In the ancient world also Judaism
was an effective leaven of cosmopolitanism and of national
decomposition."
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The position of the Jews in the Roman Empire was naturally not
improved by the great risings under Nero, Trajan (in Cyrene,
Cyprus, Mesopotamia), and Hadrian. The East strictly so called,
became more and more their proper home. The Christianization of
the empire helped still further in a very special way to detach
them from the Western world. /1/
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1. For a brief time only were they again favoured by Julian the
Apostate; compare Gibbon, chapter xxiii.
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They sided with the Persians against the Byzantines; in the year
614 they were even put in possession of Jerusalem by Chosroes,
but were not long able to hold their own against Heraclius. /2/
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2. Gibbon, chapter xlvi.
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With Islam also they found themselves in greater sympathy than with
Christianity, although they were cruelly treated by Mahomet in Arabia,
and driven by Omar out of the Hejaz, and notwithstanding the facts
that they were as matter of course excluded from citizenship, and
that they were held by Moslems as a whole in greater contempt than
the Christians.
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