Constitutional Law
Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”
Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”
130. It Gets Worse
TITLE: Part X: It Gets Worse
Panel 1: A diagram of a cycle, with arrows circling a flame. On one side of the diagram, a person addresses the reader. On the other side of the diagram, two people are pouring superglue from a tube labeled “OMG! brand SOCIAL CEMENT.”
NARRATION:
That’s not even an exaggeration. From the 4th century B.C. onward, the historical record reveals deep-seated animosity towards Jews everywhere they settled.
Of course, enduring all this hostility was itself a shared sacrifice. Thus, expatriate Jews bonded even more strongly over their faith, and living by Yahweh’s laws felt even more upright and worthy.
And so the animosity only got worse with time.
DIAGRAM GUY:
It’s a vicious cycle.
SUPERGLUE GUY:
A virtuous cycle, you mean.
-=-
Panel 2: A Seleucid officer sends troops into Jerusalem’s Second Temple, as people watch from a tower on the wall.
NARRATION:
In the 160s B.C., the Seleucid emperor not only outlawed Jewish customs, he ordered that the temple in Jerusalem actually be desecrated!
OFFICER:
Get in there and sacrifice a pig… to Zeus!
SOLDIERS:
Hut Hut Hut
JEWS:
Only a few generations ago, nobody could have even imagined a ruler commanding such things.
Yet here we are.
-=-
Panel 3: The emperor Antiochus VII stands on a hillside looking down on Jerusalem. Beside him, a general with a high-crested helmet sits astride an armored horse (but without stirrups).
NARRATION:
Thirty years later, Antiochus VII’s advisors actually recommended that he order all the Jews to be killed—literally for refusing to be team players.
GENERAL:
And not just our team, sire.
They treat all of mankind as their enemy!
NARRATION:
This ruler, at least, rejected such advice.
ANTIOCHUS VII:
Ethnic cleansing? Genocide?
Jesus fuck, what am I, a monster?
-=-
Panel 4: An aerial nighttime view of the ancient port city of Alexandria under Roman rule. In the foreground, the top of the Lighthouse of Alexandria flames its signal. That flame is echoed by several fires burning in the city beyond the channel.
NARRATION:
In 38 A.D. the common people of Alexandria rose up in a full-scale pogrom. First they crammed the city’s substantial Jewish population into a tiny ghetto and looted their property. Then came the atrocities. Jews were beaten to death, tortured, burned alive, crucified…
It was only the beginning. Now, as if touched off by Alexandria’s flames, cities up and down the eastern Med exploded into violence.
It all simmered down eventually, but the dead were still dead. The damage was done. And it would happen again.
JEWISH VOICES:
When God picked his chosen people, why did it have to be us?
NARRATION:
As if all this tragedy weren’t enough, the cruel irony was that all concerned—Jews and gentiles alike—sincerely felt that they were doing the right thing…
That they were taking a stand against evil…
That they were standing up for good.
Law and culture had clashed—not for the last time—and the outcome was…
…complicated.
NARRATOR BOX:
Let’s change the subject.