Originally published as Jérusalem contre Rome (Paris: Editions du Cerf 1990), Mireille Hadas-Lebel's massive study of the image of Rome in Jewish writings has now appeared in an English translation. As she observes in her conclusion, this image of Rome "remains absolutely unique", because the Jews, out of all the peoples conquered by Rome, are the only ones "who provide us from their own experience a direct continuous image constantly observed from the outside" (525). Her book offers an excellent and, to my knowledge, unparalleled collection of material on this topic, based on the full range of extant Jewish texts from the second century BCE to the sixth century CE. Although she makes ample use of Jewish writings in Greek, particularly the works of Josephus and Philo, her major source is the large mass of rabbinic texts composed in Hebrew and Aramaic. Since this material is largely unfamiliar to most Roman historians and remains very difficult for non-specialists to use, Hadas-Lebel's labor in sifting through it in order to gather and classify references to Rome would be enough in itself to guarantee the value of her book.

The book consists of fourteen chapters, organized into three parts. The first and longest part, "The Earthly Image of Rome", deals with reflections of the political, military, and economic interactions between Rome and the Jews from the revolt of the Maccabees to the reign of Diocletian. I say "reflections of" because Hadas-Lebel makes it quite clear that she is not attempting to reconstruct historical events. Indeed, throughout this part she insists that the sources generally do not allow for such reconstructions. Of the rabbinic texts in particular, which are virtually our only source for events after the late first century CE, she concludes "there is no history to be grasped but simply observation of the manner in which the religious mind uses its memory" (152). Consequently, her subject in this part is not so much the history of Roman-Jewish relations as shifts in the Jewish response to Rome. The early idealized view of Rome as an ally of the Maccabees gave way to more hostile views in the wake of Pompey's desecration of the Temple in 63 BCE; these evoked old biblical models of the alien conqueror and the enemy people, models that shaped Jewish perceptions of Rome from that time on. Although Josephus and Philo tended for practical reasons to be somewhat conciliatory in their depictions of Rome, the rabbis were largely negative, despite the eventual establishment of a modus vivendi in the wake of the disastrous Bar Kochba revolt in 132-135 CE.

Negative views of Rome also dominate in the second part of the book, on the "Religious and Moral Image" of Rome. Here the influence of biblical paradigms becomes crucial: despite observations that reveal the rabbis' awareness of contemporary realia, they more frequently talked about Rome under the biblical pseudonyms of Esau or Edom or by the simple designation of "the wicked kingdom". This negative view of Rome provides the transition to the third and last part, "Rome from the Eschatological Perspective". Here Hadas-Lebel slightly modifies her approach. While she continues to catalogue evidence for the image of Rome, she also advances an argument about the relationship between that image and specific historical events. In her view, the abundant apocalyptic literature of the late Second Temple period played an important part in the development of armed opposition to Rome; for sicarii and zealots, "Rome had truly become [...] the incarnation of Belial, the kingdom of evil and darkness, the last empire of History soon to disappear" (454). Likewise, apocalyptic ideas "inevitably aggravated Messianic expectation", tempting men "to precipitate the advent of the Kingdom by force" (487). Despite the rabbis' rejection of apocalyptic fervor after the disaster of Bar Kochba, they continued to look forward to Rome's eventual demise.

This brief summary hardly does justice to the immense range of material collected here. Hadas-Lebel's presentation of this material is systematic and thorough, combining chronological and thematic principles of organization. Her use of numerous headings and sub-headings, along with an index of names (although not, alas, a subject index), allows for the easy location of material on particular topics. In this respect, the book provides an important complement to Menahem Stern's invaluable Greek and Latin Writers on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1974-84). Its value is further increased by Hadas-Lebel's cautious and sensible approach to the rabbinic material. She does not attempt to recreate historical narrative from sources that are, at best, folk memories, but instead insists upon their importance for an understanding of the Jewish mentalité.

The book is not, however, without its problems, which are for the most part the mirror-image of its virtues. For one thing, the breadth of her project means that her treatment of individual topics is not uniformly strong. In particular, some discussions would have benefited from a greater sensitivity to the Roman context. To take one relatively minor example, her discussion of the documents collected by Josephus to illustrate Rome's guarantee of Jewish religious and political privileges (42-56) involves no consideration of their origin and nature, an issue that Tessa Rajak had placed on a new footing several years before the first publication of Hadas-Lebel's book ("Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?", Journal of Roman Studies 74 [1984] 107-23). Although the historical context of the documents may not appear relevant to a study of "the image of Rome", I would argue that we can better appreciate Josephus' distinctive view of Rome if we understand how he used, and abused, the material available to him.

Similarly, the fact that Hadas-Lebel's project is largely a descriptive one means that there is often less analysis than one would like. For example, she records several rabbinic legends about the first Jewish War in which the Romans punish the Jews as a result of some misunderstanding or misinformation (e.g., 153, 162-3, 169); should we see in this pattern some attempt within rabbinic tradition to deny that the Jews had in fact taken the initiative in rebelling against Rome? Or again, what is the significance of the fact that the rabbis regularly used the phrase "Amorite customs" to describe the observation of omens and the use of amulets (342-7)? In these and many other cases, the material raises more questions than Hadas-Lebel answers or even acknowledges.

But to say that a book leaves one longing for a more detailed examination of a topic is to praise it rather than condemn it. By providing historians with such a treasure trove of material and by presenting it with such good sense and clarity, Hadas-Lebel will undoubtedly continue to stimulate further study. For that reason, this new English translation is particularly welcome. Despite some awkward punctuation and occasional oddities on the semantic and even lexical level (e.g., 63, "fastuous friendship"; 486, "prophetised"), the translation for the most part reads fluently. Peeters is to be congratulated on making such an indispensable work of scholarship more widely accessible.

James Rives