page_title: Claudius' expulsion of Jews from Rome
section_title: Paulus Orosius
hierarchical_section_title: Claudius' expulsion of Jews from Rome / Paulus Orosius
caption_attribution_description: Español: Lámina de un códice de Paulo Orosio conservado en Florencia.
context_page_description: References to an expulsion of Jews from Rome by the Roman Emperor Claudius, who was in office AD 41-54, appear in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the writings of Roman historians Suetonius, Cassius Dio and fifth-century Christian author Paulus Orosius. Scholars generally agree that these references refer to the same incident.
  The exact date is uncertain. The maximal time window for the expulsion of Jews from Rome is from January AD 41 until January AD 53. More detailed estimates such as those based on the AD 49 date by Orosius or the reduction of the AD 53 upper limit due to Proconsul Gallio's health are possible but controversial.
  There were at least two expulsions of Jews from Rome before this event. In 139 BC the Jews were expelled after being accused of Judaizing among the local Gentiles. Then in AD 19 Tiberius once again expelled Jews from the city for similar reasons.
context_section_description: The 5th-century Christian writer Paulus Orosius makes a possible reference to the event, citing two sources:
  Josephus reports, 'In his ninth year the Jews were expelled by Claudius from the city.' But Suetonius, who speaks as follows, influences me more: 'Claudius expelled from Rome the Jews constantly rioting at the instigation of Christ [Christo, or rather xpo].' As far as whether he had commanded that the Jews rioting against Christ [Christum] be restrained and checked or also had wanted the Christians, as persons of a cognate religion, to be expelled, it is not at all to be discerned.
  The first source used by Orosius comes from a non-extant quote from Josephus. It is this which provides the date of AD 49. His second source is Suetonius Claudius 25.4.
  Slingerland contends that Orosius made up the Josephus passage for which no scholar has been able to discover a source. He also argues that the writer is guilty of manipulating source materials for polemic purposes. Feldman states that "there is no such statement in the extant manuscripts of Josephus, and there is reason to believe that this version was created in the mind of Orosius himself." Philip Esler agrees with Slingerland that the AD 49 date "is a creation fully explicable within the tendentious historiography of this author."
  However, E. M. Smallwood states that Orosius may have known of a passage from another author but confused the Josephus passage with it, or may have been quoting from memory. Silvia Cappelletti states that the change in spelling was probably not due to Orosius but to an intermediate source he consulted. Cappelletti also states that the lack of the Josephus text referred to does not undermine the authority of the date Orosius has suggested. Brown tactfully states, "Orosius is not famous for his impeccable accuracy," then adds that "such a date" (i.e. 49) "receives some confirmation from Acts." Bernard Green states that given that this section of Orosius' history is based on the chronological order of events, and that he refers to the expulsion only briefly and attaches no significance to it, Orosius seems to be "guiltlessly reporting" an event based on records he had seen. Rainer Riesner notes that it is not possible for Orosius to have derived the date of the expulsion that he wrote about from the Book of Acts.
caption: A page from a sixth-century Paulus Orosius Histories manuscript, Florence.
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