Морское приключение Синесия Киренского
The Sea Travel by Synesius

Summary/Abstract: Synesius, a Greek philosopher of late antiquity, left a rich literary heritage, including many letters. In a letter to his brother, he described the voyage from Alexandria to Cyrene on a ship, a half of the crew members of which, including the captain, were Jews. His observations, thoughts, and opinions about the captain and his crew have helped to reveal some interesting aspects, professional occupations in particular, of Jews living in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as the views of the Greek intelligent thinker on Jews during the period of transformation of the Roman Empire in the Christian state, etc. The following conclusions have been made: 1) sailing remained an important occupation of Jews in Alexandria; 2) on the one hand, the onomastic data prove that Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean were still under the Greek cultural influence; 3) on the other hand, numerous evidence suggest that Jews not only adhered to their religion, but already knew the rabbinic version of Judaism; 4) Synesius’s letter shows the process of development of a new image of the Jew, in which the ancient anti-Jewish Hellenistic tradition synthesized with the Christian knowledge of the Jewish history.

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