Page 83

without mercy or restraint, to such a degree that many Jewish criminals supposedly used it to escape punishment.

The legislation of Ezra and Nehemiah surrounded the Jews with its fence from 430 BCE, more than two thousand years ago, while they possessed characteristics and qualities different from those of other peoples. All of this, the text says, aroused against them a hatred aroused against no other people.

The Children of Israel through the end of the Middle Ages

We explained above that the Jews had no known history before the establishment of their legislation. In the historical sources before us, we find nothing that distinguishes the Jews from the Semitic peoples or identifies them. Circumcision, which became the Jews' mark, did not identify them in that period, for it was not known until the Babylonian exile in 520 BCE, when it was regarded as sacred. The Jewish people never united in so great and clamorous a protest as they did against Antiochus the Macedonian when he prohibited circumcision. Later, Alexander Jannaeus did the same, and the Jews met him with resentment and revolt. As time advanced, they clung increasingly to the legislation of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Jews remained from the time they were permitted to renew Solomon's Temple