Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

The same wider territorial concept of Palestine was embraced by classical Jewish writers, especially Josephus (37–c. 100 AD; Hebrew: Yosef ben Matityahu), born in Jerusalem to a priestly family, and Philo of Alexandria (c. 25

BC–c. 50 CE; Hebrew: Yedidia HaCohen; also called Philo Judaeus), the Jewish philosopher and a contemporary of Jesus who lived in the Roman province of Egypt and became the most important representative of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo (whose father had apparently played a prominent role in Palestine before moving to Alexandria8), wrote in Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit9 that ‘four thousand’ Essenes10 – a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD and who gained fame in modern times as a result of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls – lived in ‘Palestine and Syria’.11

Hellenised Greek-speaking Jewish authors such as Philo and Josephus wrote in standard Greek for educated Jewish classes in the region and for Roman and Greek audiences. Like Greek and Roman writers and many Jewish Roman citizens, both Josephus and Philo understood and applied the term Palestine to ‘greater Palestine’ extending from modern Lebanon to Egypt (Robinson 1865: 15; Jacobson 1999), and not just to Philistia, the coastal region of Palestine, or the former ‘land of the Philistines’ from Gaza to Tantur.

The official Roman designation of the province as Syria-Palaestina existed long before the Jewish revolt of 66–69 AD. However, Vespasian – the patron of Josephus – who was personally involved in subduing the revolt in Judaea, formally widened the territorial boundaries of Palestine and officially designated the whole country as ‘Palestine’, and this is evident from Roman coins of the period. However, it would be wrong to assume that Roman Provincia Palaestina displaced or replaced Judaea.

The latter simply was and remained one of the regions of Provincia Palaestina.

Judaea was always seen as representing only a specific and small component of this greater whole, while Palaestina was viewed by classical Greek and Jewish writers and Roman politicians as representative of the whole country from Phoenicia (mostly associated with modern Lebanon)

to Egypt.

Writing in the late 1st century, Josephus embraced the Roman patron‒ protégé system and himself would later write his history works Antiquities of the Jews, The Jewish War and Against Apion in Greek; in these works of history Vespasian is positively remembered by Josephus. Josephus made a clear distinction between Syria and Palestine and endorsed Herodotus’ account of Palestine from the 5th century BC.

Josephus holds Herodotus in high esteem as the founder of historiography, recognizes his authority on ethnographical matters, praises his reliance on autopsy as a basis for knowledge, uses material, vocabulary and themes from the Histories, and even uses historical information to ‘correct’ the Bible. (Priestley and Zali 2016: 6)

Although occasionally Josephus would refer to Palaestina in connection with Philistia and the ‘land of the Philistines’, by and large he accepted the wider Roman conception of Palestine and used the name within the wider context of the official Roman designation and toponymic representation of the country (Flavius Josephus 1981, 2004, 2013).

As with the iconography of the Coinage of Philistia of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (discussed above), for many centuries Hellenistic and Athenian intellectual and artistic creations had exercised considerable influence on the culture of the coastal Palestinian cities of Ascalon, Gaza and Ashdod and their Hellenised intellectuals. The most famous Palestinian academic was Antiochus of Ascalon (130‒68/67 BC), by far the most distinguished Palestinian philosopher of the Roman era. Born in the Palestinian city of Ascalon on the Mediterranean coast, Antiochus’ compatriot Sosus of Ascalon, a Stoic, played an important part in his philosophical education (Sedley 2012: 11). Antiochus travelled to Athens, at the time the world centre of philosophy, at around 110 BC and became an eminent Platonic philosopher and a friend of Cicero, Rome’s greatest politician and orator; the latter was his pupil in Athens in about 78‒79 BC. Antiochus was a pupil of Philon of Larisa and succeeded Philon as the head of the New Academy which had been founded in Athens by Plato. After teaching philosophy in Athens, he travelled to Alexandria and later founded his own school of philosophy which ‘advocated the possibility of knowledge, thus reversing the sceptical tradition of the recent Academy’ (Sedley 2012:

3). He also attempted to reconcile the principles of Platonic epistemology with those of the Stoics and in 87/86 he went on a mission to Alexandria and the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire to spread his ideas (Gerson 2005: 42).

Antiochus’ school of philosophy, especially Antiochian epistemology and ethics, had ‘a considerable impact among the Romans of his day’, Cicero included (Sedley 2012: 4); ‘Antiochus’ influence at Alexandria was also considerable’ (Sedley 2012: 5). However, there is no evidence to suggest that Antiochus went back to teach in his native Ascalon. Nevertheless, as we shall see below, half a millennium after he led Platonic academies of Athens and Alexandria, another Greek-speaking Palestinian city on the Mediterranean coast, only 20 kilometres to the south of Ascalon, would replace both Athens and Alexandria as the most important centre of classicising Hellenistic philosophy in the Mediterranean region.