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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Religious life & practice
According to Raul Gonzalez Salinero, the plurality of religious
expressions within Judaism prior to the predominance of the
rabbinical current disproves the assumption according to which some
Jewish customs and precepts (especially the Sabbath) prevented Jews
from joining the Roman army without renouncing their ancestral
culture. The military exemption occasionally granted to the Jews by
the Roman authorities was compatible with their voluntary
enlistment (as it was in the Hellenistic armies) in order to obtain
Roman citizenship. As the sources attest, Judaism did not pose any
insurmountable obstacle to integration of the Jews into the Roman
world. They achieved a noteworthy presence in the Roman army by the
fourth century CE, at which time the Church's influence over
imperial power led to their exclusion from the militia armata.
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