The year is 59 BC; Cicero is defending his friend, the governor Lucius Flaccus, in court against Jews who accuse him of stealing their gold.
Everything is already present in Cicero’s defense of Flaccus: gold and the Jews, their penchant for legal chicanery, their propensity to confuse justice with vengeance, their way of manipulating authorities, inciting crowds, threatening, intimidating, slandering, acting like a hateful pack, and posing as victims while defrauding Roman law—along with their brazenness in turning the accusation around against Flaccus, who was merely upholding the law.
Everything is there, except Christ, who would come later; thus, it was not Christianity that invented antisemitism in the Roman world.......
