The Suda is a tenth century Byzantine encyclopaedia and a major source of later Roman and Greek material as it contains a great deal of information from many works that have subsequently been lost to the ravages of time. What is important for our purposes is to catalogue the entries in the Suda that unequivocally mention the jews as such a large collection of ancient and classical material must be understood if we are to gather a complete picture of ancient and classical attitudes towards the jews.
In the entry for 'Gesius' we find the following comment:
'During the reign of Zeno he was celebrated for his medical expertise. A native of Petra. He returned and, after bringing his own teacher Domnus the Jew and his colleagues into his practice he became known to nearly everyone everywhere and acquired a great reputation, not only for his medical competence and his teaching skill and industriousness, but also for his all-around refinement in other areas. For since he was an honourable and diligent man he achieved in addition, in the course of time, a considerable reputation for wisdom by means of study and not by natural talent. And he established a technique of medical practices and doctrines that was more accurate than all the physicians and medical theorists of his time.' (1)
Now in the above entry we should note that the time period is the mid-fifth century in the Roman Empire (i.e., the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Zeno) and that Gesius himself is apparently not a jew, but his tutor Domnus is. The fact that Gesius and Domnus set up shop as apparent medical geniuses should ring alarm bells for us precisely because jews have a very long history of being - essentially - confidence tricksters who - considering the state of medicine and medical theory at the time - would not have been likely to be curing their patients but rather simply using placebos to make them feel better for a little while (until it wore off and they wanted more for which they naturally had to pay).
This is suggested by the fact that the Suda records that Gesius and Domnus' reputations were built on their 'wisdom by means of study' and not by 'natural talent'. We should also note that the Suda tells us that their medical ideas were at odds with those of accepted medicine in their day. Now while the Suda itself praises their idea (we do not know precisely what they were) the fact that they went against medical conventions and theories of their times (probably those of Hippocrates and Galen) suggests one of two eventualities: they were either pioneering medical men or they were quack doctors interested in making money rather than saving lives.
The fact that their theories did not survive them in so empirical a discipline as medicine suggests that they were the latter as had their cures been as good as the Suda suggests then they should have superseded Hippocrates and Galen as opposed to being merely a faint echo in an obscure corner of the history of medicine.
Next in the entry for 'Judah' we find the following comment:
'Concerning the Jews, the historian Damocritus ays that they used to worship the golden head of an ass, and every three years they hunted and attacked a stranger. They tore his flesh into thin strips and in this manner they killed him.' (2)
This charge - which also appears in the entry for 'Damocritus' - (3) is an interpretation of the first non-Biblical ritual murder that history records the jews as having committed, which I have extensively commented on elsewhere. (4) It also records another quite plausible narrative from antiquity that in the Temple of Solomon: the jews kept the head of a golden ass that they worshiped. (5)
This entry clearly isn't complementary towards the jews and is reflective of the Suda's strange dual attitude towards them in it is decidedly anti-jewish in content, but also contains occasional overgenerous remarks towards the jews.
The origin of these occasional pro-jewish remarks can be found by looking at the entry for the jewish historian Josephus. To wit:
'A Jew, a truth-lover, speaking concerning the Precursor and concerning our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' (6)
Here the Suda speaks of Josephus as a jew and a lover of truth, but then also tells us why it gives Josephus this complimentary title (in spite of latter's hatred of all things Greek and Roman). This is because the author of the Suda believed that Josephus had spoken positively of the nascent Christians and Jesus Christ. Also as Josephus was a key author in demonstrating the historicity of Jesus it would have been ideologically important to any Christian author at this time to believe the general truth of Josephus' historical narrative precisely because without it they would have to few other non-Biblical sources to fall back on for this aspect of their faith.
We can thus see that the author's Christianity served as an impediment to their thinking in regards to the jews in that it actively prevented them for judging all jews as being their enemies, but rather held that most jews were their enemies but that a select few were 'good'.
This is demonstrated nicely in the Suda's entry on a jewish thinker named Caecilius. Hence we read the following:
'A Sicilian, from Callantis Rhetor. He was a sophist in Rome under Caesar Augustus, and until Hadrian. He was of servile parentage, some say, and his former name was Archagathus. He was of the Jewish faith. His books are numerous: Against the Phrygians, 2 books (it is alphabetically arranged); Demonstration that Every Word of Elegant Language has been Spoken (it is a selection of words, alphabetically arranged); Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero; How the Attic and Asian Styles Differ; On the Stylistic Character of the Ten [Attic] Orators; Comparison of Demosthenes and Aeschines; On Demosthenes, which of his speeches are genuine and which mistakenly attributed; On Things Said Consistently and Inconsistently with History by the Orators; and very many other works. I am surprised by his being Jewish: a Jew clever in Greek matters.' (7)
In the above quoted test we should particularly note the last sentence where the author of the Suda expresses considerable surprise that a philosopher that he regarded as an able thinker should have been a jew. Indeed the necessary implication of the Suda's comment is that the author regarded the jews as either parochial tricksters and shysters or merely somewhat dim. It is difficult to tell which would be the case as clearly neither is a complement differing; as they do, only in the assignation of malevolence.
This is complicated by the author of the Suda using both definitions in relation to the jews. One in an article on the proper usage and meaning of the term 'senselessly', which he illustrates with the following example:
'And the Theologian [writes]: "O [you], even more senseless than Jews." Meaning "more mindless".' (8)
Thus it would seem the author of the Suda thought the jews merely dim, but then he writes in his article on a Christian named Paul (but not Saint Paul) that:
'This man, who presided over the church of the Novatians after Chrysanthus, was first a teacher of Latin literature, then leaving the toil of grammar-teaching he turned to the ascetic life and establishing monasteries of earnest men he persevered [in a life] not different from the monks in the desert. For he became such as Evagrius says the monks in the desert spent their time: for he persevered in imitating them in all respects, in continual fasting, in speaking little, in abstinence from living things; for the most part he abstained also from wine and oil. But concerning the poor he became as serious as anyone else; he looked after those in prison without hesitation. In his time a certain Jew was caught pretending to be a Christian.' (9)
In the above it is clear that by contrast the jews are being presented as malevolent with a particular hostile intent towards Christians as opposed to just being a bit on the stupid side.
This seeming incompatibility can be resolved if we but introduce the concept that the author of the Suda actually means that the jews are mindless in the sense that they wilfully ignore the truth (represented for the author of the Suda in Christianity) and that in order to support and spread this wilful ignorance the jews resort of malevolent attacks on Christianity and also encouraging mindless religious fanaticism among their believers.
This thesis is supported by the entry in the Suda for the term 'Abomination of Desolation', which states thus:
'The statue of the emperor Hadrian. For Hadrian utterly destroyed the city. For after the desolation that occurred under Vespasian and Titus, the Jews organizing in the reign of Hadrian were eager to revert to their earlier form of government [...]. So, by having begun a revolution, they brought themselves to total desolation [...]. And he gave his own name to the remnants of the city, calling it Aelia; for Hadrian was called Aelius.' (10)
In essence what the author of the Suda is telling us here is that in order to prevent the 'corrupting influence' of Rome on the jews (as well as by implication encouraging the religious fanaticism of the jewish population to make them less susceptible to Christian proselytism) their leaders decided to make an 'all or nothing' gamble by revolting against a global superpower: Rome.
The results - as depicted in the rather gratuitous and homicidal mention about the Roman slaughter of the jews - (11) lead to the destruction of Judea. The cause of this in the author of the Suda's mind is very simply because: ‘They nailed the Savior to a scaffold.’ (12)
While the jews are held to bear full responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus in another entry:
'Finally the synod of the Jews assembled, in order that they could hand over the creator and founder of all things to Pilate.' (13)
Which is also mentioned when the author of the Suda somewhat petulantly complains that the logical results of one heretical Christian thinkers arguments were 'that it was not by some activity [of their own] that the Jews tortured and killed the Christ.' (14)
This interpretation is confirmed when we but look to the mention the author of the Suda makes in relation to the jewish revolts in Rome under the Emperor Claudius when he narrates thus:
‘[It is said] that during his reign, when the Jews stood against the Christians, he put Claudius Felix in charge of them, bidding him to punish them. And, when they were gathered together in the temple, they heard a voice from the inner sanctum and it said: 'We have abandoned those inside. And that has happened a third time'; after which they were annihilated in a total destruction.'’ (15)
To interpret the above passage from the Suda correctly we need to understand that the author is using the theological idea of God's renunciation of his original 'chosen people' the jews (i.e. those of the Old Testament) and the supersession of this 'chosen' status onto the whole of humanity (i.e. the 'chosen people' of the New Testament) as a folkloric twist on the story of the jewish revolts against the Emperor Claudius in Rome.
The purpose is simply to signify that those inside the synagogue (i.e. the jews) are now no longer under divine protection so thus they have done a great wrong (i.e. why the divine protection has been revoked) which in turns means they can - and should be - subject to severe punishment (i.e. the purpose of the revocation of divine protection and the audible divine pronouncement that this was so).
This is then delivered in the form of the jews being massacred by the righteous anger of the locals with the implication from the author of the Suda being that this was their just desserts and thus a praiseworthy activity.
Hence the Suda's last mention of the jews:
'That is also what Jesus Christ used to say to the Jews: “you are of your father the devil”.' (16)
Thus, we can see - to summarize - that the author of the Suda was largely but not unequivocally anti-jewish and that the work retains a strong flavour of Christian anti-Judaism throughout although with - as we have shown - several anomalies caused by the author of the Suda's ideological need as a Christian to support specific jews as being somewhat praiseworthy individuals.
References
(1) Sud., 'Gesius' (G.207)
(2) Sud., 'Judah' (I.429)
(3) Sud., 'Damocritus' (D.49)
(4) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/reconstructing-the-first-jewish-ritual
(5) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-golden-ass-of-the-jews-in-the
(6) Sud., 'Josephus' (I.503)
(7) Sud., 'Caecilius' (K.1165)
(8) Sud., 'Senselessly' (A.284)
(9) Sud., 'Paul' (P.814)
(10) Sud., 'Abomination of Desolation' (B.200)
(11) Sud., 'Titus' (T.691)
(12) Sud., 'Scaffold' (I.276)
(13) Sud., 'They could hand over' (P.334)
(14) Sud., 'Julian' (I.436)
(15) Sud., 'Claudius' (K.1708)
(16) Sud., 'Natural Man' (P.167)