Establishment Violence in Philo and Luke: A Study in Non-Conformity to the Torah and Jewish Vigilante Reactions.

• Author: Feldman, Louis H.

This is a revised version of the author's dissertation presented in 1991 to the University of Trondheim for the degree of Doctor Artium. In it Seland uses evidence from Philo, notably De Specialibus Legibus 1.54-57, 1.315-18, and 2.252-54, to substantiate his thesis that Philo in point of fact, and not merely in theory, advocated execution on the spot, without any interference by the courts, by those witnessing certain transgressions. He thus revives and offers further evidence for the theory of Erwin R. Goodenough, in his The Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt: Legal Administration by the Jews under the Early Roman Empire as Described by Philo Judaeus (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929), that Philo, drawing upon the example of Phinehas in the Bible, advocated lynching in such instances. He then argues that the actions said to have been taken against Stephen and Paul in Jerusalem represent actual instances of zealotic establishment violence of a similar sort. In seeking to cast light from Philo upon the lynching of Stephen in particular, Seland draws particular attention to the fact (Acts 6:9) that among those who disputed with Stephen were some from the synagogue of the Alexandrians. In examining the examples of zealotic violence as described by Philo and by Luke in Acts, he draws upon sociological theory of "conflict management," that is, strategies for social control as performed by the official regime, as well as by private persons taking the law into their own hands. In each case he analyzes the kinds of crimes, the measures planned or taken against the non-conformers, the agents involved in carrying out these measures, and the legitimations cited by the agents in justifying their actions.

Seland's thesis is, indeed, a challenging one and is carefully supported by analysis of the texts involved. Moreover, to his great credit, he has been concerned to emphasize that his study is not written by one who seeks to join the forces of anti-Jewish propaganda. Nevertheless, we may well wonder why Philo, as the head of the Alexandrian Jewish community in its contacts with the Roman administration of Egypt and, indeed, with the Roman emperor himself, could have supported lynching in fact, when this would so obviously undermine the authority of both the Jewish and Roman administration. If, indeed, lynching was justified by Jewish authorities we may wonder why there is no mention of it in the considerable body of vicious anti-Jewish...