar exclusion. Instead, Jewish persistence - and even their existence - becomes embodied defiance of particular ideologies. Thus, in order to explain the discrepancy, Jews become subject to conspiratorial theories of manipulation and collaboration. Thus, when Jews did not fit within National Socialism’s reasons for the suffering of post-WWI Germany, they became part of the reasons for that suffering instead of a part of aggrieved victimhood. Small wonder Adolf Hitler justified his anti-Semitism to Otto Wagener on the grounds that “the Jew is not a socialist.”

I note this as an example of a profound truth essential to how we as Christians are to proclaim and enact the Gospel of Jesus as Christ and Lord and how we are to take part in his subjection of the powers to his Lordship. The powerful, and those pursuing power, seek greater control and conformity in order to attain and secure that power. Frequently, they must embrace, believe, and promulgate lies in that process. But lies, by their very nature, stand askew in the presence of reality; they must be repeated endlessly without opposition to be successful. On the other hand, truth by its nature aligns with reality and shines in the darkness and exposes the darkness for it is. Truth destroys lies by merely being spoken and is thus a threat to the powerful. That is why the powerful frequently seek to suppress the truth and seek to destroy all those who speak it. And the most threateningly effective means of speaking the truth is not merely by proclaiming it but also by living it. Those who embody the truth in their behavior and with their words live not by lives but shine like lights in the darkness. They are walking contradictions to a world ruled by lies, control, conformity, and abusive power. As Walter Wink put it:

“When anyone steps out of the system and tells the truth, lives the truth, that person enables everyone else to peer behind the curtain too. That person has shown everyone that that it is possible to live within the truth, despite the repercussions. ‘Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal.’ Anyone who steps out of line therefore ‘denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. … If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth.’ That is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else.”

Now the Gospel is the good news of the Kingdom of God and Jesus as its King (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:43; 8:1; 16:16; Acts 8:12; 20:25; 28:31). In particular, by virtue of his Messiahship (Psalm 110 and Daniel 7), Jesus is actively at work in this world through his Spirit and his Spirit-empowered followers bringing all the corrupt powers of this world into obedience under him (Ephesians 1:20-22; Philippians 2:8-11; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 15:24; Colossians 1:13; 2:10, 15; Galatians 1:4; 2 Timothy 1:10; Jude 1:25; Revelation 2:26-27; 12:10; Matthew 9:8; 21:23; Mark 3:15; John 5:27; 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 17:2; Luke 20:43; Hebrews 2:14; 10:13; 1 John 3:8; 1 Peter 3). Indeed, as is clear from 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Peter, Christians are expected to take part in this process of subjecting the powers of the world to Christ’s Lordship. We are called to be faithful servants in bringing idolatrous powers through repentance back into allegiance to God.

There are a few ways in which we go about this. One of the most important is through truth and for the reasons stated above. This is why 1 Peter, Ephesians, and the Sermon on the Mount stress the importance of moral behavior and suffering as a means for defeating oppressive powers. The truth is a powerful weapon and living it, embodying it exposes the darkness of the fallen powers for what they are. It brings the powers and the people under its oppression to the place of conviction where they either embrace repentance or continue following the path towards condemnation. That is why we are to live the truth (Ephesians 4:17-18; 1 John 1:5-7; 3 John 3-4). And while the results of this embodying the truth can lead to suffering, God uses that suffering and persecution for his redemptive purposes, as 1 Peter teaches (1:7-11, 21; 2:5-10, 21-24; 3:22; 4:1, 13-14; 5:1-10). When we embody the truth against the oppressive powers’ forces of control, conformity, and lies, our work is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).